As the last tale of X-Force came to a close the team had been dismantled. They had been put together to covertly ‘take out’ problems with extreme prejudice in a way that no other X team would be allowed to. There were consequences for their actions and for a large variety of reasons the team went it’s separate ways.
Of the team’s actual members Psylocke, seems to have had the worst hand of cards dealt to her. Her first love is stripped of his humanity to be turned into a future Apocalypse and in saving him, his entire set of memories is erased as he was reborn. She secondly fell in love with a man with three brains who we find out in this issue ends up leaving her. To save his life, she had to trade away her ability to feel both sorrow and regret. In a far flung future she finds that she is partially responsible for the creation of a mutant controlled police state. Oh, and she has to mentally possess one of her brothers to kill her other brother to save all of the realities from being taken over from a being in Otherworld. All of this was just from the last run of Uncanny X-Force!
I’m giving you that background information here because if you haven’t been following the series it might help for the jumping in point on this new one. This is NOT a revamp of the previous mission of Uncanny X-Force.
Needless to say she’s had it rough and isn’t fitting in well in a post Uncanny X-Force world where Wolverine is now trying to have her be just a teacher. Wolverine ‘fires’ her and tells her to check her e-mail as she’s walking out the door. While he feels he can no longer be directly or indirectly involved with the concept of X-Force due to having a school to run, he stills gives her the vague notion of a mission by a cryptic e-mail that doesn’t involve a lot of details.
When she leaves to pursue this lead Storm decides to follow her. The interaction between the two is really good and if you haven’t read this week’s Wolverine and the X-Men #24, you are going to want to read it first since the events within it explain a bit of dialogue as well as why Storm has her old punk rocker hair back.
Honestly the artwork in these opening scenes made me feel that the two were truly connected. With the ease they took out the attack that was happening on them it was done in such a fluid way that wasn’t ridiculous and showed an ease that could only come from years of knowing one another.
The cryptic message above leads Psylocke and Storm to a good replacement for the gruffness of Wolverine for the team – Puck. The ‘other’ short, gruff and Canadian that refuses to stay dead. With his recent departure from being trapped in Hell it was only a matter of time before he popped up somewhere and with no ongoing Alpha Flight series an X series is the perfect fit!
He quickly explains that he has stumbled across some kind of a drug that is turning people into a hive mind and that the person responsible for it is someone they are going to want to deal with. It turns out to be Spiral, Mojo’s old lackey who Psylocke has a personal score to settle with from years back and attacks.
Let’s just say nothing goes as planned from that point on. The very end of the episode focuses on Fantomex and we learn how he and Psylocke’s love life came to a very bitter end.
Also we very quickly see that Bishop has returned to our timeline with no real hint at what he’ll be playing at quite yet.
I’m not sold on this new X-Force yet but the first issue was action packed and has me intrigued. The art itself through the issue did the characters justice. It also is making my mind think like crazy on how we’re going to see Psylocke let both Spiral AND Fantomex both somehow join the team. Honestly Marvel haven’t you put Betsy Braddock through enough over the years?
Writer: Samuel Ryan Humphries
Inker: Danny K. Miki
Letterer: Neurotic Cartoonist, Inc
Inker (cover): Olivier Coipel
Colorist (cover): LAURA JEAN MARTIN
Penciler: Ron Garney
Editor: Nick Lowe