{"id":4532,"date":"2019-03-21T21:48:23","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T21:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=4532"},"modified":"2019-03-21T21:48:34","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T21:48:34","slug":"x-force-1-4-sins-of-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=4532","title":{"rendered":"X-Force #1-4: “Sins of the Past”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest relaunch of\u00a0X-Force\u00a0<\/em>seems suspiciously like a last-minute decision, considering that Weapon X<\/em> was already covering very much the same territory, and got cut very abruptly short. \u00a0But this iteration, which spins out of the\u00a0Extermination<\/em> miniseries, is unexpectedly strong.<\/p>\n

Some versions of\u00a0X-Force<\/em> have been ponderously gritty, and this one is certainly happy enough for them to be the paramilitary wing of the X-Men again. \u00a0But the overall style of the thing strikes a much more appealing tone. \u00a0A lot of that is due to Dylan Burnett’s art (and Jesus Aburtov’s colouring), which gives the book an appealingly loose, cartooning feel. \u00a0The exaggeration takes the edge off some of the grimmer bits, but at the same time it brings a lot of personality to the characters. I always like art that doesn’t try to make Cannonball look traditionally heroic, but this story even manages to bring some life to Ahab, patiently trying to explain a slightly saner version of anti-mutant hatred to the raving lunatics that he’s currently aligned with.<\/p>\n

The art alone makes this series worth a look, but Ed Brisson’s story is also off to an encouraging start. \u00a0The gimmick of rebooting Cable in\u00a0Extermination<\/em> came across in that series as rather forced – a younger Cable from a different point in the timeline comes along and kills off the older one – but it plays out more persuasively here. \u00a0The trick is that this kid has to be both recognisably Cable, but also different enough to make the whole thing worthwhile. \u00a0And I think the story gets that balance right; he doesn’t act\u00a0much<\/em> like Cable, but he’s manipulative and self-righteous in a way that you can see mellowing over time into the normal character. \u00a0He’s kind of awful, and clearly doesn’t really appreciate how much further he has to grow, but that plays as unexpectedly interesting.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot going on in this story, and it’s well balanced. \u00a0It’s really a four issue opening act, since it continues directly into the next storyline, but it still plays quite satisfyingly on its own terms. \u00a0X-Force – Domino, Warpath, Cannonball, Shatterstar and Boom-Boom – have got back together in order to track down this suspicious new “Cable” and avenge the “real” one. \u00a0Or at least most of them have. \u00a0Boom-Boom has slept in. \u00a0The rest of the team track Cable to the generic eastern European country of Transia. \u00a0Transia is supposed to be a safe haven for mutants thanks to a deal with someone mysterious from the future, who is outfitting them with future tech. \u00a0But the rabidly anti-mutant head of the military stages a coup, and also has an alliance of his own with Ahab (who only came to this backwater place in the hope of stealing the time machine and going home).<\/p>\n

Ostensibly the main plot is about Transia, the government being overthrown, the mystery about who their futuristic ally is, the private schemes of Ahab to betray his captors, and a stray mutant soldier called Andrei who may or may not be serving the government against his will. \u00a0And for Cable, this is indeed the main plot – though even he’s mainly interested in Ahab, for reasons that seem at first glance to be handwaved away, but turn out to be quite important in issue #4 after all. \u00a0He’s here to deal with the bad guys and expects X-Force to fall into line and help, now that they’ve shown up. \u00a0This would be a perfectly serviceable story in its own right. \u00a0And Cable’s already got Deathlok lined up to help him, so at least somebody else is on the same page as him.<\/p>\n

But for the most part, X-Force themselves are much more interested in murderous kid Cable than they are in Transia. \u00a0They’ll stop and help, of course, but for them it’s really a distraction from the main event. \u00a0Attitudes vary within the team. \u00a0Shatterstar refuses to accept the new Cable at all, and seems to be mainly waiting for an opportunity to do him in. \u00a0Cannonball is much more open to believing in the new kid, and keeps trying to rein in the excesses of his teammates. \u00a0Domino mainly seems determined to get answers. \u00a0And Warpath probably cares more than the rest about the whole Transia plot, but he’s also rather keen to batter the anti-mutant soldiers in a way that Cannonball’s not especially comfortable about. Oh, and Boom-Boom has slept in. \u00a0There’s enough variation among the X-Force members to create a lot of little subplots about their individual reactions, without it ever feeling too busy or confused.<\/p>\n

I liked this a lot. \u00a0It’s very readable, and it’s managing to sell me on a plot that initially had me entirely unconvinced. \u00a0Even the more generic aspects of the Transian plot seem to be laying groundwork for something in the next arc. \u00a0Definitely worth your time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest relaunch of\u00a0X-Force\u00a0seems suspiciously like a last-minute decision, considering that Weapon X was already covering very much the same territory, and got cut very abruptly short. \u00a0But this iteration, which spins out of the\u00a0Extermination miniseries, is unexpectedly strong. Some versions of\u00a0X-Force have been ponderously gritty, and this one is certainly happy enough for them […]<\/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-4532","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\/4532","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=4532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4533,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532\/revisions\/4533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}