Simon Spurrier continues his focus on one character per issue and this time up we get a view of the world through the eyes of Fantomex. With issue #3 focusing on Fantomex’s ex-lover Psylocke it would be fitting that he is up next. The one big thing about this issue that I think everyone is going to be extremely happy about, though, is the art. Rock-He Kim is gone and has been replaced by Jorge Molina whose style seems to fit so much better with the book. Thank you for taking away my one major complaint!

So as we travel in the mind of the Frenchman, we finally start learning more about where he is right now. In his last run we had learned that his three personalities were quite literally split from one another with each one having its own body. This has caused quite an internal rift within Fantomex’s mind and while we’ve had hints that not all is well for him we find out this issue exactly how not well he has become. The first three fourths of the issue we have Fantomex trailing someone he is not able to catch. Entertainingly for old cartoon fans the intro is setup as a spoof on a certain skunk you may recall as Pepe Le Pew. That kind of seems fitting for the character.

Every now and than the rest of the ‘X-Force’ team steps in and helps out. Mentally, though, this help is just showing that he isn’t the superior being that he believes he is.

You really start to get into Fantomex’s  mind on where he stands right now. He is mentally broken and has been barely holding it together. Multiple times in the issue he really does break down. The first of which is when he has a conversation with his ship who we haven’t seen talking this entire series. She feels the same way and calls him out on it. He is there to find a solution for  his inferiority complex and Ship’s solution is for him to just be better than the team. They had just caught their initial prey and we find out where this is going. So what does Fantomex do? He skips the rest of the mission and does it all by himself.

While proclaiming he is the best works great, it only lasts about five minutes. Ship mentioned she knew that would happen and now he only has one solution at hand. If he can’t be the best because of who he’s around, he just has to kill everyone around him that is better. We close the issue with him standing behind the rest of ‘X-Force’ and starting to draw a gun.
Oh-oh.

Someone needs some serious therapy here.

We’re slowly moving towards the man that Cable wants to track down but this may end up causing us a few complications. Hopefully it isn’t more than an issue of delay though because I’m really itching to find out where this is going!

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X-FORCE #4
Writer: Simon Spurrier
Artist: Jorge Molina