INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #2
“Hunter of Lost Souls”
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Michael Sta. Maria
Colour artist: Romulo Fajardo Jr
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER: X-Force (minus Ms Marvel) square off against… well, a thing in shadow with claws and stuff.

X-FORCE:

Cable. As explained last issue, he’s convinced that one of Archangel, Hellverine or Boom-Boom killed Kamala in last issue’s future timeline (though quite why he’s so convinced still isn’t clear). He’s certain that Kamala is the “last best hope for mutantkind” and is hoping to find a solution that doesn’t involve killing any of them. He seems to be hoping to find out not just who kills Kamala but why, and to be trying to influence the team to steer all three of them away from killing her.

He claims that Cyclops and Rogue don’t know about the Blasphemy Cartel’s anti-mutant weapon and that even if they did, they’d dither instead of doing anything about it. That seems a questionable claim for Cyclops in particular, but that’s what Cable claims. However, Cable also seems to know that if he frees Anielle from the Cartel (see below) then she’ll answer a question for him as a favour.

Ms Marvel. School is closed for in-service training day, so Kamala has cheerfully come along to be trained. She doesn’t particularly object to hanging out with any of these people as long as she can try and steer the team in her own direction, though she privately calls them “grimacing knuckleheads”. She isn’t willing to take Hellverine’s word for it that the Blasphemy Cartel soldiers can’t be saved. Much to her annoyance, Cable starts containing her in a telekinetic bubble when it looks like she might actually be exposing herself to more danger than he’s comfortable with.

She still has the hard light powers that she used in the recent Giant-Size one-shots, but only seems to use them as a last resort, in order to save Hellverine.

Archangel. He doesn’t particularly like Hellverine, in a fairly obvious echo of his traditional feud with Wolverine. While he came round to Wolverine in the end, Archangel sees Hellverine as having all of Logan’s bad points without the redeeming honour. He’s increasingly unhappy about Cable’s treatment of Ms Marvel and has obvious reservations about his casual attitude to Hellverine’s possession.

Hellverine. He initially shrugs off Archangel’s criticism and (not unreasonably) implies that Archangel is being a hypocrite. But he does start to lose his temper as things go on. He claims to be able to tell that the Blasphemy Cartel guards are already dead due to magic and that this makes it okay to kill them (though he might be lying for Kamala’s benefit). As he gets closer to the Cartel’s centre of power, his possessing demon seems to gain more power; Archangel and Cable both pick up on this, but Cable doesn’t seem to care.

Anielle claims that despite everything he’s done in his past, Akihiro has turned a corner, is no longer evil, and is on his way to redemption and peace. He does indeed resist the temptation to kill the Cartel’s leader – possibly because Kamala is expressly pleading with him not to, but it might also suggest that he was telling the truth about the ordinary Cartel members being walking dead.

Boom-Boom. She doesn’t understand Kali’s appeal – the idea seems to be that she’s not used to seeing something pitched at a generation younger than her own, while her older teammates take it in stride.

As in the previous issue, she’s flirting with Hellverine (who responds amicably but without any real sign of reciprocal interest), and displays tremendous confidence in Cable knowing what he’s doing.

SUPPORTING CAST:

Belle. Cable’s AI, which stopped working when he arrived in the present day last issue, seems to be working up to a point – but trying to make her play back her recording of future Kamala’s assassination last issue makes her crash.

Domino. As at the end of last issue, she’s still keeping an eye on the team through the telescopic sights of a sniper rifle. She’s still accompanied by the squirrel from the previous issue, which (as in that scene) she insists on calling “Mr Chubby Cheeks”. She tails the team to South Dakota and brings the squirrel with her, apparently as her new pet. We don’t see how she gets there, but she mentions a “Domino-mobile” which “is held together with tape and luck”.

She implies that if X-Force got into real trouble, she would step in to help – but she doesn’t want to break her cover.

Anielle. An angel imprisoned by the Blasphemy Cartel. Presumably she’s the same Anielle who appeared in the second Gambit miniseries back in 1997 and hasn’t been seen since. Once freed, she offers to “weigh one soul for you and determine its worth”, and gives a seemingly straight answer when Cable asks about Akihiro.

Cable claims that the Cartel’s plan was to torture Anielle into serving as an excuse for their crusade against mutants.

VILLAINS:

Kali. Last issue we only saw Kali as a disembodied skull icon addressing the Mutant Liberation Front field team as they fought. In this issue, she appears in video footage, or at least what appears to be video footage, since she doesn’t actually seem to be moving. She’s sitting in a throne and appears to be a blonde woman with Gambit-style eyes and black lipstick. Her costume is obviously based on Stryfe’s.

She claims to be addressing her followers from “the Ocean of Nectar” – another Hindu reference to go with her name, symbolising divine love, spiritual abundance and so forth. While her positioning is primarily political, there’s definitely something cult-like about her too.

She derides the X-Men and X-Force as the old guard and accuses them of “defend[ing] the status quo with the methods of the enemy.” As in the previous issue, she has a “Kali Sez” tag line which she uses before proclamations. As already noted, Boom-Boom doesn’t get Kali’s presentation, while Angel and Hellverine just accept that she’s speaking to a younger generation.

The Blasphemy Cartel. Making their first appearance in the X-books, the Blasphemy Cartel are villains from Jed MacKay’s Strange series in 2022 (the one with Clea as the lead character, though Dr Strange himself eventually turns out to be a supporting character in disguise). The back story given for them here, up to the point where they get defeated by Strange, is from that book.

Since then, the group have re-formed as a doomsday cult on the border of North and South Dakota, occupying the abandoned Dakota Territorial Prison. Cable claims that the prison is “considered the most haunted penitentiary in the world”, which doesn’t seem to refer to anything in the real world. As noted above, Hellverine claims that the rank and file Cartel soldiers are “literally dead men walking” due to their extensive exposure to necromancy.

Barberry Boone. The Cartel’s new leader is a new character, who claims to be preparing the Cartel to help save the world from doomsday. He considers himself a religious puritan and regards mutants as abominations. Cable claims that he has an anti-mutant weapon, by which he seems to mean Anielle.

He has a lot of scars on his face, which he attributes to having faced his own sins using his own “Thorns of the Accused” magic.

Judging from his accent and his reference to being scared as a kid by tales of the Pope Lick Monster (which is a legend from Louisville), he’s from Kentucky. The Monster is duly summoned up to fight X-Force; Boom-Boom calls it “Black Phillip”, referencing the goat from The Witch (2015).

He can tell that Hellverine is possessed – not, admittedly, a terribly difficult insight when the guy has a flaming skull head – but dismisses Barga-Hul as “a minor devil”, which seems to understate him.

Black Shucks. Black hellhound things summoned by the Cartel in order to fight X-Force. Hellverine describes them as “guardian spirits only for the most advanced occultists”. In reality, Black Shuck is a piece of English folklore – a ghostly black dog alleged to roam East Anglia.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES:

• Kali refers to the Mutant Liberation Front’s attack on MutAlert and fight with X-Force, which took place last issue. However, the app was called “Safe-X” last issue.
• Cable replays the footage from last issue of the rally where future Kamala Khan was assassinated.
• Ms Marvel says that “One time I fought a clone of Thomas Edison with a parrot for a face.” That’s the Inventor, who first appeared in Ms Marvel vol 3 #5 (2014).
• Dr Strange and Clea defeated the Blasphemy Cartel in Strange vol 3 #10, which is where Director None died.
• Akihiro says that he “only recently got the driver’s seat to my body back from the demon Bagra-Ghul”. That’s stretching it – he basically regained control at the end of the Hellverine miniseries, and the entire Hellverine ongoing has happened and been cancelled since then.