Julian Hazeldine on 
MisterSmith on 
Ian Symes on 
Noriko Takaya on X-Force #1
by James Hunt ~ February 15th, 2008
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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…
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February 15th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
I buy that Caliban and Warpath were really good buddies. During his stay with X-Force, Caliban kinda became the heart of the team and seemed to have close friendships with all of them, even if the X-Forcers didn’t feel as strongly back. I take it Caliban was a genuniely pure-of-heart fellow who kept coming across bad times, who also treated his friends with the utmost respect. Even if Warpath wasn’t that close to Caliban, I’d say his tragic death would haunt him.
Nitpick, they could have at least drawn Caliban the way he actually appeared back then and not in his current scrawny form. I can overlook Cannonball being in the picture, but geez. Way nitpicky.
February 16th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Good review, although I’d have this on my pull list over Astonishing or Uncanny any day. Logan normally bores my arse off, but I’ve really been looking forward to this series since I found out who was writing it. Kyle & Yost took over New X-Men after the title’s original writers departed, and during their first five issues, they took it from being unreadable garbage to the best X-Book on the market, including X-Factor. Despite being forever branded “the kids book”, New X-Men was incredibly dark (they bumped off over half the student population of the institute in a single panel), so they’re actually a pretty good fit for the black ops book. Everything carries over nicely from Messiah Complex, and I think that Rahne’s motivation here is the comments one of the Reavers/ Purifiers made to her during the artic fight scene about Rev. Craig. The only fly in the ointment is that we still don’t know if Hellion survived the injuries inflicted by Deathstrike during the crossover. His tentative relationship with X-23 (and her complete inability to deal with it) was one of the best parts of New X-Men, and I hoped that this thread would continue here.
It’s odd. I’m not dissatisfied with the issue, but it’s not what I was expecting. I think that’s down to the writers having a lot to do in one single comic. They’ve got to set up the relationships between their cast, recap about twelve issues worth of Purifiers stories from New X-Men and exhume their new leader. Bringing back Bastion is an incredibly typical move for Yost & Kyle- their Nimrod and Belasco arcs in New X-Men showed that they’re not afraid to dive into continuity if they think they can salvage something cool from it. What I’m wondering about is where Bastion’s now going to take a larger role in the X-Books. The original plan for the end of Operation: Zero Tolerance was to establish a new status quo of the X-Men in the middle of a full-scale war between Magneto and Bastion’s forces. As it’s an open secret that Uncanny #500’s big Magneto story will establish a new standing objective for the X-Men, its possible that this idea’s time may have come.
I’ve never seen Crain’s art before, and I’m generally impressed- there’s some nicely chaotic action scenes, and he handles the shadowy tone of the book well. It’s a shame about the costumes, though- in particular, Laura’s had a raw deal. Apart from that, my only nitpicks are the silly red eyes and Rahne’s hair- it’s really grown out since this week’s X-factor, and it’s a pity that they couldn’t wait until a suitable break in the narrative before introducing her new look.
February 17th, 2008 at 2:07 am
Brett: Fair point about Caliban’s role in the original X-Force. Even so, I think that ever since Brubaker brought him back Warpath has been way more tortured than he used to be, without a huge amount to really motivate his change in attitude. Caliban’s death at least gives him a credible focus for that emotion.
Julian: Since I never read New X-Men before Messiah Complex, most of what I know about X-23 has been picked up in various incomplete ways, but X-Force #1 certainly gives you the information you need about what her character arc will be.
I did wonder myself about whether they were going to bring back Bastion and put him in the originally intended role of being a kind of “third pillar” in the Xavier/Magneto philosophy, but those ambitions were pretty damn lofty at the time and I’m not sure they’ve got a much better chance now. Bastion’s only dialogue in this issue was also far more Sentinel-esque than it ever was when he first appeared, so I’ve got no idea how they’re going to play it, but certainly it’s the most interesting thing in the book, for me.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:57 am
Nice review. I liked the issue and I think I will follow it through the first arc. I love Warpath, so I am mostly following the title for his involvment alone.
Great site too, your reviews are a nice read. Keep it up