Review: This issue gets underway with Wolverine managing to wake Fantomex up so he could misdirect Apocalypse's entire living ship into believing that it had already teleported to safety. With the ship now stationary, Wolvie and Fantomex walk inside to complete their mission, killing Apocalypse. While that is going down, Deadpool is feeding Archangel pieces of his arm to help him get over what Famine had done to him last issue. Yeah... Anyway, Wolvie and Fantomex manage to slaughter their way through the cannon fodder, but get taken down and killed by Pestilence, Death and Famine... Or so it seems. It turns out Fantomex had misdirected them as well, and had his ship, EVA, transport them to a far away planet, thus decimating Apocalypse's honor guard. By this point Deadpool and Archangel have arrived on Apocalypse's ship and take down Apocalypse's second in command, Ozymandias. With all of Apocalypse's forces taken care of, Wolvie, Fantomex, Deadpool and Archangel meet up and break into Apocalypse's chamber, finding Psylocke standing besides Kid Apocalypse warning the rest of X-Force that she wouldn't allow them to harm a child. Archangel doesn't want to hear it, since he knows that the child will grow up to become Apocalypse, and attacks Psylocke, hoping that action would buy Wolvie enough time to slaughter the child. Wolvie approaches Kid Apocalypse but can't bring himself to kill a child who, thus far, hasn't done a thing wrong. This angers Archangel even more, leading to him knocking Wolvie and Psylocke out of the way with his wings, and heading towards Kid Apocalypse to do the deed himself. However, Archangel can't bring himself to kill the child either, so Wolvie decides that the best move would be to take the kid and try to rehabilitate him, and train him to do right by the world. Before Wolvie can put his plan into action though, Fantomex shoots Kid Apocalypse in the head, killing him while the rest of the team looks on stunned. From there Apocalypse's ship finally prepares to teleport away, and the members of X-Force silently depart, heading back to Earth, ending this issue.
Thoughts: Man do I have some mixed emotions here... First off, the story was excellent. Rick Remender told one hell of a powerful story, so kudos for that. Overall, this was a really, REALLY good story. BUT, I'm not quite sure how I feel about the ending... I've taken DC to task for killing off Lian Harper, as well as Marvel for the way they decimated their once thriving population of young mutants in New X-Men: Academy X. One of my greatest comic book related pet peeves is killing off children, because they usually have so much untapped potential. Besides how distasteful that act is. So my knee jerk reaction to Fantomex killing Kid Apocalypse was one of anger. However, after thinking about it for a bit, what else could Remender have done? Story wise, how could you NOT kill Kid Apocalypse? I mean, Wolverine and the X-Force crew aren't babysitters, and couldn't logically be expected to raise Kid Apocalypse. Besides that, they couldn't bring the child to the X-Men, because as far as the X-Men know, X-Force doesn't exist. So the only real options were to kill him, or to allow him to escape, which wouldn't have given this storyline any closure. As much as I loathe saying it, killing Kid Apocalypse was pretty much the only way this story could end. And believe me, that really does bother me, especially considering Kid Apocalypse hadn't actually done anything deserving of his death. I will say this though, there had better be some serious repercussions for Fantomex's actions, unless killing Kid Apocalypse was yet another one of his misdirection tricks. If it wasn't, then I'd expect Wolverine or Psylocke to deal with Fantomex... Harshly. Ultimately, I think I'll reserve final judgment on how I feel about the murder of Kid Apocalypse based upon what the rest of the team does about Fantomex going forward...
Score: 9 out of 10.
Another comic book, another child being murdered...
Another comic book, another child being murdered...
Best single issue I've read in a while. I agree that it's distasteful to kill children, but that was the best way to end it (and the only way in my opinion). It's not that I enjoy seeing children get killed, but I'm assuming there's going to be some ramifications from this within the team, which could be interesting. As a reader, my view of Fantomex changed a lot in just one panel as well. Badass because I didn't know he had it in him (and it WAS the right thing to do), but also there's that negative air floating around him for shooting a little boy. At least he didn't kill him in cold blood, as we saw him close the child's eyes.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about The Omen the whole time I was reading lol.
Yeah, this was a really good issue, Josh. If not for the death of Kid Apocalypse, I'd have probably thrown an extra 1/2 onto the score. I hate to say it, but I think we're in agreement here, the only logical way for this story to end was with the death of Kid Apocalypse. What else could they do really? I guess it could have been interesting to have Wolvie and crew trying to reform Kid Apocalypse into a force of good, but that just seems unlikely to impossible. I've LOVED Fantomex from back when he debuted in New X, and I've enjoyed his sporadic appearances since(like in Mystique), but I know I lost a bit of respect for the character. I mean when Wolverine, who's killed THOUSANDS of people, and Archangel, who had more reason than most to want to see Apocalypse dead, won't do the deed, it was shocking(and a bit disappointing to me)to see Fantomex do it. But the cool thing was that I really never saw it coming, at ALL!
ReplyDeleteHA! I love the Omen reference, because I can see it... To a point. I mean that kid in the Omen WAS pure evil, like almost right from the start, Kid Apocalypse really hadn't done anything wrong. He was just an unfortunate kid who was taken in by Apocalypse's crazy followers to continue Apocalypse's legacy. Had Kid Apocalypse been running around ranting and raving and threatening death on everybody, sure, I'd have accepted his death a lot easier. But as it was, he was just a normal little kid, playing with toys, and drawing little pictures. Even in the scan I posted, there are little pictures drawn by Kid Apocalypse tacked to the wall, which to me makes his death even worse. At that point in his life, he wasn't an evil, homicidal monster, he was just a normal kid...
If they had taken him in and not killed him, I doubt that there would be so much internet talk about this issue. Killing him brought emotion to the book. It probably makes this arc more memorable as well. So I'm not a fan of killing kids, but felt it was the best way to go stroytelling-wise.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the scenes at the end when they're heading back after a successful mission, but by the teams demeanor, you wouldn't have known.
Haha and yeah, I kept hearing that creepy music whenever I saw that kid in this arc.
I really can't disagree with any of that first paragraph, Josh. I mean, as much as I hate killing off Kid Apocalypse, it truly was the only REAL way this arc could have ended. Plus, whether I liked it or not, it makes issue #5 an absolute MUST read comic!
ReplyDeleteYeah, the final scene, with no words and the team just contemplating what they had just been through was excellent. Even Deadpool was quiet, so you KNOW everybody was deep in thought! :D