Friday, February 15, 2008

X-Force #1


"The X-Men don't kill: These aren't the X-Men!"

With a intro like this, who couldn't resist this title. One thing I am still getting used to in this Comic Book market is the length of time between when you hear about something and when it actually arrives in your hands. As I stood in my local Comic Book shoppe it didn't really occur to me that this was one of those comics I loved the idea of when I first heard about it, five months ago. I barely remembered being handed the free mini-poster, or the constant ads in CSN. But once I cracked that cover I remembered why, at one point, I really wanted to get this Comic Book.

This is a title that either excites you or pisses you off. You either love the idea of a special forces X-Team that believes in getting rid of problems permanently or you hate the idea of another reboot. Honestly in the last year, well since I really started collecting Comic Books again, I have been subjected to limited amounts of reboots, so this doesn't bother me like it does others.

The story is pretty simple. Logan is recruited by Cyclops to form a deadly team to wipe out another force called the Purifiers. A sect of humans who want to wipe out all Mutants. When Xavier's school is attacked and 42 students are murdered, Cyclops asks Wolverine to take them out.

To a lot of you out there, X-Force is not exactly a new idea, but to me this was the first time I had heard of it. The idea seems cool enough, and the writing is decent. It won't win any awards for the story, but in my book it would win hands down on it's artistic merit alone.

I am a huge fan of Alex Ross and honestly I think Crains stuff looks better. For this type of comic Alex Ross wouldn't do it justice, it would look too clean and happy in a manner of speaking. Crain uses shadows and limited lighting to get a very dark "feel" to this book. I am not sure of Crains other work at this point but you can be sure I will be looking for other things he has drawn.

Story - 3 1/2 (The story is a little thin, but it's just a 6 part mini-series so we have yet to see)
Art - 5 (I know 5's are not easily given out, but there it is. I like this stuff as good anything I have seen before)

Michael

1 comment:

Chronic Insomnia said...

The idea of a more militant "special forces" kind of X-Team has been done before, when Liefeld re-booted the New Mutants and called them X-Force the first time.

But while Cable would talk a good game, they never really did anything differently the your garden variety teams. The idea that Cyclops would endorse wiping out an opposing force is 100% unprecedented in the mythos. This is a whole new deal.