After the line-wide blow-out of the early parts of Necrosha, the concluding chapters of the story look to be bringing the tale back the where it belongs, with the story firmly centred on the X-Force core team. While a full-on Blackest Night scenario featuring the X-Men would have been fun, Chris Yost and Craig Kyle obviously feel that with the book’s other long-running plot thread taken as a backbone for the Second Coming event, the finale to the Selene plot line should have a tighter focus.

In one sense, the events of this issue are entirely predictable. The vampiric mutant implements the final part of her plan, trailed as long ago as issue eleven of the book, and dispatches the figure who has proven to be her most devoted yet unreliable follower. There’s also an expected character development on the part of the white-abet-blood-soaked had brigade, with the Vanisher either suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or developing a genuine attachment to his captors. Rather than a by-the-numbers story, however, the overall tone is one of meticulous planning gradually paying off. “The End Begins Here”, proclaims the variant cover tagline, and the feeling of inevitability comes from how carefully the these events have been seeded throughout the entire book. Like few other superhero teams, this rag-tag collection of b-list X-characters have become a family, convincingly relying on each others’ strengths.

What’s always set X-Force apart from its peers, with a concept that in lesser hands could simply be a continuity-heavy indulgence, is its sheer intelligence. This selling point has not deserted the book in its final hours, with the writers still managing to compress a microcosm of the resurrection concept into the exchanges between the Proudstar brothers, and the original Warpath’s touching faith in his successor to triumph where he cannot. The only weakness in the offering concerns the art. While Clayton Crain manages some majestic splash pages, the rushed figurework that we’ve come to expect from later issues of the artist’s arcs is again in evidence, and hold partially disguised by the gloomy tone. Despite this occasional failing, however, it’s hard not the feel that something wonderful is coming to an end.

It’s hard to shake the impression that at some point last year, Brian Bendis broke a mirror. One instance of parallel plotting by writers who seed their stories far in advance might be dismissed as unfortunate, but with the arrival of Necrosha, there definitely seems to be a curse at work here. After both Bruce Wayne and Steve Rogers were catapulted back through time by their apparent deaths, the similarities between Blackest Night and Chris Yost & Craig Kyle’s X-Force epic means that we now have two major event comics satirising the comics staple of restoring dead characters to life. Thankfully, the storytelling here is strong enough to justify the duplication, even if this opening chapter is a slightly murkier brew than expected.

Artistic delays on the regular X-Force ongoing means that this one-shot opening chapter follows on directly from this week’s conclusion of ‘Not Forgotten’, with the undead making their long-trailed assault on Utopia. Meanwhile, Archangel and Warpath go in search of their book’s forgotten plot thread and Selene indulges in a considerable amount of exposition.  Returning X-Force artist Clayton Crain brings his usual combination of strengths and weaknesses to the book, with an overly dark atmosphere more than compensated for by his truly spectacular splash pages- the cliffhanger scene is a particular highlight. This opening chapter’s greatest success is in the portrayal of the main villain, and the creative team make a very good fist of building up a half-forgotten X-enemy into a significant threat. The writers obviously have a considerable amount of ground to cover here, having to cater for new readers at the same time as keeping the attention of those who have followed the story’s build-up. It’s possibly this challenge that leads to the slightly fragmented feel the book possesses, with many strands being juggled. In contrast to the unremittingly focussed X-Force #20, Necrosha feels a little scattershot at times, with almost too much happening to take in. Hopefully the story will streamline itself as the threads spun out to New Mutants and Legacy go their separate ways.

Speaking of which, the book is bulked-up by two short stories from Zeb Wells and Mike Carey, designed to act as preludes to their tie-ins. You can understand Kyle & Yost’s desire to keep hold of all the threads in the first of their two parting shots to X-Force, given the line-wide nature of the Second Coming crossover. The move, however, undeniably weakens these spin-off tales, leaving them entirely dependant on the reader’s affection for the figures featured. As someone who has read little of the original New Mutants series, I found the vinaigrette featuring the Joss Whedon-created Blindfold more compelling than Doug Ramsey’s return from the dead.

Craig Kyle and Chris Yost deliver their usual sterling work here, managing to imbue a distinctly dull setting with a sense of drama. An offensive by the ruling powers of New York 3000 A.D. has caught X-Force off-guard, but Cable & Deadpool are more than up to the challenge. In the process, however, Nathan Summers unexpectedly exposes his new weakness to his oldest enemy…

The writing team’s natural ability to handle a large cast comes to the fore here, with Kyle & Yost ensuring that every character receives their moment in the post-apocalyptic sun. The strongest moment of the issue is when the book’s themes are allowed to enter the alien setting, with the villain of the piece’s mockery of the new team as underpowered for the task they face capturing much of the fun of the book. There’s also a nice moment when X-Force’s trademark self-awareness enters the writing, with Nathan’s Dark Knight-inspired comment about not being the Cable that’s “wanted” being a clear reference to his present under-explored and depowered incarnation.

Having now pencilled three issues consecutively, Clayton Crain is starting to cut some corners in his work, with character faces blurring in long shot. The artist proves an astute judge of when he can get away with these tricks, however, and generally speaking the art is rich and detailed, with particularly good implementations of the guest characters. Crain’s Deadpool is a magnificent zombie figure, managing to genuinely look disturbing for the first time in years. While the artist’s Cable bears little resemblance to the figure who graces his regular book, the result is vastly superior, with a superb sense of dynamism during his brief face-off with Stryfe.

Messiah War is high-quality entertainment, but the fact that the plot is derived solely from the pages of Cable gives the impression that Kyle and Yost have been briefly parachuted in to advance that book’s scenario in a way that its writer has failed to do. Allowing this writing team to tackle other figures in the X-canon is probably a fair trade-off for effectively placing X-Force on hold for three months, but it’s already clear which book the consequences of this story will be played out in.

After ten issues of breakneck plotting, Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost finally give X-Force a break, as they fill in the backstory for the one original threat they’ve added to the hotchpotch of influences from the franchise’s history. With Warpath having been conveniently presented with a vision of Eli Bard’s origins courtesy of the Demon Bear, here he narrates to the majority of the cast the origins of the opposition, courtesy of guest artist Alina Urusov. Although the team’s initial mission statement was a pro-active hunting of threats to mutantkind, Bard’s tale is more in keeping with what’s become actual theme of the book- the difficulty in burying the past.

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What at first glance looks like a screaming unoriginal continuity fest is in fact a much more curious beast, bordering on self-parody. Both of the book’s antagonists, Bastion and Bard, have the power to resurrect any X-character they choose as a zombie-fied shell, providing a very challenging metaphor for some of the franchise’s more creatively challenged moments. There’s something distinctly cheeky in this book’s acknowledgment of its true nature. In story terms, it’s X-Force’s willingness to dive in and deal with these problems that allows the regular X-Men to adopt their more pro-active and open approach to mutant relations. In terms of the franchise, this book caters for continuity-starved fanboys, keeping the franchise’s loyal followers in check while Ellis and Fraction break new ground. However, the writers’ refusal to simply rehash old plots turns this book into more than a mere nostalgia piece. The creations salvaged from the depths by Kyle and Yost invariably have something to fresh contribute, and the book’s infamous long-term perspective is a refreshing contract to the two-year amnesia found in most comics franchises.

After nearly a year’s worth of stories, X-Force resembles the initial expectations of the title- Childhood’s End with teeth. The only concern remaining is whether the writers can sustain the juggling act they’ve set themselves. Their previous X-book enjoyed a wonderfully sustained set of plots, but were dealt with in a linear sequence. The Purifier offensive lead to the resurrection of Nimrod and the creation of Predator X. Here, there are a sea of storylines, with Bastion’s undead cohorts fighting with Eli and Selene for the book’s attention. With Cable and Stryfe just around the corner, there’s a risk that the book could end up either suffocating under the weigh of its own plotting or denying its characters the development which they’ve so far enjoyed, particularly if it achieves the length of run merited by its quality to date.

Part of Christopher Yost and Craig Kyle’s mission statement for their third generation of X-Force was to counter criticisms of decompressed storytelling, promising to pack more plot into each issue than seen during their New X-Men days. True to their words, this first arc has proceeded with considerable pace, but even at the end of the fourth issue, there was still a feeling that we were only scratching the surface of the story: in the early stages of a yearlong epic, rather than a standard-length tale. With part five, however, the story takes a leftfield turn, bringing events to a true climax in time for the conclusion. The internal divisions within the Purifiers, an element of the book previously used merely for exposition, here take on a life of their own. 

While panel time is split fairly evenly between X-Force and their enemies, the opening battle between the team and a reborn Archangel is overshadowed by narration from the Purifier leader Mathew Risman, and it’s this character’s perspective and actions that dominate the issue. It marks a mature approach on the part of the writers not to feel compelled to place their protagonists at the centre of events, with the unstable edifice that the Purifiers have constructed collapsing quite convincingly of its own accord. However, not all of the Purifiers can justify the weight being placed upon then within this part of the story. While Eli is being intentionally shrouded in mystery (his engineering of Bastion’s resurrection makes it fairly obvious that he is only using the “Church” for his own ends), the Reverend Craig’s one-dimensionality is becoming an irritation. Wolfesbane’s biological father is too obscure a part of the X-verse for his return to engender any excitement, and the character is only interesting for the effect he has on Rhane. However, the time spend with Craig is sufficiently brief to avoid seriously detracting from the story. 

While Kyle & Yost are clearly at home in a mature-readers’ environment, Marvel plainly has some reservations about placing some of its more bankable characters in the blood-soaked world the writers have conjured. While the new X-Force’s battles have been not been suitable for children, none of Logan, Proudstar & Kinnery’s excursions to date have matched the Purifier-on-Purifier civil war for gratuitous violence. Clayton Crain cuts loose in a shocking double spread, making clear the full destructive potential of Risman’s Choir. The artist also deserves credit for being able to produce such high-quality work without giving cause for publication delays, although the writers are clearly helping him where possible- it’s hard to see the featureless white cell in which Wolfesbane is held as anything other than a device to reduce the amount that must be drawn. The focus on the villains’ internal politics means that this issue of the book is more to be intellectually admired than enjoyed, but the title’s earlier high standards are upheld.

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…