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

[JB]

b) four human terrorists armed with nothing but guns arrive on an island FULL of powerful ass mutants and outside of Boom Boom, only the X-Force fights back?

I'm interested in learning what "lab-enhanced" means. It seems they were extremely quick and they were assassins. No hesitation.

I assume that is was like a minute or two
..so only those right there had time to react.

Agreed. It happened extremely fast.

[JB]

It also says bad things about Krakoa's defenses that 4 humans were able to circumvent it easily and cause mass damage.

It seems they were planning to use the skin of a mutant to fool the scanning and Domino fell into their lap.

[Strong Girl Daken]

This was dumb. Karaoka has been up-and-running for like a week and we've already had a Mutant Massacre?

I wasn't feeling this at all. Very disappointing. Everyone was acting like stupid morons in a horror movie stumbling around with their heads up their asses.

They should just mulch all these pod people and start over, because this batch is seriously defective.

It’s literally a plot point that everyone feels so safe and comfortable on Krakoa that they let their guard down for a minute. That’s going to change now therefore X-Force and the existence of this book.

[jwatson]

It also says bad things about Krakoa's defenses that 4 humans were able to circumvent it easily and cause mass damage. If one of those guys had been with ORCHIS or ONE and brought a mutant extermination weapon, the story could be over right there.

I agree and have said as much but i think that was the whole point. And he was as heavy handed as possible displaying that.

[Kitty&Piotr<3]

Hickman: "We don't want the resurecction protocols to be cheap ways to avoid death."

X-Force: *kills Xavier issue 1*

Hickman: Attachment 89112

I don't think he said anything about avoiding death. The whole idea with this is that death as the ultimate story crux and crutch is over. It's not that no one goes down, it's that they don't go down for good so the story can be fake-meaningful or fake-heartbreaking just because a favorite character is off the board randomly.

[Strong Girl Daken]

Even in X-Force, the tension isn't with Xavier's fate. It's with Cerebro and the back-ups.

[CoCoBandz]

This was dumb. Karaoka has been up-and-running for like a week and we've already had a Mutant Massacre?

I wasn't feeling this at all. Very disappointing. Everyone was acting like stupid morons in a horror movie stumbling around with their heads up their asses.

They should just mulch all these pod people and start over, because this batch is seriously defective.

My exact sentiments.

Feels so cheap and forced. Couldn't help, but laugh at how goofy the entire ordeal was. Felt like, I was reading rosencanny

[numberthirty]

Found myself wondering if this might be "X Force" war gaming out possible weakness in the island's defense system.

Doesn't feel like that would account for Domino, though.

[Wiccan]

Hickman: "We don't want the resurecction protocols to be cheap ways to avoid death."

X-Force: *kills Xavier issue 1*

Hickman: Attachment 89112

Actually, he said on the podcast that writers can still kill mutants, but now instead of just being a sad moment and then everyone mourns them and have some funeral or whatever, they have to create a more interesting story out of it. Death isn't about the death itself but a plot device for development.

[DIVINITY]

I don't get the cliffhanger though...

Me neither.... Interesting, how the repercussions will play out across the board!

[lucius121]

Very disappointing, will not be buying the next one, the whole thing felt forced and contrived, the cliffhanger was anything but. Of all the x-force reboots I’ve read this has been the worst introduction, and I even read the one with creed as a good guy.

[Tenebrae]

Me neither.... Interesting, how the repercussions will play out across the board!

I don't think it will be as straight forward as just resurrecting him and everything will be fine. There's gotta be more to it.

[Killerbee911]

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.

[JKtheMac]

I think it's exactly the opposite.

It's the most aligned with Hickman's idea so far.
In it's first issue X-force already explored two main plots:

1 - state building idea -- geopolitical repercussion of Krakoa, immigration, boundaries, defense forces, commercial agreements.
2 - no more deaths -- Domino's death activating the protocols and Xavier and his Resurrection plan being put at risk.

Thank you. I was reading through the comments waiting for a sane comment. This is entirely set-up for some of the major themes that need exploration. This in turn was set-up by the text pieces in HoX/PoX.

I mean, how many people complained that the text pieces were exposition heavy and were ‘tell not show’? (Which is a misnomer anyway.)

This book is exploring the questions we had in the form of story. One we can clearly see—What happens if Xavier is killed because he is very important to the current resurrection plans—and the other is only hinted at so far. What if they make an incorrect assumption about the death of a mutant, in this case Domino?

To argue that they should have been prepared for this attack is pointless. Nobody is ever safe from a well coordinated attack with an element of subterfuge and surprise. ThatÂ’s the whole point of intelligence. To try and get ahead of these kinds of things. This is the book about the foundation of X-Force. This is the inciting incident that triggers the Force protocols for the first time.

Simply put, it would be like complaining how crazy it was to have a plot where three major political, intelligence and financial targets were vulnerable to airplane hijack. How on the nose could Benjamin Percy have been! He probably pitched this as “what if the first challenge the new nation faces is a 9-11 level attack?”

I think that was the whole point.<snipped all the good stuff for readability.

IsnÂ’t it depressing when you effectively have to read aloud the book so people can understand how the comic was written and why all the pieces were there. ItÂ’s as if personal taste totally trumps any effort that the reader might be required to bring to the table.

.I didn't think the set-up was overly contrived; seemed like a suicide mission specifically aiming to cripple Krakoa. I doubt any of those mooks figured they'd be getting off the island alive. They just needed to cut through bodies until they pinpointed their target. The only point that fell flat for me was the notion that they'd last more than fifteen seconds given how many X-Men are around.

Yep. It is specifically called out as a suicidal mission, and you may have noticed that they split up so it would be harder to launch a coordinated defence against them. They had one simple mission and it was completed efficiently.

We even get a hint as to why Xavier was unprepared. He is still clinging to his dream. He thought it should be obvious that Krakoa was the “only chance at...” PEACE. A masterful use of Xavier’s idealism I thought.

Actually, he said on the podcast that writers can still kill mutants, but now instead of just being a sad moment and then everyone mourns them and have some funeral or whatever, they have to create a more interesting story out of it. Death isn't about the death itself but a plot device for development.

Absolutely. This notion that mutants canÂ’t die has been created by fans. There will be ways and means to kill mutants. The stipulation is that the writers shouldnÂ’t just create stories about people attending funerals and all agreeing that they should have valued, appreciated or loved a dead guy when there were usually pretty good reasons why they didnÂ’t get that reaction when they were alive.

ItÂ’s cynical, lazy and ultimately has little impact on the comics aside from sheer inconvenience and maybe a couple of mini-series that donÂ’t even sell very well.

None of that has anything to do with stakes. Indeed the stakes of mainstream comics are one of their biggest problems.

[WallStreeter]

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.

They needed to justify the existence of a new XForce. And from now on if a missing mutant tries to enter without verification they will shoot the person from the sky/air or water or wherever.

In Excalibur we see Apocalypse preemptively deal with a threat to Krakoa. It should have been done in this case as well. But everyone has learned their lesson.