Writers: Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost
Artist: Clayton Crain
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: $2.99
Release Date: 13th February

The return of X-Force to Marvel’s publishing roster is a very interesting venture. It delivers on the old marriage advice of having the bring using something old, new, borrowed, and blue. What X-Force delivers is a blood drenched, action filled tale that serves as a continuation of the broader themes that writers Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost dealt with in their New X-Men run, and serves as a good start to the restarted series.

The premise of the rebooted X-Force makes sense in context to the history of the team, yet the mission statement has changed. In the Messiah Complex crossover, Cyclops restarted the X-Force to hunt down and kill the enemies of mutantkind and after the end of the event; Cyclops decides that a kill squad would still be needed. So he has Wolverine, X-23, Warpath and Wolfsbane form a team that go hunt and kill.

The first foes of the new X-Force are the Purifiers, religious fundamentalists who want to kill mutants. With over 40 children killed by the Purifiers on the Xavier mansion, Cyclops decides to resolve to stop the death with death. The various character motivations of the leads are various and torn. Warpath wants revenge for a fallen friend who died in Messiah Complex. X-23 loves the work of murder because it allows her to avoid those messy feelings she had in New X-Men. Wolverine is more than willing to do the death himself and is happy that Cyclops will let him do what he does best, but has no interest in other people going on his path and Wolfsbane who wants to know why an old tormenter is involved with the Purifiers. As for the Purifiers, they are up to no good by digging up an old X-Men foe and returning this character in a manner that combines two concepts together that both makes sense in the context of the writing staff’s previously used characters, and fuses them with a long lost X-Men opponent with a similar methodology to the Purifiers to set up a foe of really dangerous intentions.

This mix of characters will bring many fun conflicts and lead to a lot of death. As for the characters, The Purifiers in action in the series are truly terrifying. The X-Force cast is very well handled. Kyle and Yost continue their long-term evolution of X-23 from cipher to mix up teen discovering love and now back to the road of that of killer afraid of being a person. Wolverine will be perpetually annoyed in this book. Between leading the team he also has to see first hand how X-23 falls apart. Wolfsbane and Warpath have grudges to settle with the Purifiers for very different reason and how these emotional issues can make both of these characters liabilities will deliver great drama in coming issues.

The scripting for X-Force is by the New X-Men writers Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost. During their time on New X-Men they earned a reputation of being creators that are not willing to let characters get off easy. Characters have a habit of dying in their work and in a very ironic manner their previous work has built into X-Force in such a natural way that it allows them to continue their overall metaphor of updating the X-Men as a Parable about Intolerance and Racism. The writing of X-Force is both new-reader friendly to readers who came to the X-Men books due to Messiah Complex; whilst allowing those who were reading New X-Men to continue the overall plot of that title.

The art by Clayton Crain is very bloody and violent. Crain’s style of fully rendered computer generated art is state of the art. His style has evolved over the years and in X-Force his style of highly stylized art is both funky and communicative. The story is very well serviced by the art. Each character is distinct and well defined. The team outfits are both logical to the context of the series and allow a uniform look to the characters. Crain also draws claws, knives, and blood very well. His backgrounds sometimes can fade away, and sometimes get lost in the forefront character action but the emotional lines of Crain’s line art beyond all the digital work has helped define a new precedent for a series that has had the varied art style that has included Rob Liefeld, Adam Pollina, Jim Cheung, Whilce Portacio and Mike Allred. Clayton Crain delivers strong storytelling with a distinct style that delivers excitement and fun.

Overall X-Force is great fun that will expand and further the allegorical elements of the X-Men story while allowing the creators, readers, and characters question how far should a dream be protected and what does this do to the dream on how a final solution to violence creates greater violence. Marvel has a great book on its hand on X-Force and hopefully the series is embraced for trying harder that it needs to. Blood and murder can be easy, but it is leads to a slippery slope. X-Force is a compelling must read.