Operating in secret, Wolverine and his team will simply get stuff done.
What They Say:
THE APOCALYPSE SOLUTION PART 1 To hold back a new Age of Apocalypse, Wolverine and Archangel bring together Fantomex, Deadpool, and Psylocke to form The Uncanny X-Force!
The Review:
After asking for recommendations from X-Men fans about which title would be good for getting into while not going whole hog with the whole X-universe of titles, I was repeatedly told to check out Uncanny X-Force. Of all the titles to come back to, this is the one that feels the most unusual. I had left the X-Men universe of books when Chris Claremont left the franchise in the 90’s after reading since the late 70’s. I still hold a certain love for the characters because they’re the ones that got me wholly into comics once things got rolling on the superhero front. With so many books to choose from these days though, I wanted something a bit off to the side to dabble with, which was previously filled by Exiles which I read in trade form.
With Uncanny X-Force, the central idea behind it is that it’s a small, tight group of operatives that handle the black ops side of the X-Men teams, doing what needs to be done because they’re all the damaged characters that can cope and handle it because of what they’ve been through before. It’s certainly a nice idea and one that can work since there are a lot of loose ends in the books over the years to deal with and putting the characters into some real moral quandaries could offer up some interesting challenges for them to face. The opening issue has some basic problems though since it’s generally playing just directly to the existing fans, making it a bit less accessible. And not in that “give it time and it’ll make sense” kind of way, but in the why bother actually naming some of the characters so new readers know who they are kind of way.
The story that’s told here is just the start of the opening storyline where it wants to introduce Apocalypse to the world again, though with the moral challenge being that he’s come back in the form of a child. That’s just a sliver of it though as it mostly wants to focus on two different things. The first is a fun little adventure with Deadpool where he’s doing some investigating in an effort to track down leads regarding this return. There’s obviously fun to be had with Deadpool and his style when it comes to action and dialogue, but I have to admit it grated a bit by the end and that’s not a good sign. The character was just starting out when I started to phase out Marvel books from my life and I’ve never really cozied up to who he is from what I’ve read and dabbled with. It’s not a bad bit for him here, but it’s just sort of there.
The bigger part of the storyline involves the simple character material as it wants to show just how damaged everyone is and the way they operate. When the team goes into action together, there’s the narrative about how there’s no banter, camaraderie or the sense of adventure that’s supposed to be there. There’s something to be said for that, which hopefully will work better as more story is introduced. But this kind of mentality filters in with how the relationships work. Wolverine is, of course, cold and and distant and has that kind of controlled nature that defines him. These are people he trusts that he’s with, but they’re beyond real emotion. The one hope for emotion is in the relationship between Warren and Betsy as the two have taken to being lovers, though perhaps just sexual partners is the better way to define it. Warren’s having a lot of issues when it comes to holding onto who he is after what Apocalypse had done to him in the distant, distant past, and even Betsy is seeing it when she dreamwalks into his head. I like the potential that can come from this pairing and the issues they share, but it’s just so cold and distant here that it’s hard to really get into all that much.
Release Notes:
This comiXology edition of Uncanny X-Force comes with the main cover as released with the print edition and no other extras.
In Summary:
The opening issue of Uncanny X-Force hits all the right marks for what it wants to present It has a cast that I like about half the members of whereas others I’m just not that familiar with, such as Fantomex (who isn’t really named here as far as I can see) and Deadpool. Add in the regular E.V.A. references which don’t mean anything to me coming in fresh and there’s things here that can be deal with depending on whether it can be slid into the story arc itself. The idea of bringing back Apocalypse as a child is one that I like as a quandary for the group to face, especially considering their connection to him, and that’s the hook that works. The rest of the book has its moments and I’m curious as to how the character side of it will work with the ones that I like, but it wasn’t a compelling book, even at 32 pages for an opener.
Grade: B-
Readers Rating: [ratings]
