{"id":719,"date":"2011-02-07T21:53:50","date_gmt":"2011-02-07T21:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=719"},"modified":"2011-02-07T21:53:50","modified_gmt":"2011-02-07T21:53:50","slug":"x-force-the-apocalypse-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=719","title":{"rendered":"X-Force: The Apocalypse Solution"},"content":{"rendered":"

By this point, I have actually got last week’s comics. \u00a0But I haven’t read them yet. \u00a0And to be honest, I feel like breaking from format anyway and looking at some completed storylines. \u00a0So, as promised, let’s look at another recently relaunched book, and the first arc of Uncanny X-Force<\/em>. \u00a0Again, beware spoilers – I’m assuming you’ve either read it or you don’t plan to.<\/p>\n

The Apocalypse Solution<\/h1>\n

Uncanny X-Force<\/em> #1-4<\/p>\n

Writer: Rick Remender
\nArtist: Jerome Opena
\nColourist: Dean White
\nLetterer: Cory Petit
\nEditor: Axel Alonso<\/span><\/p>\n

In their endless quest for short-term sales spikes, Marvel will relaunch a title these days for the most tenuous of reasons – or indeed for no reason at all, if needs must. \u00a0But, at least relatively speaking, X-Force<\/em> is a legitimate relaunch. \u00a0They’ve changed most of the cast. \u00a0They’ve changed the creative team. \u00a0They’ve changed the style and tone beyond recognition. \u00a0And it’s a clean slate for new storylines.<\/span><\/p>\n

What remains is the very basic premise that X-Force are the black ops unit which the other X-Men don’t know about. \u00a0True, the previous X-Force were exposed during the “Second Coming” crossover, to general disquiet among the ranks (and boy, there’s a storyline that seems to have petered out). \u00a0But Scott disbanded that squad, and Wolverine’s re-formed it without telling anyone. \u00a0So the idea of a secret team within a team has been restored.<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea is solid enough – and it’s probably strengthened by getting Cyclops out of the picture, since his inclusion was never terribly convincing in the first place. \u00a0The previous series was never particularly satisfying, though, since it tended to go for the easy option of piling on the sombre bloodshed, and the art all too often veered towards ponderous murk. \u00a0It was a book that took itself rather too seriously.<\/p>\n

With Rick Remender and Jerome Opena as the creative team, that’s no longer a problem. \u00a0The muted colour palette has been retained – lots of grey and blue here – but the art is crystal clear. \u00a0The levels of violence are still somewhat higher than normal for a Marvel book, but it’s more targetted. \u00a0And while some of the characters are still taking it all terribly seriously, the cast now has Deadpool and Fantomex to provide the comic relief. \u00a0The tone is actually closer to a traditional team book; if you’re not keen on the sprawling cast in the core books these days, this may well be more to your tastes.<\/p>\n

Where the previous team seemed to have been selected by putting all the vaguely feral and miserable people together, this time there’s a bit more range. \u00a0Wolverine gets to do his veteran soldier routine as the team leader. \u00a0Angel’s current status quo seems to be a major focus for the new series – he’s got a split personality, with Archangel being far more powerful but also worryingly violent and unreliable. \u00a0He’d have us believe that he’s on the team because he’s channelling Archangel in a useful way, but he’s not fooling anyone. \u00a0Psylocke seems to be here so that the creators can rekindle her relationship with Angel from the 90s. \u00a0That’s a smart move; part of the problem with Psylocke is that her history has become so incomprehensibly convoluted that it overshadows her as a character. \u00a0Remender wisely boots all of that into touch, focuses on her relationship with Warren, and puts the emphasis back on her personality. \u00a0Deadpool is here to stop the book getting too self-important. \u00a0Fantomex similarly lightens the tone, but mainly he provides a mystery: is he really just here for the money, and is there anything to him beneath the ironic facade?<\/p>\n

Wolverine and Deadpool are massively overexposed characters, already appearing in several books a month each. \u00a0But they’re used here to balance out the team, and the real focus is on the other three. \u00a0It’s a good use of the characters.<\/p>\n

The first arc has the group discovering that 90s arch-villain Apocalypse has been reincarnated by his cultists (um, again), and setting out to kill him before he can do any serious harm. \u00a0So issue #1 uncovers the threat and introduces the team; issues #2 and #3 have the group fighting their way past Apocalypse’s underlings in the form of the Final Horsemen; and issue #4 finally brings them face to face with Apocalypse himself. \u00a0All pretty standard. \u00a0The twist is that this version of Apocalypse is just a kid who’s being re-educated by the cultists, but doesn’t seem to have any actual memory of being Apocalypse, or any particular desire to be a world-conquering evildoer – though he’s trying his best to live up to expectations. \u00a0The mechanics of this aren’t exactly explained, but there’s something rather charming about the image of Apocalypse as a confused schoolboy in uniform.<\/p>\n

I’m not entirely convinced that the arc needed two issues – closer to two and a half, actually – devoted to X-Force fighting their way past the henchmen. \u00a0Some of that space is justified by using it to introduce the Final Horsemen, who are yet another variation on the classic Four Horsemen theme. \u00a0We’ve been here several times before, but these four are a nice take on the theme. \u00a0Issue #3 gives them brief one-page origin stories, but it’s the visuals rather than the concepts that stand out. \u00a0The powers are a bit contrived; but Opena ignores the standard features of superhero design in favour of something a little more theatrical and surreal, so that the group includes a geisha with a swarm of insects, and a mute drummer from the civil war. \u00a0It’s not that the story offers anything particularly new (and for the life of me I don’t understand why Death<\/em> has the plague powers, instead of Pestilence), but it’s done with tremendous style. \u00a0The designs for the Horsemen characters are a great example of the sense of grace that Opena brings to this book – though he also excels with the Angel\/Psylocke conversation in issue #2.<\/p>\n

The pay-off of all this comes in issue #4 where the team finally confront Apocalypse and can’t bring themselves to kill him – despite all their “he must die at all costs” talk in the first half of the story, which puts a slightly different perspective on their posturing. \u00a0There’s something of a problem with this sequence, in that the whole debate proceeds on the basis that the kid definitely is a reincarnation of Apocalypse, and that the only question is as to whether he’ll necessarily grow up to become a villain again. \u00a0Quite how<\/em> the X-Men know this isn’t touched upon, and there would seem to be ample reason to question it. \u00a0But I’m willing to let that slide, because it’s not the debate that Remender wants the characters to have. \u00a0Ultimately, Wolverine and Psylocke both decide to try and save him; Archangel wants to kill him, but it’s decidedly unclear how much of that is moral judgment, how much is revenge, and how much is just because he’s a psychopath with an excuse.<\/p>\n

The master stroke, though, is to cut off the debate by having Fantomex shoot the kid (and then abruptly ending the story with a couple of silent pages of people turning home, instead of following through on the conversation). \u00a0It’s beautifully timed, with some great misdirection by focussing the argument entirely on the three X-Men, and brilliantly drawn by Opena. \u00a0It also raises some really interesting questions about quite why<\/em> he kills the kid. \u00a0Fantomex says he’s there for the money; but his employers have already changed their minds by this point. \u00a0He doesn’t have to do it. \u00a0Presumably he thinks he’s being cold-bloodedly practical, but it’s a great scene in the way it suggests what’s going on beneath the facade – a really great moment.<\/p>\n

It could maybe stand to trim some fat in the middle act, and yes, it glosses over quite how this kid is supposed to be the reincarnation of Apocalypse – but the first arc of Remender and Opena’s\u00a0X-Force<\/em> is a success, and bodes well for a high-quality superhero team book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By this point, I have actually got last week’s comics. \u00a0But I haven’t read them yet. \u00a0And to be honest, I feel like breaking from format anyway and looking at some completed storylines. \u00a0So, as promised, let’s look at another recently relaunched book, and the first arc of Uncanny X-Force. \u00a0Again, beware spoilers – I’m […]<\/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,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-719","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\/719","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=719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":720,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions\/720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}