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“X-Force: Not Forgotten” and Doing it All

By | September 14th, 2019
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

“X-Force” is all over the place as it chases the Sapien League, hunts Cable and Bishop, and has to find one of their own.

Written by Craig Kyle and Christ Yost
Illustrated by Clayton Crain and Mike Choi
Colored by Sonia Oback
Lettered by Cory Petit

Collects X-Force #12-13 & #17-20. Using his assembled mutant-haters as his pawns, Bastion has begun to put his malicious plans into action – weaponizing the Legacy virus, infecting mutants, causing them to self-destruct, and causing mortal damage to all those around them. As X-Force follows Bastion’s trail, attempting to stop the carnage he has set into motion, Cyclops learns the location of what could be mutantkind’s last hope – will he force X-Force to abandon their allies to seek Hope out?

Spinning multiple plates isn’t new to the “X-Force” creative team, but the third volume collecting #12-13/17-20 is the first time some wobbling begins to happen. ‘Not Forgotten’ is all over the place from setting up a crossover, dealing with the thing they were doing before that crossover, telling character focused two parter, and battling some Ice Giants. It lacks a unifying core to draw all of these things together, besides the ever present unending violence that makes the casts lives/occupation. The collection is split fairly evenly into two distinct stories starting with ‘Suicide Leper’ as the squad deals with the Leper Queen and her staged mutant suicide bombings. The book finishes with the eponymous ‘Not Forgotten’ as Laura Kinney is kidnapped by the Facility. Sprinkled throughout the adventure of Rahne continues as she and Hrimhari tussle with Ice Giants in a plot that were it not for aesthetic ties, would read as if it were misprinted into the pages of “X-Force.” ‘Not Forgotten’ has a lot to get through as the book is slowly used as fodder for larger meta-X-Men line stories, but the creative team use these issues to provide some twists on storytelling conventions, spotlight some characters, and give some amount of emotional closure.

To the creative teams credit while this run of issues is a bit all over the place, they manage to pay off threads and ideas they’d setup in the first issues. The hunt for the Leper Queen is a continuation of the series overall shadow campaign against Bastion. Rhane and Hrimhari’s tussle with Giants, ludicrous as it is, continues her thread from the previous run of issues. The search for Cable as preamble to “Messiah War” has been simmering away since the first issue. The ‘Not Forgotten’ arc pays of Agent Alisande Morales’ investigation into Laura. It’s obvious that this run of “X-Force” was planned out well in advance allowing it to create closed loops when it can and feel coherent that sort of planning pays off when keeping the manic nature of this collection at bay.

The two part ‘Suicide Leper’ lacks the length and bombast of “Angels & Demons” serving largely as prologue to the “Messiah War” crossover as seen by the large banners on their covers. Maybe because it was somewhat disposable, writers Kyle and Yost have some fun and twist a few of their storytelling conventions. The use of internal dialogue is ever present throughout this run, it puts the readers in the mind of the various members of X-Force allowing for immediate juxtaposition between their violent actions and shifting feelings on the matter. It can read a tad heavy handed at times but it fit the tonality of the book. One of the outgrowths of this interiority is how it enables identification with the protagonists and distances the reader from the antagonists, Bastions conglomeration of mutant hate groups. While the series would segue to the villains lair from time to time these scene are functionally more about plot progression than characterization. This lack means the book never asks you to consider them beyond their prescribed role as antagonist, this collection mocks them for their ignorant bigotry. Visually it isn’t much better, the Purifiers, Sapien League, etc. all have their individualism suppressing henchmen uniforms and Clayton Crain’s art was never one for lots of specific detail, nor Choi and Oback’s. These representational choices turn the antagonists of “X-Force’ into cartoonish, inherent, evil instead of dimensionalized foes.

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‘Suicide Leper’ begins to deconstruct that cartoonish façade a bit by twisting one of the writers favorite tools, internal monologue. We don’t spend much time in the heads of X-Force for these issues, the majority of it is spent with their target, Leper Queen, as she stages various mutant suicide bombings brought on by the Legacy Virus – killing hundreds of her own people. Crain’s painterly style is very effective at pairing the characters unemotive design with feeling of exhaustion at her present work. Putting us insider her head doesn’t turn her into a “Good Nazi,” her internal thoughts are unapologetic but point towards her bigotry as outgrowth of her own self-loathing. What all of this does though is make the reader recognize that she is in fact human on some level, and maybe even feel something as she anguishes at her lack of an end.

By focusing on the Leper Queen, the creative team draw parallels with X-Force. Their ideologies are different, despite similar roots, but their goals and process are not too dissimilar. What becomes most apparent is both are led by distant, tactical, leaders; one of whom has the excuse of being a techno-organic entity. As a side note Bastion’s modification of the Phalanx-Magus to turn his conglomeration into meat puppets is interesting considering Jonathan Hickman’s present “X-Men” work and the series interest in transhumanism and how the mutant gene disrupts that paradigm.

With the large banners, ‘Suicide Leper’ obviously exists, at least as a selling point, as setup in some way for “Messiah War.” I tend to find crossovers to be frustratingly inconsistent in terms of form and idea, this one wasn’t much different. How Kyle and Yost handle the transition is excellent and a bit meta. ‘Leper’ is a straightforward deadline plot: X-Force must find and stop her from unleashing three more mutant suicide bombers, who are somewhat prominent mutants this time, on the U.N. building. Kyle and Yost add a second delaine as finding Cable grows ever closer. These deadlines transform ‘Leper’ into an effective suspense thriller in the Hitchcockian formulation. The creative team provide several bombs under the table and multiple ticking clocks for the reader to anxiously take note of. So as the squad is unceremoniously pulled into the future by Cyclops, their failure is dramatic and effective. It’s also a bit meta with Cyclops serving as editor pulling the book away from being its own thing.

‘Leper’ also sees the return of Clayton Crain to art duties. As previously discussed his and Mike Choi-Sonia Oback’s art styles are capable of different things, those differences become extremely apparent in the back half as it relates to the treatment of violence by the art teams. During my discussion of “Angels & Demons” I noted how Crain’s art primarily showed violence by its after images, the viscera and piles of bodies. As Angel and Laura are caught up in one of the mutant explosions in issue #12, the double page spread is awash with colors their figures standing out as their detail contrasts with the nondescript melting or vaporizing civilians. Once the squad return to the present and Choi-Obak take over art duties, violence becomes explicit and a parodic with the level of blood. Such as when Wolverine turns some anonymous henchmen’s toroso/being into a read mist with a single stroke – in another “Fist of the North Star” reference. It’s honestly surprising this got published by Marvel considering how they treat violence in a very PG-13 manner. Fights can have all the intense choreography and bone crunching audio, as long as they don’t get wet. Choie and Oback put the wet in the teams “wetwork.”

The use and portrayal of violence is more effective once the book segues into the kidnapping and rescue of Laura Kinney from the Facility. The sadistic Kimura dissects Laura with a chainsaw giving the readers a horrifying single page splash of Laura strung up by one arm, her other cut off below the shoulder. This three page sequence, which begins on an even more horrifying 5 panel page that echoes exquisite corpse art as deep panel gutters bisect Laura and Kimura, rearranging them into a composite figure. The use of violence and gore here is worth purpose this time, as opposed to hollow shock value, it is the medium to show the viewer how Kimura views Laura Kinney, or the variations of X-23 she continually calls her. The horror of the moment also helps due to the presence of Agent Alisande Morales, as she discovers the true origins of Laura and gets a job offer. Despite being a SHIELD/HAMMER member, even this shocks her. Morales provides a normal quasi-straight man perspective to this wildness as the comic turns into a mad science/slasher story.

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This was the first real Laura Kinney story I ever read. It took me a while to find her origin stuff in and the less said about “NYX” in general the better. This two part story, however, gives the uninitiated a good idea of where she came from and what she’s up against. Choi and Oback do a great job of capturing the raw humanity within her as the Facility lab burns and yet she feels helpless. The righteous rage she unleashes with the trigger scent on those anonymous henchmen. This mixed with Logan’s paternal feelings to her turned her into one of my favorite Marvel characters. She’s had several good solo series written by Marjorie Liu, Tom Taylor, and Mariko Tamaki since “X-Force.”

Separate from all this is Rahne, Hrimhari, and some Ice Giants. If it weren’t for all the blood this thread would feel wildly out of place, though the continual degradation of Angel’s cabin provides a somewhat humorous release. Crain’s depiction of Rahne is at least more anthropomorphic and less voluptuous and moderately furry. Rahne can’t seem to escape violence form intruding on her life, but it’s what Hrimhari offers her that pays off the arc she has been on from the start. He offers her unconditional love and acceptance, the things she was crying out for in the previous collection. Now, dramatically for me it’s a little rough just because I lack context for their relationship but overall it is the right move to make for her story. She isn’t magically healed by it either.

James Proudstar also gets a bit more catharsis after a mixed experience teaming with Ghost Rider. He saves fellow New Mutant Tabitha “Boom-Boom” Smith from being raped. The setup was rote back than as it is now, but it provides him an avenue to show that these new skills might be able to help his fellow X-man. It isn’t as clean as Rahne’s an continues to perpetuate violence as a means of regeneration, but it is a closed loop.

With this, “X-Force” stops being its own thing. The remaining 8 issues are all part of various crossovers from “X-Necrosha” to “Second Coming.” I wish Kyle and Yost and the art teams had more time to themselves and room to explore these characters and the cost of their actions. This note is picked up to some degree in the Remender written “Uncanny X-Force.” How the X-Force plays into “Second Coming” will be the subject of next week’s Summer Binge.


//TAGS | 2019 Summer Comics Binge

Michael Mazzacane

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