X-Men ’97: Revisiting ‘Uncanny X-Force: The Apocalypse Solution’

With the debut of Marvel Studios’ X-Men ‘97, X-Men diehards were surprised by a few of the faces we saw in the season debut and previews. This new season was clearly going to be drawing influences from multiple comics from the last thirty years. To refresh ourselves with one of the key ones, we continued our look at Apocalypse’s history with revisiting Uncanny X-Force: The Apocalypse Solution.

By the debut of 2010’s Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender, Jerome Opena, Dean White and Cory Petit, Apocalypse had been off the board for some time. The immortal mutant supremacist hadn’t appeared in any significant manner in 2006’s X-Men: Blood of Apocalypse storyline. Meanwhile, the X-Men had been through years of upheaval, with the X-Gene being suppressed after House of X, leading up to Hope Summers, the mutant messiah, joining the X-Men at the cost of Nightcrawler and Cable’s lives.

So things were bleak as the series picked up, with a glimmer of hope. That did mean when Wolverine and Warren Worthington began to hear whispers of the return of Apocalypse, they had to act.

Uncanny X-Force, though darker and centered around a strike force, is a deeply character-centered book from page one. While at first, it appears that this is going to be an action centered book, we’re immediately given the journeys of multiple characters. Wolverine is grappling at doing the darker things so others don’t have to. Warren is trying to find the balance between himself and his Archangel persona. Psylocke is facing the possibility that she may have to do terrible things to save the soul of the man she loves, perhaps even taking his life. Even though Fantomex and Deadpool don’t get much development in this arc, they both get a set-up full of possibility.

It’s a remarkably fascinating set-up, that’s all happening while Ozymandias is attempting to resurrect Apocalypse in the cloned body of a twelve year old boy. And to protect this new Apocalypse, Ozymandias has awakened the Final Horsemen, the darkest and most powerful incarnation of the Horsemen to date.

The art here is absolutely incredible. Opena has been one of my favorite artists in comics for years and a huge part of that is because of his work here. Everything feels grimy, but it never feels overly dark or messy. A weird highlight is Wolverine’s injuries — gross without being too graphic — and the action is always easy to follow.

Now, as far as the direction connection to X-Men ‘97, we meet the Final Horsemen here. And this is one of Remender’s biggest faults in his Marvel work. These Horsemen are all mutants of the distant past, ranging from ancient Greek days to the American Antebellum South. They all have interesting powers with a fascinating character set-up. But that’s where it ends. They’re fascinating ideas, great set-ups, but they don’t go further than that. Hell, they even get taken out like chumps with an illusion.

On one hand, I was so glad to revisit this story, because it’s the beginning of a fascinating, complex journey for its stars. On the other, I was a little disappointed in how insignificant the characters that prompted me to revisit really are.

But hey, sometimes the possibility is all we need.