Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Uncanny X-Force #19

First review for the week? That honor goes to Uncanny X-Force #19. Sure, the last issue came out JUST last week, and the long-running Dark Angel Saga ended with more of a whimper than a bang, but out of all of the books I picked up this week(21 in all!), this was the one I was most curious to get to, which says a lot for Rick Remender's writing prowess.

Uncanny X-Force #19:

Summary: Fantomex tells Kid Apocalypse(from this point forward, Genesis), that he couldn't return to his home or parents(which was a virtual reality utopia), and that he'd be attending Wolvie's school. Genesis isn't happy about leaving behind his family and life, but seems willing to listen to his “Uncle Cluster”. Wolvie and the rest of X-Force head to Gateway with the Age of Apocalypse X-Men to send them back to the AOA, all except for AOA Nightcrawler, who decides to remain in the 616 Marvel Universe in order to hunt down the AOA refugees(Sugar Man, Dark Beast, AOA Iceman, AOA Blob) who were still hiding out in the 616. Psylocke tries to see if there was anything left of the Warren Worthington she loved, but is heartbroken to discover that he was totally devoid of his former memories and feelings. With a younger clone of Apocalypse heading to his school, Wolverine brings Beast and Kitty Pryde to X-Force's hideout and comes clean to them about the existence of X-Force, as well as the truth behind Genesis. Beast is pretty pissed about Wolverine secretly keeping a hit squad behind his back, but Wolvie manages to smooth things over... Kind of... From there, Wolverine decides that X-Force would now be responsible for keeping his school safe(really?! You put DEADPOOL in charge of campus security?!), and Fantomex is assaulted by Captain Britain who babbles something about making Fantomex pay for what he's done to Psylocke.

Thoughts: This issue was a big old pile of meh for me. The only real saving grace for me was the conversation between Beast and Wolverine. Everything else just didn't do a thing for me. Add the fact that the next storyline involves Otherworld(a terrible concept... In my opinion of course) and Captain Britain(a character I never warmed to), and things are looking down for the future here. So there's my thoughts on the story. As for the art, I'm not sure how I felt about it. On one hand, everybody's ears were huge for some reason... On the other hand, some of the facial expressions were absolutely spot on(especially the look Beast shoots Wolvie upon meeting Genesis), so the art, much like the story was a mixed bag. The bottom line here is that for the first time since... well, since this series began, I'm not looking forward to the future...

Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.If looks could kill, Beast would have just killed Wolvie, Daken, AND X-23!

10 comments:

  1. I had a problem with the conversation between Beast and Wolverine. They have had the conversation before and it ended with Beast walking away from the X-Men. Now, it looks like he is backtracking.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beast finding out about X-Force actually made me chuckle... I mean everywhere Beast turns his "leader" is leading a hit crew behind his back!

    The only real difference(I'd think) is that Wolvie came out and told Beast to his face about X-Force, while it kind of blew up in Lord Summers' face. In a way I almost want to say that Beast may expect this sort of behavior from Wolvie, while he was enraged to discover somebody that he had known for years(Lord Summers) doing things like running X-Force, hanging out with evil mutants, etc. Maybe there's a double standard there?

    ReplyDelete
  3. What i'm really interested is where are they gonna put Angel (or Archangel what name we going with this month?) now? He can't stay in X-Force or he might turn evil again, can't go to Utopia because Scott might do something stupid with him,can't send him to the school cause people who don't know about x-force remember him. Honestly i would have been way easier for marvel if they actually did kill him instead of having to come up with some convoluted way of him being in comic limbo for the foreseeable future.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I thought it would be different since this version of X-Force was fighting Apocalypse and not Purifiers (monsters as oppose to humans, although the monsters are technically mutants). I also found it odd that Wolverine gave AOA Sabertooth his sword, the one supposedly buried with Daken's two claws. Even if he has grown to respect AOA Sabertooth I can't really see Wolverine doing that (and didn't Wolverine cut off the 616 Sabertooth's head with that sword).

    ReplyDelete
  5. I couldn't stand the art. So passed trough this as fast as possible.

    But anyway I enjoyed Deadpool moment, not for the Jokes. I think that Remember write Deadpool in a way that he is not funny, he just can't stop himself of saying that stuff like a tourette sindrome and that make me feel sorry for him.

    And here are some answer to our doubts about Warren

    http://www.newsarama.com/comics/rick-remender-dark-angel-saga-111219.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. I agree full with that, Anon. To me the most satisfying conclusion to the DAS would have been for Betsy to have killed Warren, do that scene in his head where they grew old together, and then have to live with her actions. It would have given Psylocke a decent storyline as she's forced to work her way through killing the man she loved to save the world. As it is now, after reading that link sent by Alien(thanks, amigo), it SEEMS like Remender has some more stories to tell with Archangel, but I'd still have preferred he died, period, the end.

    I don't think Wolvie gave AOA Tooth the Murumasa(sp?) sword, but a different sword he received from one of his MANY Japanese enemies/respected foes, Jermox. I'd have to give it another look, but I thought he mentioned a guy who had no connection to the Murumasa sword(although giving the murumasa sword to somebody in another dimension WOULD be a great way to rid the world of it).

    ReplyDelete
  7. No the Muramasa sword is red and it was not given to Wolverine by Ogun but rather a japanase demonic blacksmith. So i very much doubt that Muramasa is the kind of sword you would give to someone more noble and all that.

    ReplyDelete
  8. De nada amigo,In some way Remender stated that Warren is that, and that Angel is only his body with a new soul inside. I'm almost okay with that the only problem is that any other writer can bring Old Warren back easier now. But anyways nobody stays death in comics.

    And What about the end of this story? How are those guys? i only know that Britain is Betsy's brother.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ah, okay. It didn't get into too much detail about the sword so I was thinking it might be a different one, and wasn't even sure if it was a sword I was suppose to recognize.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Yup, Anon hit the nail on the head. It was Ogun who was mentioned in this issue(I was blanking on the name), and he def didn't have the Murumasa(sp?) sword. Honestly, Jermox, I can't say I even remember Ogun GIVING Wolvie a sword! But I'll go along with it. :D

    Yeah, Alien, I got the same vibe. Maybe you can bring back a character who has been killed in Warren's body(their soul ended up in Warren's empty body or something like that), but like you said, that's a REALLY easy way to bring him back too. Which kind of dilutes the importance of the DAS overall... As for Brian and those Otherworld goofs, I can't really help you out with that, mi amigo... I only have a handful of Excalibur comics, and for the most part I hated them and blocked out a lot of that stuff from my mind... I could look into it, but my gut feeling is that this upcoming storyline is gonna be pretty bad.

    ReplyDelete