X-Cutioner's Song Part 4: X-Force #16

 

            What’s up nerds! We’re back with part four of the X-Cutioner’s Song, X-Force #16. This issue is written by Fabian Nicieza (bless his heart for writing X-Force, X-Men and several assorted miniseries at the same time as holding down a full time advertising job), Greg Capullo on pencils, Harry Candelario on inks, Chris Eliopoulos on letters and with Joe Rosas providing the inks. Our story picks up with the confrontation between the X-Factor and X-Men coalition and X-Force in Texas. The X-Men demand that X-Force turn themselves in and tell them what Cable is up to, while X-Factor claims innocence from Cables plans. Tensions reach their breaking point when Feral makes a pre-emptive strike and attacks the X-Men, igniting a battle between our heroes. This battle takes up most of the issue so we will skip over the finer details and touch on the interesting character beats. The first thing to cover is the relationship between Jaimie Madrox and Siryn. This particular pairing has a long and sordid history, part of which is the source of some of my distaste for Peter David, but we will skip covering most of it for decency and brevity’s sake. The key part here is that during their time on Muir Island the two developed a romantic connection, seen in its fullest form in the awesome 1987 miniseries Fallen Angels. But since then, as the two were split on to two separate X-teams Jaimie has been acting like their relationship never happened, upsetting Theresa. Rogue and Tabitha Smith are split off in the fight, and this is not an important pairing, but I mostly want to complain how Boom-Boom gets treated through the X-Force run. She is the thinnest of Valley girl stereotypes with some absolutely awful code names, here running with the name Boomer. The X-Men eventually gain the upper hand forcing another strategic retreat on the part of X-Force, but as they run Havok knocks out Warpath.

Wolverine pursues the wayward paramilitary and we cut to Virginia as we see Storm, Colossus, Quicksilver and the remaining 60 percent of the Original X-Men arrive to investigate Scott and Jeans disappearance. As they enter the warehouse, they had tracked Caliban to they are jumped by the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Fight, fight, fight and the Horsemen are quickly subdued as the heroes stumble across a hologram of Mr. Sinister. The English eugenicist reveals that it was he who kidnapped Scott and Jean, but he claims that he is no longer involved and that despite Apocalypse not being aware of his machinations he is still ultimately responsible. As Archangel destroys the hologram in a fit of anger we cut back to Westchester and the X-Mansion where we see the physical Mr. Sinister in a standoff with Bishop, as I detailed last time. Bishop shoots the mad Englishman in the middle of his head freeing Val and Stevie. But Sinister survives, with a hole in his head as he claims that he is the only one capable of pointing the X-Men in the right direction to save Xavier. Sinister claims to know who is behind all of the recent turmoil in the X-Men’s lives as he shows Val Cooper a picture she recognizes. Cable also suspects he knows who is behind it all and grabs literally every gun he has to confront the perpetrator. We then cut to an unknown location as Forearm delivers Scott and Jean to Stryfe, as he calls them “mother” and “father” and welcomes them to the “end of tomorrow”. Stryfe is a fascinating character that we will unpack more as we continue through our story but the key parts to note here about the head of the MLF: A. he is madder than a hatter. B. he dresses like an industrial meat slicer. We cut back to Texas we see X-Force get jumped one last time by the X-Men and Cannonball is forced to surrender when Siryn and Feral are captured. The issues ends as we see X-Force carted off with a panel of Madrox looking pensive as he carries Siryn’s unconscious body to their transport as Havok asks “so what do we do now?”

All in all, a solid issue, despite my complaints about heroes fighting, the plot of the event is handily advanced, and while we haven’t quite hit the final reveal of who shot Professor Xavier, the pieces are all there. The character beats are solid and its all moving in furtherance of the individual series. Siryn and Madrox for example fleshing out X-Factor and X-Force with a four-ish year old story. The art is banging as well. Capullo is on top form with a distinctive style that moves away from the Liefeld inspired zeitgeist and it gains a more natural looking sense of movement from Candelario’s inks. The dialogue is all solid, maintaining character voice without coming across too heavy handed, and both Stryfe and Mr. Sinister allow Nicieza to indulge his more campy and operatic tendencies. 9/10.