Written by Rick Remender
Illustrated by Jerome Opena and Esad RibicRick Remender (Venom, Fear Agent), Jerome Opena (Punisher, Fear Agent) and Dean White (Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man) bring you a tale of devastation, bravery, and salvation.
Rick Remender, Jerome Opena, Esad Ribic and Dean White bring this epic tale/backdoor Age of Apocalypse ongoing launch point to an explosive finale. Seriously. Just look at that cover. Explosions!
Check past the jump for some thoughts. Some spoilers are rather unavoidably discussed.
Well, leave it to the Uncanny X-Force team to sneak one last incredibly noteworthy superhero comic in before the year is out, eh?
At the beginning of the year when Uncanny X-Force #4 was released and it put the new run of X-Force on the map for us as readers. While the first three issues were about as strong of a start for a title as you could hope for, the fourth was the book’s mission statement; this was the “take no prisoners” issue, both figuratively and literally, and it showed how unafraid Remender was at upping the stakes for the other X-Books in terms of quality. If this were High Fidelity and we were all standing around making lists, Uncanny X-Force #4 would be “number one with a bullet.”
Since then, it’s been a slow and epic odyssey all leading up to “the Dark Angel Saga” — the final machinations of Apocalypse’s mental hold on Warren Worthington’s soul have taken hold, Fantomex is forced to play his final hand and things come to a rather chaotic head. If the past eight issues have been Remender sitting behind a chess board moving pieces left and right in an interesting but somewhat confusing fashion, this issue would be Remender’s final master stroke, declaring check mate and then kicking the board in the reader’s face for effect.
This issue gives you exactly what you want: the good guys win, but not in a way that’s really worth celebrating; the bad guys lose, but tease just when and where they’ll be back; Archangel gets “his moment” (which we’ll discuss further later). While the entire “Dark Angel Saga” is very much a book intricately tied to the rest of Uncanny X-Force, the entire eight-issue piece stands as an entirely accessible and exciting X-Force story in and of itself. Forget for a moment, if you will, that we saw that child Apocalypse back in the second arc, or that we’ve been teased that Archangel would go crazy for who knows how long; “the Dark Angel Saga” ultimately ends as just a great story, with hype and all, and despite high expectations it still manges to effectively deliver. That’s the ultimate win here, really; we go in expecting gold and are given no less.
Then there’s the elephant in the room, and the inherent reason the book is polybagged: the death and rebirth of Warren Worthington. Remender has proved without a doubt that he has a firm grasp on tender yet poignant moments of personal triumph. We saw it in Heath Huston’s final ride, we saw it recently as Flash reconciled with his father as much as he could in “Spider-Island”, and now we have Psylocke killing Archangel, yet letting Warren live the life he always wanted. For those who have followed their extended relationship throughout the X-Books, especially in this title, the way Remender has handled these two characters was as personal and caring as one might write about themselves. With the final moments of Warren’s life in Betsy’s fantasy existence for them, we’re reminded truly of who Warren was before the arc began and he tried to kill everyone; it’s sad, it’s moving, and it makes the final page and his amnesiac return that much more of a fitting end to the issue.
Plus, credit where credit is due: for an issue where I’d guess 90% of readers went in expecting Archangel to die, you have to love that not only did Archangel not die, but the character who did die – Sunfire – was given a rather epic send-off. It’s a nice bait and switch if I’ve ever seen one.
Continued belowNeedless to say, the team behind the book function as well as any finely tuned machine might. Remender’s love for the characters is as overt as it has ever been, as he swiftly switches between characters and scenes without missing a beat. Meanwhile, Jerome Opena and Esad Ribic with the added beautiful colors of Dean White are about as close to visual assassins as you can get from any comic this side of the Big Two. The book is absolutely cutting, entirely visceral in its imagination and relentless in its presentation. While the transition between Opena and Ribic isn’t as smooth as you might assume, Ribic’s portion of the book is just as emotionally deep as Opena, and the combination of the two with White makes for one fantastic presentation of superheroic fiction.
Uncanny X-Force #18 may not make the Multiversity Best of 2011 Issue list, but that doesn’t stop it from reminding everyone who reads comics why we read comics: we don’t just read it for the escapism, but to read fantastic stories that manage to keep alive (not always literally) characters we’ve grown up with. As an adult reading stories starring the same characters I read about as a kid, the connection felt emanating off the pages is key, and Uncanny X-Force has it in spades. With a great cast, a great ongoing plot and a great creative team, Uncanny X-Force remains one of the youngest yet effectively consistent offerings from Marvel’s X-Line, and a must have for any pull. If nothing else, it’s a blueprint for how to set-up and nail a landing.
Or, in 140 characters: Here’s to another fantastic year for Remender, Opena, Ribic and White. Can’t wait to see what happens next. #uncannyxforce #awesomecomics
Final Verdict: 9.0 – Could’ve done without that polybag, but I’m being nitpicky
