X-Force #1 review starring Black Tom Cassidy *spoilers*

[Jackraow21]

As for all the people griping about the security on Krakoa, or lack thereof, due to powerful telepaths and whatnot... you do realize they also have Proteus and now Jamie Braddock also hanging out on the island. Two mutants who can literally alter reality, thereby the means to magically solve any problem or crisis with a thought. Sometimes you just have to suspend disbelief and roll with it. The mutants felt happy and secure, and got lax. Deal with it. For the sake of the story. Otherwise, you’re right. The X-men should never have any adventures. The omega mutants would just resolve everything. End of story.

[Lapsus]

Which they do in every story all the time. I really don't get this stakes thing. OMG fictional characters aren't dying so i don't feel the "Stakes." Each their own. I'm going to go do something mindless now to pull myself back together.

For me is the same as "good guys always win" you still want to see this played out because you want to know how they are gonna win.

Removing death in a comic book centered un fights is big blunder for me, now they can make more irrelevant deaths because now death is more cheap.

I will always prefer that if a character is not meant to stay dead, then it shouldnt be killed.

This inmortality thing (the worst inmortality because they simply get resurrected inmediately, they are still dying)

[People Of The Earth]

It wasn't at all easy, and it isn't an invasion. This was a clinical assassination attempt by a force seeking to exploit a perceived weakness. The fact that killing Xavier probably won't prove to be an effective way to deal with Krakoa, resurrection or indeed Xavier doesn't take away from the planning that this operation took.

I reiterate my point, it is not possible to prevent this kind of attack from happening 100% of the time. The combined western security forces have had these kinds of threats as their top priority for over a decade and they haven't been able to prevent all of them. Combine that with the fact that this nation is new and probably needs to build its own intelligence service and links from scratch, this was a vulnerable window of time that was exploited.

As a bonus, we will now see how easy and or difficult it is for another telepath to do Xavier's resurrection task, and it will probably at least begin some discussion about their redundancy planning. They have two islands and a number of off world bases. Ideally they need a contingency for The Five being taken out wholesale (this was partly addressed in text and we could easily come up with a contingency but we haven't seen this in a story yet.)

This is true.
The execution could (should?) have been better though.
Krakoa is not the size of continental US or even a country like mine - it doesn't require the same level of resources nor Manpower to secure its borders.
Factor-in the fact the Kraked not only have access to super-science, extraterrestrial technologies, magic and are, in themselves, superpowered individuals, and you have to raise an eyebrow as to what happened here.
We weren't shown those attackers getting past Kraked enforcers/soldiers and surprising them.
We were shown those attackers fooling a detection system manned by one man and linked with one woman, with zero enforcers/soldiers to be found anywhere on the ground.
There was zero security forces here, and it's jarring because Hickman made a big deal of the mutants having their own nation.
Well, they should act the par as a result, because this issue made Krakoa look like a glorified wild campsite, not a country per se.

[Devaishwarya]

I don't know what fans want. If there is was a force logically capable overpowering the mutants as people see it on Krakoa they wouldn't be ridiculous OP? When Rosenberg was killing mutants in his run fan were complaining. You give fans stakes with "death" they complain. You take away fake omg death fans complain. What do people want?

To be clear Xavier was super naive in this book and yes the X-men were less prepared for an attack than should have been BUT when you have Exodus, Magneto, Jean Grey, Apocalypse,etc in one place . Wouldn't you be stupidly confident that nobody will attack you? Understand that reckless and stupid nature of the attack is why it worked,If you were attack the Pentagon with a ground tactical team or group of fighter jets they would get smoked. The same thing with Krakoa it would smoke a conventional attack. But if you attack willing to suicide attack the pentagon but hijacking a civilian plane it would work. This wasn't some brilliant attack it was reckless stupid one that only work because the people doing where willing to die pointlessly. When people are willing to die to do something evil it is real hard to stop. These guys just came to shoot up as much mutants as possible and die,If they made it to shoot at Xavier it is extra win for them. And Xavier made it easy by running to the fight like he is an expert in combat.

The point of the story is that mutants on Krakoa got comfortable and paid the price. Now it is legit question why in the world they felt that comfortable but it is entire logical that they were feeling themselves a little too much and they got careless.

Agreed.
Which...the bolded...speaks to the Bar Sinister Gossip of Krakoans celebrating when they should be mindful of people in hoods breaching their shores. (paraphrasing)

[Michael Watkins]

people are jumping to all sorts of conclusions as if none of us has read a cliffhanger before. it's very easy to call Xavier an idiot or blame him for being unprepared when you don't have the full story, yet. this is a book about the krakoan CIA, afterall. are we expecting everything to be straightforward? did it seem logical to all of you that Xavier went to Sokovia alone? wait and see.

[Omega Alpha]

As for all the people griping about the security on Krakoa, or lack thereof, due to powerful telepaths and whatnot... you do realize they also have Proteus and now Jamie Braddock also hanging out on the island. Two mutants who can literally alter reality, thereby the means to magically solve any problem or crisis with a thought. Sometimes you just have to suspend disbelief and roll with it. The mutants felt happy and secure, and got lax. Deal with it. For the sake of the story. Otherwise, you’re right. The X-men should never have any adventures. The omega mutants would just resolve everything. End of story.

Some mutants got lax? Sure. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, including people to whom would be wildly out of character, like Cyclops, Magneto, Moira, etc? Nope. If your premise requires every major character to act completely out of character, perhaps you shouldn't be writing it.

This is true.
The execution could (should?) have been better though.
Krakoa is not the size of continental US or even a country like mine - it doesn't require the same level of resources nor Manpower to secure its borders.
Factor-in the fact the Kraked not only have access to super-science, extraterrestrial technologies, magic and are, in themselves, superpowered individuals, and you have to raise an eyebrow as to what happened here.
We weren't shown those attackers getting past Kraked enforcers/soldiers and surprising them.
We were shown those attackers fooling a detection system manned by one man and linked with one woman, with zero enforcers/soldiers to be found anywhere on the ground.
There was zero security forces here, and it's jarring because Hickman made a big deal of the mutants having their own nation.
Well, they should act the par as a result, because this issue made Krakoa look like a glorified wild campsite, not a country per se.

Yep. Again, this premise requires every mutant in Krakoa to be stupid.

[Lapsus]

I remember saying a few weeks ago that I really hoped that this resurrection thing wouldn’t be an excuse to have mutants just violently offed just because they can freely do it now. So....take that how you will. Love Cassara’s stuff and still getting to see Trance and Dust namechecked in the Director’s Cut was fun! All-in-all I still love it, just a liiiiiiiiittle bit disappointed.

This.

If they want to remove senseless death, the last thing that i want is feeling that the x-men are now expendable meat shields.

[JKtheMac]

Yeah, the only "small" problem is that this requires all characters to be stupid and out of character to think they would never be attacked and can never be threatened.

No it absolutely doesn't. Nobody thought that and this issue didn't portay anyone like that. You are making up your own reasons to be dissatisfied.

Moira is literally the most knowledgeable and paranoid character in the Marvel Universe now, and this is an island that has Magneto, Exodus, Sinister, Apocalypse, Cyclops, etc. To think all of them would get complacent is just stupid

Again nobody was being complacent. They had set up a very elaborate surveillance operation. What they haven't had time to do is think through everything yet. Starting your own country isn't easy. Look at Israel. They were in a war straight away.

and to say a nation that was founded after previous attempts by the same people included one Holocaust by machines (in Moira's case, several) and another invasion by foreign power would never think of creating an intelligence sector, or that were at risk of attack, until someone murders the leader, is absolutely ridiculous.

Again, nobody said this. Literally nobody said they didn't think of it. They even talk about Force protocols in HoXPoX. Your objections are just not based on anything other than your own perceptions of what other people are saying.

Also, the idea that a nation that has leaders people like the characters I mentioned, plus Mystique, Gorgon, Bishop, Magik, etc, in leadership positions needs an X-force because they would grow too soft otherwise makes no sense.

Who said they had grown too soft? They weren't even complacent. They were simply caught off guard to a very well planned small scale operation. Any nation could be. Was it unbelievable that four small teams took down The World Trade Center, put a hole in the Pentagon, and nearly destroyed the Whitehouse? Clearly not. Inconceivable yes. Unbelievable no.

[Kitty&Piotr<3]

Re deaths:

I don't know what everyone expected. HoXPoX told yall that mutants have infinite bodies. They wouldn't need infinite bodies if they weren't gonna die.

[JB]

Krakoa is not the size of continental US or even a country like mine - it doesn't require the same level of resources nor Manpower to secure its borders.

Correct, not as big as our countries but it's pretty big.
The island is 263 sq miles and the map says "total" is 316 sq miles, so I'm assuming that means including the habitats around the world.
100 square miles = approximately 48,400 football fields. So the island is big.

[JB]

Some mutants got lax? Sure. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, including people to whom would be wildly out of character, like Cyclops, Magneto, Moira, etc? Nope. If your premise requires every major character to act completely out of character, perhaps you shouldn't be writing it.

Black Tom was trying to warn them. They experienced a big fail. It happens and now I'm even more interested in issue #2.

And regarding the deaths or lack thereof, I find it infinitely more interesting to see how this process works and how they handle it than just a regular death.

[Mutant X]

I don't know what fans want. If there is was a force logically capable overpowering the mutants as people see it on Krakoa they wouldn't be ridiculous OP? When Rosenberg was killing mutants in his run fan were complaining. You give fans stakes with "death" they complain. You take away fake omg death fans complain. What do people want?

You are new here, right?
90% of the posts wouldn't exist if fans weren't complaining.

[Triniking1234]

Most of the complaints about Percy's story seem to be from people trying to out-think him. I think we should wait until #2 comes out.

[jwatson]

For me is the same as "good guys always win" you still want to see this played out because you want to know how they are gonna win.

Removing death in a comic book centered un fights is big blunder for me, now they can make more irrelevant deaths because now death is more cheap.

I will always prefer that if a character is not meant to stay dead, then it shouldnt be killed.

This inmortality thing (the worst inmortality because they simply get resurrected inmediately, they are still dying)

Personally i think death is cheap period. Because at some point a person is always going to come back regardless so nothing has changed other than an immediate sense of realizing i don't have to wait 10 years to see a character come back. ON top of that the money makers don't die anyway. I don't see what value is added to a story or taken away when you know a character can come back in a week vs a year or in another book with no explanation. But then like life, i live not looking to live before i die i live to experience life. And that's what i want in my stories. I want to experience the characters life, and death doesn't play a part in that for me. But different strokes.

[Perfection/Emma 2]

Even though this book has nothing to do with Mama (Emma Frost). I would love a scene with her cursing out Sage and Black Tom for not catching the human threat in time