Previously On X-Men: ‘Inglorious X-Force’ #1 Is The Best Of The New Batch

It’s the busiest week yet for “Shadows of Tomorrow” (in part due to the arrival of the perpetually-late X-Men of Apocalypse) — and surprisingly, most of the books are pretty solid (the biggest exception being the aforementioned X-Men of Apocalypse)!

Inglorious X-Force #1 – Book of the Week

By Tim Seeley & Michael Sta. Maria

Cable assembles a new X-Force team to prevent the future assassination of the first mutant president.

• This issue doesn’t have a legacy number on its cover, but it would be #301, and the title “A Force to Be Expected” seems like an homage to the title of the first X-Force #1’s story (“A Force To Be Reckoned With”).
• Belle and Professor are the names of Cable’s interactive AI helpers. Other than the fact that the story starts with Cable talking to Belle, his current AI, it’s not immediately clear where in his personal timeline this story takes place.
• Cable lands in X-Force’s original base in the Adirondacks , which they used in X-Force #1-15. It was original the base of Larry Trask and his Sentinel program in X-Men #57-59.
• The picture Cable spots is of the original X-Force lineup, meaning technically, the Domino in that picture is Copycat.
• Cable’s stashed gear appropriately looks a lot like his uniform from X-Force #1.
• During Archangel’s board meeting, his involvement with the Krakoa Era X-Corp is referenced (it can’t still be a going concern, though), his tenure with the most recent iteration of X-Factor is (rightly) called an embarrassment, and later, he’s shown to be capable of transforming from Angel to Archangel with ease, as in that X-Factor series.
• Cable mentions Daken having once run the Madripoor docks; that’s from around Daken: Dark Wolverine #5.
• Boom-Boom was last seen as part of King Bedlam’s Hellions (the team Cyclops called on to attack ONE); here, she’s now living in California and engaging in demolition-for-hire. Her “hell yes!” reaction to being recruited is a refreshing change from both this issue’s other reluctant team members and the general convention that requires the recruiter to convince the recruitee to join up in these kinds of stories.
• She returns to wearing a version of her second, Greg Capullo-designed, uniform which she first adopted after “X-Cutioner’s Song.”
• Despite her last appearance being a great big celebration of the 50th anniversary of the “All New, All Different X-Men” which found Ms. Marvel romping through key pieces of X-Men history, she’s back to being a local Jersey City superhero here, sporting no X-Men logos on her costume.
• It’s unclear if Seeley is specifically referencing the story, but Kamala was shown to be the president in the future in All-New Wolverine #33-35.
• The new Mutant Liberation Front is comprised of mostly new characters, though a version of Unveil appeared in Seeley’s “Age of X-Man” series, Apocalypse & The X-Tracts.
• Archangel mentions his old X-Force base – Cavern-X, from Rick Remender‘s Uncanny X-Force.
• Domino’s last regular gig was running security for Dazzler in the Dazzler miniseries.
• What are the odds this series lasts longer than Weapon X-Men (four issues) or the last volume of X-Force (ten issues)? All quality aside, I’m betting ten at most.

A decent start to Marvel’s latest attempt to make an X-Force series stick — an interesting premise (we’ll see how the Kamala thing works out, but the idea of her being anti-X-Force at least gives it a bit of a hook beyond the immediate plot) and a nice mix of characters from different X-Force eras (and one newbie in Daken), though I wouldn’t mind one or two more members. Seeley seems to embracing the history of the series (or at least its earliest incarnation), making it a departure from the last volume, and Sta. Maria brings an appropriately gritty look to the book. Intrigued to see where this goes.

Psylocke: Ninja #1

By Tim Seeley & Nico Leon

Brainwashed and in a new body, Psylocke crosses swords with Elektra.

• A continuity-implant series, the bulk of this issue is set in a small window between Uncanny X-Men #256 (which chronicled Psylocke’s transformation into an Asian ninja) and #257 (when she battled Wolverine and Jubilee as “Lady Mandarin.”
• It begins, however, in Uncanny X-Men #251, shortly before the “Outback X-Men” entered the Siege Perilous, in a pretty faithful recreation of panels from that issue.
• Psylocke’s precognitive telepathy was indeed a part of her power set once upon a time; it doesn’t come up much in modern stories.
• One of the fisherman who finds Psylocke refers to the Hand as a “cruel, criminal clan” — who talks like that?
• Somewhat famously, the initial story of Psylocke’s transformation was retconned in the early 90s to introduce the idea that British Psylocke wasn’t transformed into an Asian woman, but had her mind swapped into an Asian’s woman’s body (and then retconned again shortly thereafter once Fabian Nicieza realized he forgot a key piece of the initial transformation that complicated his retcon), so this story will need to grapple with all that. For now, it’s simply name-dropping the appropriate players/plot points, such as Matsu’o’s feelings for crimelord Nyoirin’s assassin Kwannon.
• I am not as well-versed in Elektra’s personal history, but I believe her appearance is here is meant to occur after her return in Elektra: Assassin, a miniseries that was originally meant to be non-canonical but then got canonized by the Daredevil “Fall from Grace” story.
• Given that the X-line currently has Kwannon entrenched as Psylocke while Elizabeth Braddock is operating (off-panel, at the moment) as Captain Britain and it just wrapped a solo series titled Psylocke and starring Kwannon, it’s a bit puzzling to see them putting out another series starring a version of the character that doesn’t match the one in either that solo series or that appears currently in X-Men, but what do I know?

The cultural appropriation issues (which certainly haven’t aged better since 1989…) and muddied branding aside, this isn’t terrible. Nico Leon’s art has some charm — and is thankfully miles away from the T&A cover — and if Seeley has a deeper hook planned for the story beyond “Psylocke fights Elektra”, it could work.

Rogue #1

By Erica Schultz & Luigi Zagaria

Rogue starts having flashbacks to a mission with the Brotherhood she doesn’t remember, leading her to seek out Mystique.

• A spiritual sequel to last year’s Rogue: Savage Land miniseries, unlike that book (or the Psylocke mini launching this week), it’s not a pure continuity implant story, with most of the book set in the present day while teasing the reveal of an “untold tale” from Rogue’s past.
• Specifically, Rogue is flashing back to her time with the Mystique-led Brotherhood of Evil Mutants which, as continuity implants go, is a more fertile (or at least more sensical) place to implant a story than, say, her time hanging out in the Savage Land with Magneto. Rogue didn’t make many appearances between her debut and when she joined the X-Men, and when she did, it was usually just alongside Mystique and/or Destiny rather than the full Brotherhood. So there’s some novelty to the idea of seeing her hanging out with the likes of Blob, Avalanche and Pyro.
• Minor villain Constrictor appears alongside Sabretooth in Rogue’s flashback; the two were indeed partners when Sabretooth debuted in Iron Fist.
• Rogue notes that her current default power set (including invulnerability) comes from Wonder Man, during their Uncanny Avengers days.
• She also says that Xavier helped cleared her head of other people’s memories, which is likely a reference to X-Men Legacy #224.
• During Rogue’s weird flashback/memory where she shifts into being different people as Sabretooth kills someone, Constrictor has a fantastic “whoa, hey, leave me out of this!” look on his face.

• Mystique is in a debilitating condition as a result of her “From the Ashes” miniseries, which makes her (healthy) appearance in last year’s Hellfire Vigil one-shot all the more incongruous.

Nothing groundbreaking, but solid stuff. My favorite thing about it is the way the bulk of the issue is just Rogue, Gambit, Ransom and Deathdream doing regular X-Men stuff (fighting a Kaiju), the kind of thing we don’t usually see in Uncanny X-Men itself because it’s busy furthering one of its several dozen subplots and character arcs. It’s one of the things these seemingly-unending spigot of solo X-books is good for, at least when they’re not entirely set in the past.

Spider-Man & Wolverine #9

By Marc Guggenheim & Gerardo Sandoval

Spider-Man & Wolverine seemingly defeat Arachnix, only to have him follow them back to their reality.

• Kaare Andrews sits out the penultimate issue of the series built as vehicle to showcase his art, which…isn’t a good look.
• Continuing last issue’s heroes-as-villains mashups, this issue we meet this world’s version of S.H.I.E.L.D. – S.C.Y.T.H.E. – composed of Doctor Doom, Black Widow, Blob-Thing (I guess a mashup of Blob and Thing) and Bullion (Iceman and…???).
• Their existence kind of undercuts the realization Spider-Man and Wolverine make earlier in the issue, and these villains never really had any superheroes to fight, making them easier pickings for the title characters. I guess maybe S.C.Y.T.H.E. aren’t meant to be very good?
• They operate out of Four Fathoms Plaza, their version of the Fantastic Four’s Four Freedoms Plaza.
• Wolverine notes that he keeps stashes of clothes in various cities around the world.

This continues to be a stronger story than the first arc, but it’s a shame Andrews can’t finish out his spotlight series.

X-Men #24

By Jed MacKay & Tony Daniel

In the wake of the Chairman’s absence, the members of 3K turn on each other.

• This is one of those “all villains” issues, where none of the (regular) X-Men appear.
• Similar to how last issue picked up immediately from the point where Future Cyclops arrived in the present, this issue chronicles what the rest of 3K was up to during the time when the Chairman’s consciousness was in the “Age of Revelation” future (and his body — containing the mind of Future Beast – was in lockdown).
• The Chairman trading in his skinny “synthetic body” for one styled after the white-furred Beast of the future is a clever way to give us a Beast-looking Chairman (now that his identity has been revealed) that is visually-distinct from “Heroic Beast” (and Dark Beast, if he ever shows), even if he doesn’t bother to explain to the rest of 3K why he made a body for himself with white fur.
• Myriad is Piper Cobb, Robin Cobb’s sister who took the form of a big Kaiju when she first attacked the X-Men. She was last seen running off with Cassandra Nova in issue #18.
• Joseph gets to do more than stand next to Astra in this issue, and he’s certainly more all-in on being a villain and usurping Magneto that the original conflicted version of the character was.
• The Chairman ordering the execution of Schwarzchild because he’s one of the X-Men in the future seems like a parallel to how Future Cyclops inadvertently pushed Doug down the path of Revelation by trying to kill him last issue; obviously, the Chairman’s attack immediately alters the “Age of Revelation” timeline, but it could still lead to the same result: Schwarzchild with the regular X-Men.

These kinds of all-villain issues are always fun, and this makes for a good “counter epilogue” to the previous issue that continues to grapple with the fallout from “Age of Revelation” without directly picking up from the end of that issue. Were all those “Age of Revelation” issues necessary to get us to this reveal/plot turn? No. But now that we’re here, at least its entertaining.

Check out Tony’s review of the issue here.

X-Men Of Apocalypse #2

By Jeph Loeb & Simone Di Meo

The X-Men of Apocalypse battle the original X-Men in an effort to contact the Phoenix.

• Young Cyclops saying he can barely understand Gambit’s phonetically-written accent made me chuckle.
• Morph seems surprised to learn Iceman is just a kid, even though Iceman is one of the X-Men alongside Morph in “Age of Apocalypse.”
• Forge tells Xavier that in another time they’re friends. Except there is no Xavier in “Age of Apocalypse.” That’s kinda the whole point of it.
• The first Savage Land setting Phoenix drops the X-Men into is presumably the Garokk/Zaladane story from X-Men #114-116.
• The second is obviously set between Uncanny X-Men #269 and #274 aka when Rogue was in the Savage Land with Magneto. Which, even though we just played around in that time period last year, isn’t a terrible pull for this series, given the entirety of the Magneto/Rogue relationship in “Age of Apocalypse” is more or less predicated on it.

Di Meo’s art continues to be the draw, though here especially, it’s weaker sequentially and largely succeeds as a series of good-looking standalone images. The premise that the brand new original X-Men — from literally the opening panels of their first appearance, before they’ve even met Jean or faced Magneto for the first time — would be able to hold their own in any capacity against the battle-hardened X-Men of the Age of Apocalypse is pretty laughable, though.