Since I criticised last week’s Uncanny issue for not being a more direct sequel to Messiah Complex, I should probably praise X-Force for being just that. Cyclops comes to Wolverine and asks him to reassemble X-Force and go after the Purifiers – definitely a dangling plot thread from the crossover - and reluctantly, he does. The idea is that they’re going to be the kind of team who go out and attack their enemies before they become a problem, staying true to the X-Force name.

Yost and Kyle do spend considerable time addressing the issue of why Wolverine would lead such a team at all, and I did come away from it believing that it’s possible - he’s essentially been maneuvered into a situation where if he doesn’t lead them, they’re still going to go ahead as X-Force, but they won’t be half as effective without him. While Rahne’s motivations are something of a mystery right now, Warpath’s reasoning feels most suspicious of the group. I know Caliban saved his life and he feels he has to repay that debt, but were they really the close buddies he’s making out? Still, the scene of him burying Caliban with his brother and tribe is a nice nod to the history of the character.

Thanks no small part to the amount of murder and bloodshed in this issue, Clayton Crain’s art is utterly ghoulish in places, with Rahne’s wolf-form feeling slightly too reminiscent of the kind of demons he drew in his Ghost Rider arc. He does give the characters brilliant acting, though, and imbues Wolverine especially with a kind of Clint Eastwood-esque swagger. There’s masses of detail in his work, but the computer painting makes it look a little too glossy and sterile sometimes. There’s also at least one scene where the storytelling’s slightly unclear – has Nimrod’s body just transformed into Bastion’s? It’s not really obvious, and if I have to question it, there’s a problem.

Oh yeah, that’s right. Bastion. Seems the Purifiers have his head and Nimrod’s body, and they’re using the latter to bring the former back. If it sticks, it could definitely work – Bastion would certainly be an effective replacement for the original, now-dead Purifiers leader, William Stryker, and it’s good to see someone getting use out of the character. That’s actually the part of the book that interests me most.

But here’s the kicker – I’m not actually planning on picking up X-Force. I can recommend it to anyone interested in a different take on the X-Men, but it’s fallen prey to that age old problem – too many mutant books. I’m already buying Uncanny, Legacy, Astonishing and X-Factor, and I want to give Cable a try. Even though it’s far more good than bad, X-Force isn’t more essential than the mutant books I’m already getting. For now I’ll be leaving it on the shelf – but I’ll be keeping a close eye…