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

[jwatson]

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?”



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.


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.



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.

I think what makes this issue so unique is fundamentally everyone seems to understand and get everything. Every last thing that should have been pointed out in regards to how stupid and unprepared everyone is was spelled out. The writer held everyone's hand through the whole thing to make that point. But what makes it unique is people can't seem to get past the stupidity of the whole scenario and see it was actually intentional to spell out why the book itself is needed or rather xforce.

[CGAR]

Duplicate post. Wrote something else.

[CGAR]

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?”



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.


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.



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.

Quote becuase I love this perspective. And it's definitely one I agreed with but could not articulate as concisely.

Good post.

[CoCoBandz]

I get they were trying to make a point but I didn't like how easy it was to invade Krakoa.

It felt so Looney toons.

Like at least try to make it believable and surprise, surprise people died. Wasn't Hickman talking about stuff like this? They wasted no time.

[People Of The Earth]

[…]
I give this 4.5 out of 5 Xaviers

Very good strong start. The art is fantastic and sets the more dark grim tone well. The characters are on point and this seems to really carry on the setting of Krakoa well and how it all works on a day to day basis. Black Tom Cassidy is gonna be the new fan favourite ala Sammy the Squidboy.

I had several thoughts while reading this issue #1:

-The parallel between that animal startled by the invasion of its "home" by the mutants and lashing out as a result, and the way Beast reacted in almost a symmetrical way to the attack on Krakoa, was an interesting choice from the writer.
Was it meant to show how, when cornered in their own place, individuals fall back to instinctive violence as a default? That animal was seamingly a predator, was that a parallel to show mutants as the top beings of their environment?
Or was it Wolverine who was right: that your environment makes you and you makes your environment, id est, in a soft environment people grow soft and in an harsh environment they grow harsh? Beast seemed to agree to that sentiment by the end of the issue.

-I was surprised after Marauders #1 to see how easy Pryde managed to reach Krakoa Mainland by boat, without seemingly meeting any kind of Kraked coast guards or security before coasting the island. I postulated then that it must mean Sage and Cypher had not only the ability to monitor who was using the portal network at all time, but also the direct vicinity of the island.
The green-bonded alarm system partially confirmed that hypothesis - a system that is operating in parallel to the one Sage and Cypher have developped.
What I wasn't expecting however, was to learn this system was operated by Black Tom Cassidy (!), apparently on his own (!!) who can "activate" the island at will (!!!).
To me, that's an incredibly reckless move from the Kraked:
1/ Cassidy isn't trustworthy, let alone of a system of security so massively important to the security of the people on the island.
2/ The idea he's the one and only one to control this feature without any kind of chaperon or support group is, as a result, a glaring default.
3/ There's Nothing stopping him from abusing this feature in consequence of this lack of oversight.
Paper-thin defense.
Add to that the fact that additional précautions are limited to the diverting of international travel routes by UN mandate, and it makes for extra paper-thin defense. That's actually the one point he raised that I actually agreed with: the Kraked need to work on their defense.
That country is able to operate off-world and in space, face off a terrorist organisation like Orchid and route them off, but securing their own borders is beyond their ability? What? That's nonsensical.
I Don't know a country in the world who Doesn't have some sort of military forces marshaling their borders on the ground, in the air, on their coastlines (for those concerned).
But, apparently, Krakoa is the lone exception to that. Xavier looked extremely foolish throughout the issue, speaking of the island as a fortress when the security seem to be lacking on every level.

- Speaking of Marauders, there seems to have been a goof-up between the creative teams of the two books.
We saw how the events in Russia transpired in Marauders #1 with Pryde and her team liberating the civilians, making them go through the gates before heading back to Krakoa with the Yacht provided by the Hellfire Corporation.
But here we're being told a completely different story: that Pryde and her team were overwhelmed by the russian military and had to make a run for it with the refugees on a floating shack, including an hurt Colossus…
So.
Either there's a time-jump between Marauders #1 and X-Force #1, making this mission to Russia at least the second incursion in russian territory by the Kraked… Or the X-Force creative team had no real insight into what would be transpiring in Marauders #1 and wildly improvised the outcome here. Given some books happen to be scheduled before others, I can understand there would be divergences happening sometime, but that one would be a pretty big one. I'd prefer if it didn't tie-in with Marauders #1 and was another run Pryde's team made to Russia after those events. It would make more sense.
Of course, Russia using their military forces and going as so far as bombarding the refugees with chemical weapons couldn't have been more cliché. Though I could buy an escalation in hostility Following the events of Marauders #1. Still. War crime if I ever saw any.

- The policies of the Kraked toward other nations is Something to discuss. I liked the fact diplomatic efforts remain at the forefront of their Relationships with the other nations, and applying economic pressure as a retaliatory measure is a real world strategy.
Having China and the US doing it for Krakoa is a testimony to their political weight.
I'm starting to Wonder if appointing Magneto as their UN ambassador was such a good idea.
That being said, "educational propaganda", really?
Sounds like a pretty shady way to try and win the heart of public opinion. Though isn't lobbying a form of propaganda at the end of the day?
Mutant operative cells trying to undermine non-treaty administrations, really really?
How does that compute with countries like Wakanda for example, hmm? Awful way to repay their support and help during X-Men Red methink.
The Black King having carte blanche to punish as he sees fit his competitors, really really really? Surely that doesn't gives him mandate to *kill* those unruly competitors, right? It should fall Under the mandate of the third law "kill no man", but the way it was presented ("covert, punitive measures") does lay a grey area here - what do they meant by that?

- Another thing that the Kraked seem to do countrary to other nations of the planet, is to allow their leaders to move around without any kind of escort for their protection. I could eventually buy it whenever they are staying on the premises of the island, sure, but outside of it?
Come on.
Whenever we have head of states visiting other countries, they have a fairly tight entourages, including bodyguards/security personnel, and they collaborate with the visited nation to ensure the security of everyone involved for the whole duration of the visit.
Here, Xavier litteraly go to another country without any kind of security detail with him.
And not any country either, one who was until very recently still among the non-treaty nations. That scene was absolutely silly to witness.
Ah, not silly. Contrived. Convenient even.
Any mutant with heightened senses could have prevented Xavier drinking that champaigne, but plot had to progress so… sillyness it was.

- The Healing gardens are an interesting concept, I suspect this is where Cecilia Reyes was receiving her refugees back in X-Men #1? More evil russians are doing evil things - left me wondering again whether
the creative teams between Marauders and X-force talked to each other before depicting the situation in Russia.
In Marauders, russians were rounding up mutants for labor camps, here they kill them on sight and torch their home.
In other words, there's a difference between both books that's either due to a sudden escalation in evilness in-universe between them, or due to the creative teams not talking to each other like I mentionned earlier.

- The hijacking of that civilian flight went suspiciously smoothly, down to the sleeping gas introduced in the oxygen masks preemptively. A lot of funding and preparation went into that operation… Guess from the organisation who captured Domino since they managed to replicate/repurpose her telemetry to throw off Sage' system.
Whether or not this will lead to that plane crashing somewhere is unknown, but the other pilot seemed to have been killed and the transponder of the plane having been cut off with it redirected off its initial course lean into that direction.
We'll see next issue if it will be touched or not but I wouldn't be surprised if this became another plane who "vanished" into the Pacific Ocean.

-As for the "invaders" ? Given how poor the défenses of Krakoa currently are, it's a Wonder how someone hasn't dropped a bomb on them from orbit, or Something of the sort. As I pointed out earlier though, plot got to progress so we have to pretend there's minimal security around Krakoa for the time being. Eventhough Hickman went out of its way to describe the military chain of command on that island, with the Great Captains and their forces. Magik is off-world (and acting Nothing like a field leader in New Mutants btw), quid of the others?
And the Resurrection Protocols absolutely turned me off over the massacre committed. Is the writer aware that any skilled telepath can copy/paste everyone killed to life, Xavier included? That faux-suspense with Xavier's death and "what are we gonna do now?" was more sillyness to me.

TLDR: What is security?
1.5/5. Very poor start to that serie.
I didn't click with the art that much to begin with, but the cliché, contrived, silly writing was borderline offensive to me.
A sinking ship.

[JKtheMac]

I get they were trying to make a point but I didn't like how easy it was to invade Krakoa.

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.)

[Omega Alpha]

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? ss.

No, because this happened before- for example, in House of X #1- they had experience in being attacked in islands full of powerful mutants (Utopia and Genosha), and because it's blatantly out of character for many of the mutant to get complacent. It's GARBAGE writing, period.

[cable guy]

I absolutely loved this issue. This is X-Force now.

I didn't even realize they were wearing Domino's skin till I read it here.

[Tenebrae]

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?”

Yeah, I didn't really know what to expect from Percy but he really knocked it out of the park with this. A really strong start. He's definitely on my radar.

[Omega Alpha]

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?”

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. 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 (just last week we saw Apocalypse dealing with a potential threat before it becomes too big), 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.

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.

[JB]

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.

All very well said. I highlighted the above sentence because one of the first things I thought was perhaps it's time for Xavier to learn how to fight.

[raidensix]

Is Xavier crucial to the "resurrection" process or can another skilled telepathy like Jean or Emma take over?

[JB]

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.)

All very well said. Thank you for this.

Horrible things happen in real life no matter how prepared we are, and we learn from them and change what we think needs to be changed. The book reflected this perfectly and now the mutants will have a lot to consider. Even Hank went "beastly" and killed, that's how thrown off they were.

That poor young mutant is now possibly forever traumatized seeing her mother gunned down.

I want to know more about these "lab-enhanced" sapiens. And Black Tom wins the MVP.

Is Xavier crucial to the "resurrection" process or can another skilled telepathy like Jean or Emma take over?

We shall see. As mentioned a few pages back, this is one of the main questions HOX/POX had us asking so we'll find out.

[Jackraow21]

I absolutely loved this issue. This is X-Force now.

I didn't even realize they were wearing Domino's skin till I read it here.

Agreed. I like this much better than X-men, which I liked better than the others books so far. Percy killed it with this one.

[Michael Watkins]

All very well said. Thank you for this.

Horrible things happen in real life no matter how prepared we are, and we learn from them and change what we think needs to be changed. The book reflected this perfectly and now the mutants will have a lot to consider. Even Hank went "beastly" and killed, that's how thrown off they were.

That poor young mutant is now possibly forever traumatized seeing her mother gunned down.

that poor young mutant has been sitting idly by while the others drank it's waste material. maybe Broccoli-Lad(Lass?) had it coming.