X-23’s capture by H.A.M.M.E.R. brings fans back to a rather painful relationship of her past.
X-FORCE #18
Publisher: Marvel
Writers: Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost
Artist: Mike Choi and Sonia Oback
Letterer: VC’s Cory Petit
Summary: The fallout from MESSIAH WAR continues! X-23 is missing, and as horrific as her life has been…it’s about to get worse. Elixir knows the truth about the mutant messiah. Wolverine confronts Cyclops about his decisions leading up to the War. Wolfsbane’s journey back to X-Force begins. Bastion’s master plan gets one step closer to fruition. And if all that weren’t enough…Seline’s forces are on the move. More action and drama than any one comic has a right to have! Part 2 (of 4) Parental Advisory.
Review: What’s that old saying about too many cooks spoiling the soup? Two writers and two artists and still this book suffers from lack of depth. When we left off last month, Surge and Hellion had been injected with a strain of the Legacy Virus by the Leper Queen. This strain amplifies mutant powers usually causing the mutant to explode. It’s certainly great that Elixir saves Hellion in time but issue #18 of X-Force is nothing but disappointment in actually showing the climax - and let’s face it, no fangirl wants to miss a climax. Surge was about to destroy half the city in issue #17 but this month, all we get is a single panel of a flashback and the most brief of explanations about how Keller saved her from full supernova death.
This series has a great formula: a team led by Wolverine which includes a young hot female clone of his and a variety of other youthful characters with diverse powers. How is it that the book continuously falls short? When there are slight signs of improvement, it is quite simply, not enough. Luckily the artistic team has the best blood splatters this side of superhero shelf. Such splatters are particularly important in scenes when mutants suffer amputations via chainsaw. Ewwww.
Now here’s another bit of disappointment in the writing arena. Boom-Boom was saved by X-23 and both were captured by H.A.M.M.E.R. so it’s no surprise that a writer would craft a rape scene involving a big evil military type man overpowering a weakened female. The disappointment is not only in the cliché but the fact at how poorly it was done. I’m no fan of gratuitous sexual violence but I admit, Garth Ennis is truly the master of it. Kyle and Yost need to take a lesson from ol’ Garth. The scene is completely lacking in drama. Boom-Boom is of course saved by the large strapping male teammate, Warpath; ok, sometimes it’s nice to see a man step up and take action but in this case it was just one more cliché and as the reader, I didn’t feel that it would end any other way so that she was never in any real danger. The subject was so lightly brushed upon that a reader barely remembers it as soon as the page is turned. Surely something so potentially tragic should have some kind of impact on the reader!
The blood splatters are the only thing that have saved this title from the chopping block on my pull list. I give it one more month; if the writing staff doesn’t begin to take it more seriously, then it’s being X-cycled.
September 1st, 2009 at 6:48 am
While I don’t disagree with the points you’ve made about this issue’s weakness in story, I do typically enjoy X-Force (and the Kyle/Yost writing team) quite a lot and just found this issue to be somewhat weaker than the usual action-fest this book has been. I wouldn’t blame it on a “too many cooks spoiling the soup” scenario, in regards to the artists. I don’t think it accurate to say there are two artists on the title any more than any other book tends to have at least 3 (penciler, inker, colorist) since Sonia Oback is Mike Choi’s digital other-half, providing the color and depth to his pencils. It’s fair to say it’s a weaker issue, I just don’t agree that it’s having “two artists” that is contributing to that weakness, unless your point was that it would look better in just pencils.
(also, thanks for reminding me about that amputation scene… ewww…[shudder])
September 3rd, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Heheh, “X-cycled.” You and those x-treme puns.