Review: X-Force #1
X-Force #1 kicks off the “CIA” of the X-Men world. The debut issue emphasizes that part of this group’s role is intelligence gathering and part covert-ops. Unfortunately, the issue misses the group part. It’s full of poor foreshadowing. And leaves us with an ending that will clearly be undone. It’s a comic with cool moments and the depth of a summer mindnumbing blockbuster.
Written by Benjamin Percy, the comic is a series of focusing on individual characters as opposed to a cohesive team. While the title is X-Force, you might have called it Black Tom works security. The issue revolves around a few individuals as we learn more about Krakoa’s stance with the world and the threats it faces with its new international standing.
Percy’s writing is a bit forced in that it’s so clearly foreshadowing for the latter part of the issue. It’s a bit too obvious as to what’s going to happen and who it’s going to happen to. That includes the death of a character. But, that death rings rather hollow due to what we know. We know mutants can be brought back. So, the fact there’s fear of death, or really shock of it is rather silly. It also loses jaw dropping value. Deaths used to mean something, even with all of the resurrections. Now, with no implications, the concept when it comes to mutants seems even sillier.
The art by Joshua Cassara is pretty solid. There’s some fantastic moments within the comic. With colors of Dean White and lettering by Joe Caramagna, the comic has the grittiness we’d expect from an X-Force comic but misses the doom and gloom. There’s also a large amount of varied characters involved and each stands out in design and uniqueness. The detail is great.
X-Force #1 lacks the feel of a team book the title implies. Instead, it feels like a guide to Krakoa security using characters to highlight aspects. There’s also just too much foreshadowing to take events beyond eye rolls. It’s got some great concepts but the execution is lacking.
Story: Benjamin Percy Art: Joshua Cassara
Color: Dean White Letterer: Joe Caramagna Design: Tom Muller
Story: 6.0 Art: 8.25 Overall: 6.0 Recommendation: Read
Marvel provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
Lazy review. Just because the book doesn’t start with the team already formed doesn’t mean that this is a mistake here. Slow-paced? Maybe. But defintely don’t deserve this weak, poorly analyzed following observations.
Did you read the comic? Lazy is Percy’s writing which foreshadows everything that happens in dialogue. It’s bad writing, and plotting, and doesn’t capture the concept of X-Force at all. Does a team need to start a book? No. Excalibur and Marauders showed that. But this is a bunch of vignettes of single characters that screams what’s going to happen for the last bit of the comic. And it wraps up with “shocks” that’ll have no impact at all since everyone can come back with a push of the button. Easily one of the worst X-Force debuts in years and just a bad start overall. Compare it with New Mutants’ debut and it’s night and day in quality.