{"id":2387,"date":"2014-01-31T22:27:04","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T22:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2387"},"modified":"2014-01-31T22:27:04","modified_gmt":"2014-01-31T22:27:04","slug":"x-force-vendetta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2387","title":{"rendered":"X-Force: “Vendetta”"},"content":{"rendered":"

And so we reach the final storyline for both\u00a0Uncanny X-Force<\/em> <\/em>and\u00a0Cable & X-Force<\/em>, before the titles face their latest relaunch.<\/p>\n

The decision to launch two entirely unrelated\u00a0X-Force titles in the last wave of Marvel Now is no less baffling now than it was a year ago, particularly since one of those teams never actually called itself “X-Force” in the course of the series. \u00a0The ludicrous overuse of the “Avengers” and “X-Men” brand names at least makes some sort of short-term, blinkered sense – those are top franchises, at least. \u00a0But “X-Force”?<\/p>\n

It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that this crossover was commissioned simply on the logic that the two titles had better do something or other to interact before they were taken out and shot, in order to justify the name. \u00a0Fortunately for writers Dennis Hopeless and Sam Humphries, there is in fact a natural crossover story with these two books, thanks to Bishop’s inclusion in the cast of\u00a0Uncanny X-Force<\/em>. \u00a0The entire Duane Swierczynski run on\u00a0Cable<\/em> was based on Bishop chasing Cable and Hope through time in an attempt to kill her and thereby save history from something or other. \u00a0So there’s an unresolved tension there.<\/p>\n

Problem is\u2026 it’s\u00a0that story<\/em>, which never worked to begin with. \u00a0In fact, while fans can be all too easy to claim that something has permanently wrecked a character<\/a>, and most stories, no matter how misconceived, can readily be reversed or simply ignored, Swierczynski’s take on Bishop really does present major problems for anyone trying to use him in future. \u00a0Once you’ve become a genocidal lunatic, it’s kind of hard to go back. \u00a0And the window of opportunity for blaming it on mental illness or outside manipulation seems to have passed.<\/p>\n

Still, Hopeless and Humphries give it their best shot here. \u00a0Stryfe is hauled back to serve as the villain, since at least he’s Cable’s arch-enemy. \u00a0And his central motivation – bitterness over what he sees as Cable usurping his life – can be leveraged into a malicious desire to screw with Cable and Hope’s father\/daughter relationship. \u00a0So the story comes down to Stryfe trying to encourage Hope to kill Bishop, for no particular reason beyond the fact that it would prove to Cable that he had failed as a father. \u00a0This provides at least some opportunity for Bishop, Cable and Hope to achieve some sort of understanding and defeat a baddie into the process.<\/p>\n

It all makes some sense; you can see what it’s aiming for. \u00a0But really, by revisiting this territory at all, you only lampshade the difficulty of redeeming Bishop at this stage. \u00a0Even if Cable doesn’t want to kill him, he could legitimately ask why the hell the X-Men are allowing him to wander around. \u00a0He’s a mass murderer, after all.<\/p>\n

But then there are two ways you can redeem a character. \u00a0One is to do it within the logic of the story, and\u00a0actually<\/em> redeem him. \u00a0If that’s past praying for, there’s always option two, which is to provide some sort of notional closure and then politely agree with the audience that We Shall Never Speak Of This Again. \u00a0You can get away with that if the readers were already looking for an excuse to pretend it never happened, and with Bishop, many people might well be thinking that way.<\/p>\n

It’s far from a classic. \u00a0Stryfe’s agenda is heavy-handed; the art is pretty average, with a plethora of inkers suggesting some last-minute assignments; and the other members of the two teams are left with not much to do (though there\u00a0is<\/em> a cute gag about Boom-Boom and Puck having so little to contribute that they kill time by making childish bets with each other). \u00a0Nor does it really serve as a finale for either X-Force<\/em> title.<\/p>\n

But “Vendetta” is at least seriously trying to wrench its unpromising source material into a real story about Cable and Hope, it’s decently constructed, it’s focussed, and it\u00a0does<\/em>\u00a0have some interesting ideas about Cable and Bishop’s role as influences on Hope’s life. \u00a0It works heroically to try and rehabilitate Bishop as a character. \u00a0And it winds up being a readable few issues – more than you would have expected for a tacked-on crossover at the tail end of two dead books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And so we reach the final storyline for both\u00a0Uncanny X-Force and\u00a0Cable & X-Force, before the titles face their latest relaunch. The decision to launch two entirely unrelated\u00a0X-Force titles in the last wave of Marvel Now is no less baffling now than it was a year ago, particularly since one of those teams never actually called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2388,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387\/revisions\/2388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}