X-Force #1
Story By: Benjamin Percy
Art By: Joshua Cassara
Colors By: Dean White
Letters By: Joe Caramagna
Cover By: Dustin Weaver
Release Date: November 6, 2019
X-force is the team that gets its hands dirty so that the rest of the X-Men don’t have to. If you have been following the X-Force series, the basics are still the same, X-Force is a covert squad of mutants tasked with doing all the dirty work.
In X-Force issue 1, Professor Charles Xavier is murdered and his Cerebro helmet destroyed. Although the mutant nation of Krakoa is established, it seems like it is not safe, even in their own back yard. This issue also shows the realistic side of Krakoa.
It seems that in X-Force 1, the X-Force members are introduced gradually. However, it is still not clear who will be in the official roster of X-Force.
Well, that’s the summary. Let’s open the comic.
X-Force #1 Review
Domino
It starts in an unknown location where a man with a peacock tattoo in a full face mask uses a knife to make a cut on his finger and place some blood in some sort of a scanning flattened bowl. A purity test, to test whether any of those attending the meeting is with the X-gene or not.
Everyone is wearing the same type of mask and it’s difficult to tell who is who. Everything is so secretive. The man with a peacock tattoo wants everyone to do the test to determine that no mutants are in the meeting.
A bouncer with a red beard walks around the room to check. All are doing the purity test except for one masked woman.
The woman then says “You know, it took a lot of luck to get here. But it’s going to take a lot more to get out”.
She stabs the bouncer with a knife and starts to punch and kick the other people in the meeting. The bouncer, with the knife still in his hand, grabs the woman and slams her down onto the table and to the ground. He pulls the mask off and we can see that she is Domino.
Wolverine and Beast
From there the next page moves to Krakoa where Beast is collecting plant samples and suddenly a large pig liked creature attacks him. Wolverine who has been hunting it a few days earlier appears on the scene and attacks the creature.
He is about to finish the creature off but Beast tells Wolverine to let it go.
“Every flower-filled meadow’s got a hawk or a wolf or a snake lingering nearby, waiting for a taste. There’s always a Predator”
“Whatever the hell that thing was, you didn’t see it coming. Because you felt sheltered. That’s what Krakoa does. Makes everyone feel safe. And when you are safe, you are soft.”
Wolverine then heads off into the wilderness.
Black Tom Cassidy, Kitty Pryde, Jean Grey, and Colossus
Black Tom Cassidy sits in a kind of earthen throne. Krakoa’s aquatic detectors inform him that a ship is coming. At the same time, Jean Grey tells Tom that there’s a disturbance on the northwest shore.
Tom and a group of mutants are already there and he sees Kitty Pryde and her Marauders arriving.
Jean keeps telling him to hurry. She is not referring to Kitty, her Marauders or the content of the ship, but she feels pain. Jean boards the vessel and sees that Colossus is among the injured refugees. He is in his armored form with dents and cracks ruining his metal.
Professor X, Sage & Healer
This is the part where the action starts in X-Force #1. We are now at Incheon airport. Some big sized men and women are boarding an airplane.
At the same time back in Krakoa, Professor X is standing in front of some sort of a gateway. He contacts Sage and tells her that Cerebro has lost contact with Domino for more than a week already. However Sage can’t find anything.
Professor X arrives in Sokovia through the gateway where he is meeting some people to sign a treaty with Krakoa.
Back at Kraokoa’s Healing Gardens of Krakoa. The Healer is unable to assist his new patients where it hurts since all of them are unconscious and naked 😀
Jean Grey reaches out into Colossus and she can see Colossus’s memory where he was carrying a mutant child in his arm, running away from soldiers firing at them. She can’t help the Healer much.
“I can’t tell you where they hurt. Because they hurt everywhere”
You can see that Colossus is already not in his armored form. He was asleep earlier, but now his eyes are open and he looks concern.
Back to the plane, the big-sized men and women I mentioned earlier, have taken over the plane.
They jump out of the plane and heading straight for Krakoa. Tom is aware and contacts Sage, but suddenly Domino is detected and Sage assumes that Domino is parachuting.
The attackers might have found a way to cloak themselves as Domino. How? Maybe it will be explained in future issues.
While Tom and Professor X are discussing security, the four soldiers deploy their parachutes and seem like Wolverine smells their scents.
Then, suddenly, laser sights appear out of nowhere and shots fired.
Black Tom asks Professor X to run while he takes two soldiers while another by Beast. Now Beast realized Wolverine was right.
“There are indeed, always predators”.
Everyone realized that Krakoa makes everyone feel safe and they are getting soft. But it is already too late. A soldier manages to track down Xavier and shoot him. The End.
Should You Buy X-Force #1 and Subscribe to X-Force Comic Series?
If you are only buying one X-Men comic right now, it should be X-Force. I enjoyed X-Force #1 very much. It reminds me of Rick Remender and Jerome Opena’s Uncanny X-Force. Just that the art by Joshua Cassara is a bit rough. There are panels where they are just too sketchy with no attention to detail.
X-Force #1 was only released 4 months ago, so it still not too late to catch up if you have not got a copy.
Read my review on X-Force #2, X-Force #3, X-Force #4, and X-Force #5. It gets better.