X-Force, Vol. 1

X-Force (2019)

by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara (Illustrator), Dustin Weaver (Cover Art)

X-Force is the CIA of the mutant world--one half intelligence branch, one half special ops. Beat, Jean Grey and Sage are on one side. In a perfect world, there would be no need for an X-Force. We're not there...yet.

COLLECTING: X-FORCE (2019) 1-6

Genres: Comics, Marvel, X Men, Graphic Novels, Comic Book, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics

176 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 4, 2020

About the author

Benjamin Percy is the author of seven novels -- most recently The Sky Vault (William Morrow) -- three short fiction collections, and a book of essays, Thrill Me, that is widely taught in creative writing classrooms. He writes Wolverine, X-Force, and Ghost Rider for Marvel Comics. His fiction and nonfiction have been published in Esquire (where he is a contributing editor), GQ, Time, Men's Journal, Outside, the Wall Street Journal, Tin House, and the Paris Review. His honors include an NEA fellowship, the Whiting Writer's Award, the Plimpton Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, the iHeart Radio Award for Best Scripted Podcast, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories and Best American Comics.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 2 out of 5]

The latest incantation of X-Force contains almost zero character development, lots of blood and violence and some pretty out-there team selections. Another just-OK book in this new mutant world of Jonathan Hickman which almost feels like it spends more times getting each book to interconnect than actually building stories and characters - 5 out of 12.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

This starts off with a stunt killing that you know isn't going to stick. X-Force becomes mutantkind's response team like it was several years ago when Wolverine ran the team of killers. The odd part is that Beast is running the team now and suddenly OK with killing lots of people. He originally left the X-Men when he realized Cyclops had put together a secret X-Force team of killers to permanently end threats. Now he's running it? His characterization seems way off. Other than that the book is pretty good, although I'm not particularly sold on Joshua Cassara's art. Also, Sage needs a new costume. I always think she's Jubilee when I first see her in an issue.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 1 out of 5]

The backlash to Xavier’s declaration of mutant sovereignty begins as an elite group of soldiers is dispatched to assassinate him. Also antagonising is a peacock man and plant monsters. Gee golly I wonder if X-Force will be able to defeat them using mutant powers snore zzz...

I didn’t have high hopes for this one but I didn’t think X-Force, Volume 1 would be quite so empty of anything at all interesting. I thought the character dying at the end of the first issue was a compelling development - until I remembered the X-Men now have a resurrection machine so no-one dies for longer than a day! Wow, talk about taking away any stakes for these characters going forward.

Benjamin Percy seems to be trotting out cheap knockoffs of DC characters - the peacock man/secret society is a crappier Court of Owls while the plant monsters are the poor man’s Swamp Thing. Super imaginative work.

Percy also writes the worst Beast ever. Hank McCoy is supposed to be a kind-hearted soul - a man who looks like an animal but who’s more human than most. Here he’s just an absolute prick - blunt, aggressive, and just a hair less psychotic than Wolverine. That’s not Beast.

The main story is rescuing Domino which just means X-Force fighting, and easily beating, the latest baddies, which was only ever tedious to read. This is some kind of bold new beginning for the X-titles? Please - this is just more of the same old X-rubbish. X-Force, Volume 1 is an underwhelming, boring read.

[Tiag⊗ the Mutant · Rating 4 out of 5]

X-Force is back, yet with a new direction and somewhat different approach, they're basically Krakoa's new defensive unit this time, and get this, Beast is the leader, yes, that same Beast that quit the X-Men after finding out Cyclops formed up the X-Force (Matt Fraction's run), makes no sense to me whatsoever, but that's about the only thing I didn't like in this first volume, unlike most series in the Dawn of X, this one is definitely a must-read, and serves as a companion to the main title, and it starts out with a bang, with Percy fully exploring the new capabilities of Krakoa.

[Subham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread: 21/11/2023

You know I have been trying to reread the series throughout the year and I will always reach half stage before I have to abandon it for one reason or another but this time I finally read it and I love it so much and omg so much happens here in this volume and I love the way Percy starts off with a bang but with every issue he sets so many plots like with Xeno or "Mercs" assassin group or in the end with Terre Verde and that just shows as a long form storyteller how good Ben is. And yeah like I said last time, some will like it and some won't and thats fine. But I love it and how brutal it is like with what happens to Domino and Logan in the middle but it also addresses the mental health aspects very well and also shows Beast going down the dark path and I love it and am curious to see how it all resolves!

______________________________________________________________
This was a fun read!

I loved this one and its pretty much about X-Force getting together to after the enemies of Krakoa after Professor X gets murdered by Reavers and the new shadowy organization called XENO and we follow their journey as they go on missions like rescuing Domino, going after attackers and its bloody and brutal and I love it and the resurrection protocol to the official establishment of the team and so on and so forth. I also love the interludes where the writer does a deep dive on characters like Black Tom and Sage who usually don't get much highlights and then the last ch. being focused on Terra Verde, some fictional nation annd how the threat of it is built up for future arcs and a certain "crossing the line" for one character...

Its a very if-and-dicey book meaning some will like it, some will not like it and it does seem like it will read better in a binge-fashion when its all over as the writer has set up a lot of plot points for the future stuff and yep its great maybe. Though I would have liked a bit less of those white pages as they take forever to read and take away from the experience of reading a comic and there are some useful stuff but it just feels like a reason not to draw stuff and its detracting. Plus the art changes constantly are not a great sign but then again a minor complaint in a book where the series as a whole looks promising.

[James DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished off my reading day strong with this one. X-Force is back and better than ever under Percy.

After a horrible attack that leaves one of the main X-Men characters killed, the X-Men start to build a new X-Force. In the past volumes it was always a no-no for a lot of X-Men to even agree with X-Force. In here? We have Xavier and Beast signing on as "yes let's do this" and basically this is CIA X-Men story...and I kind of love it?

What starts off as an attack, become a rescue mission, and then a retallation tale in these six issues. I was glued to each page as it was exciting and fun. The art helps build a darker, more vicious X-Men story too. I loved the team dynamic and while not as strong as say Remender's run yet on that, it can shape up nicely. Also, beast my dude, you have fucked up. This should be good.

A super easy 4 out of 5.

[Artemy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I stopped enjoying this about mid-way through, if I'm honest — though the signs that this would suck were there right from issue #1, which opened with the most ridiculous stunt-killing of a main character in recent memory. Yes, the killed character was resurrected pretty much right away (big shocker), and then I kept enjoying the dynamics between Wolverine and Quentin Quire for a couple of issues, and then this devolved into just another X-book. It tries to be cool and edgy and dark, but it mostly comes off as boring. Maybe it's just me and my burnout from this oversaturated line of X-books, but I really don't have it in me to keep reading this title.

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good start to this series

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the House of X/Powers of X reboot, in which they all live in their own island nation of Krakoa and it's as escapist scifi as possible, various new X spinoffs were released to build upon the new status quo of Marvel's mutants. With that, X-Force has since been one of the more successful takes.

After initially only reading the main series by Jonathan Hickman, I've been getting interested in Benjamin Percy's writings. He also did Wolverine, so seemed worth paying attention to, and his X-Force certainly stands out.

It's been a long time since Liefeld's Cable and his team of militant teams, and X-Force has been the secret X-Men strike team for many years now throughout the different iterations. It works well, and makes even more sense as superhero genre stories where the characters go on specific missions--as opposed to just lounge around the mansion waiting to get attacked. Note the villains are, of course, extremely cruel humans who are mad at mutants.

This particular new version is very violent, embracing the more adult nature of comics these days. So sensitive readers beware, and Logan especially goes through a lot. It is trying perhaps a bit too hard to be edgy, with torture and the familiar ethical questions in such action stories about whether it's right to kill evil antagonists in anger...

Along with the most famous flagship X-Man, there's Domino which connects to the very first 90s team and Beast as background genius who is very important to the ongoing saga. This is only chapter one, a good start. I do know some about what will happen next, so I look forward to reading each volume and seeing the saga unfold.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it's pretty safe to say that, at this point, I absolutely hate the new status quo in the X-books. There's an old advertising slogan that goes 'This ain't your daddy's XXXX' and I'm afraid to say that's never been truer... but not in a good way. I'm sorely tempted to just say 'wake me when it's over'. On the other hand, the artwork has been consistently good so far, so it's not all a complete travesty against everything I love about superheroes.

Story: 2 stars
Artwork: 4 stars
Overall: 3 stars

[Jesús De la Jara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Otra serie decepcionante aunque considero que el argumento es interesante. El primer número sí bastante sorpresivo aunque no por ello necesariamente con un buen planteamiento. En la aparente invulnerable isla mutante Krakoa acuden unos mercenarios que desatarán terror momentáneo. Este grupo llamado Xeno es un conjunto de mercenarios que experimentan con mutantes llegando a ser muy letales.
Una de las cosas que no me gustó fue el grupo de X-Force: Wolverine, Jean Grey, Quentin Quire, Dominó, no sé siento que muchas agrupaciones en estas nuevas series están sin alma, sin conexión real. Los dibujos y el "ambiente" creo pudieron ser mejores.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not one of the X-titles I was originally going to buy, but I checked out issue 1 after hearing what happened and it turned out to be a decent enough title

[myo ⋆｡˚ ❀ * · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was kinda boring and i don’t care about the main cast picked besides jean. i feel like we didn’t get much from other mutants that weren’t the main but im new here so what do i know idk. ill put this one on hold for now.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun, a logical continuation of the story Jonathan Hickman got started in House of X with some pretty gruesome action- that “Parental Advisory” label is not for nothing!

One quibble: I love the character of Jean Grey, but why the return to her Marvel Girl costume complete with ludicrous mask? Every time I see it she seems so out of sync with everything this era of X-books feels like it’s about.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unter Jonathan Hickmans Feder haben alle Mutanten dieser Welt auf der Insel Krakoa eine Heimat bekommen. Seit Jahrzehnten schon geht es bei den X-Men um den Konflikt zwischen Homo Sapiens und den Mutanten (Homo Superior?), der nicht beizulegen ist. Durch Gründung einer eigenen Nation auf Krakoa hat Professor Xavier nun den Status eines Staatsoberhauptes erlangt. Die Mutanten müssen nun politisch als eigenständige Nation anerkannt werden, ob es gefällt oder nicht. Unterschiedlichste Interessen und Intrigen verhindern aber auch jetzt, dass Frieden einkehrt.

Schon an der Hauptserie stört mich, dass die Handlung scheinbar immer komplexer und anspruchsvoller wird, während tatsächlich die Entwicklung der Figuren (?) und ihr Verhalten nicht schritthalten kann. Es sind die immer gleichen Mechanismen und Dummheiten, die eine wirkliche Entwicklung verhindern. Man mag einwenden, dass das für die reale Weltpolitik nicht minder zutrifft...

Die X-Force ist schon immer die Sondereinheit gewesen, die die Kastanien aus dem Feuer holen und die Drecksarbeit erledigen muss. Entsprechend muss der Leser sich darauf einstellen, dass die Darstellung von Gewalt und Brutalität in dieser Reihe einen höheren Stellenwert hat.
Hau=druff=Taktik meets politischen Anspruch, neue Situation, alte Verhaltensmuster.
Ist das wirklich noch unterhaltsam oder stößt des Genre der Superhelden=Comics hier an seine Grenzen? Würden sich Xavier und seine Mannen wirklich verantwortungsvoll verhalten, wäre die Serie nicht spannender als die realen Nachrichten. So, wie es ist, müssen alle Konflikte durchkonstruiert werden und leben von Fehlentscheidungen und vor allem von Gewalt als Panazee.
Da ist es dann auch unerlässlich, dass der Tod nicht endgültig ist und Verstorbene wieder zum Leben erweckt werden können. So recht will sich das alles nicht fügen für mich.

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok I like it!

It was mostly ok, but I really wanna see where this goes so I'm gonna keep on reading to see where this is going!

So, if you read Snyder's Batman and the Court of Owls, this could be an inspiration took from that, and added to X-Force, I liked some bits, others were just ok to read, and mainly whenever Beast and Jean talk I want to just skip everything and be done with it. The whole mystery thing better have a good pay off and other than that action's nice, some nice scenes with great artwork along the way!

Hopefully this gets better on volume 2. #ClawsCrossed

[Monsour · Rating 2 out of 5]

It start on a really daring issue yet all went flat after that. Can't say I hated it, I'm just expecting more to the X-force team, specially that they finally add Kid Omega in the Dawn of X shenanigans.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given how Krakoa is laid out these days, did we really need X-Force? Turns out, after the assassination of one of the key X-players, we definitely do. Wolverine and Domino head up a team hellbent on vengeance and proactive action, as the X-Men's murder-squad reunite to destroy any threat to Krakoan independence, whatever the cost.

X-Force is a surprising book all around, really. The character choices (bar Wolverine) are surprising, the murder of a key character in the first issue (although we all know it's not going to stick), and even the villains that they face are all completely different to those you might expect. X-Force has been through various incarnations, but this one feels very different to those before it, even if their mandate is the same, simply because Ben Percy spins them in new directions.

Beast's role, for example, comes as a big surprise. He's always been the dark horse of the X-Men, making decisions that will impact them all without telling them (All-New X-Men, anyone?) and then Quentin Quire gets involved whether X-Force like it or not, only to find himself as a perfect fit. And when there are new villain groups popping up in every X-book going at the moment, another shadowy cabal would feel a bit out of place, and yet this one feels even more threatening due to the absolutely lack of human (or mutant) empathy that they have.

The artwork, mostly by Joshua Cassara, is exactly what X-Force needs. It's gritty, but it's real, and Dean White's colours really make it sing. Stephen Segovia pops up for a fill-in issue at the end, and he works just as well; he and Cassara have very similar styles.

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop on the X-Books; they've all come blaring out of the gate, established themselves as individual titles with their own strengths, and dared you to stop reading them. X-Force doesn't end that streak at all, and I hope it can continue for a long, long time.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

X-Force is X-Men with a harder edge. Have you been missing blood and guts in your X-series? Just turn to the fifth issue here, in which a sliced-in-half Wolverine still manages to eviscerate a foe. It's gruesome and shocking and (maybe) awesome! Kudos to Joshua Cassara's dark artwork, which seems more suited to a horror comic than X-Men, but certainly works for X-Force's milieu.

This first X-Force volume ties in closely to the outcome of House of X/Powers of X, with an unexpected mutant death at the hands of a human secret society leading to the Quiet Council's establishment of a mutant military/covert ops force. What is this secret society and will they be stopped? Not clear from this first volume, but I'm a bit disappointed that yet another blah secret society has been introduced in an X-series. Hickman, we have enough, move on.

I'm more than intrigued by the rest of the book, though. And hopeful that Jean Grey will choose a new costume sometime soon, since she currently looks like a doofus.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this more than I expected to. Benjamin Percy does a good job of setting up why the new nation of Krakoa needs to recreate the classic black ops X-Force team. After the assassination of a key Krakoan leader which throws the whole future of their fledgling nation into doubt, it becomes clear that sometimes mutants are going to be forced to violate the "kill no human" edict set forth by their government (off the record, of course) in order to survive.

Without getting too much into spoilers, I really like the make-up of this new team, which features some characters we've not seen in a more brutal X-Force type of role before (and some who are very familiar), so I look forward to seeing the new sides of some of these characters that come out as a result. I'm particularly interested to see how far Beast is willing to take things to protect his mutant nation (what we've seen so far indicates he's willing to go pretty damn far). The team composition seems pretty loose and fluid at this point as well--they were forced to react to an attack and people stepped up for the task, but the team roster hardly seems finalized. I'd like to see a large roster that gets cherry picked from for the particular needs of the mission at hand, kind of like how the Avengers operated under Jonathan Hickman.

The X-books are put into a difficult situation now, with mutant resurrection being a given, in that it becomes harder to establish dramatic stakes that actually matter. It's an unspoken rule that comic book deaths typically don't stick in the first place, but one of the main conceits of the Dawn of X story is that there is a process in place on Krakoa to back up mutant consciousnesses and restore them to a newly created body in the event of death. I feel that this X-Force title does a good job establishing stakes that matter though, making the overarching story about the very survival of Krakoa (and thus their entire resurrection process) being under external threat from outraged humans.

Joshua Cassara does the majority of the book's art and he does a fantastic job with the level of detail and the dynamic action shots. It's served extremely well by Dean White and Rachelle Rosenberg's bright and vibrant colors. Visually, this is a bit of a departure from the dark and gritty, all-black-and-red style of some earlier incarnations of the team (given that one of its prominent members dresses in a bright green and yellow 60s gogo dancer style--it's kind of hard to go overly dark with that). The final chapter is penciled by Stephan Segovia, whose style is slightly more cartoony, but not different enough from Cassara's style to feel particularly jarring, and the book still looks absolutely gorgeous under his artistic direction.

This, along with the flagship X-Men title, seems to be the most essential reading to follow the Dawn of X story thread about the challenges that the new mutant nation of Krakoa is dealing with. I will definitely be following this book for a while based on what they delivered in this first volume.

[Lashaan Balasingam · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was tough to go through. I'm not sure how Benjamin Percy thought he could make it interesting when he has to work with immortal characters and yet wants to include major deaths... He also ventures into heavy gore sequences that lead to nothing more than temporary surprise. Not sure that there's really anything worth discovering in this series. There are far better ones within this new X-Men universe to check out.

Yours truly,

Lashaan | Blogger and Book Reviewer
Official blog: https://bookidote.com/

[Judah Radd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sort of confusing, but the gore, extreme violence and amazing art sort of makes up from it. I can tell that Benjamin Percy is going for Kyle/Yost X-Force vibes and I dig it. The team is interesting and features X-Force new comers like Black Tom and Jean Grey, as well as X-Force vets like Wolverine and Domino.

I can see this getting awesome once the plot threads come together, but for now it’s more “delightfully dense.”

[Joshua Q. · Rating 4 out of 5]

In case you were wondering which is the best ongoing X-book after House of X/Powers of X, this is it, hands down.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Percy's DC work (on Green Arrow and Teen Titans) was uneven, so I didn't know what to expect of him here. It turns out that it's the first author (thus far) to really match Hickman's new vision of the X-Men.

This here is X-Force as post-human science-fiction, but it's also the X-Force of past decades with their dark morals and ruthless attitude. And beyond that it's an X-Force with stories told with a twist. There's great characterization here, some of it surprising; and great storytelling, some of it shocking. The main stories, of human resistance, are post-human in exactly the way this X-Men is, meanwhile we get plots of interest to the franchise as a whole.

Thus far, the second most notable series in the franchise, beside Hickman's own X-Men.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Percy has an ear for Wolverine-appropriate dialogue - but he takes the cake for a Kid Omega who is in all essential ways the pissing image of Spider Jerusalem. Domino shows a strong personality for a woman of so few words, and Black Tom’s dissolution into twitchy maniac is a joy to watch (from a safe distance).

I like this Beast version. Been a while since I’ve seen feral Hank (even Dark Beast isn’t animalistic, he’s snarky and haughty as he drills out your eyeball). Most of the pre-HoX Beast stories I’ve read wallow in his righteous morality, and pity his self-hatred. This is so much less emo-in-blue-fur, much more dangerous.

Not since Deadpool feeding himself to Arcangel have I enjoyed X-Force as much as this adult story gives me.

[Jirka Navrátil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tohle se mi hodně líbilo. Obecně mám X-Force hodně rád, nejsou to prostě sluníčkoví X-Meni. Aktuální x-force jsou hezky nakreslení a krásně zde vyniká krev a vnitřnosti. Příběh, i když jsem od něj neměl moc velké očekávání, má zajímavou zápletku a líbí se mi, že po celý komiks X-Force neví čemu čelí. Za mě příjemné čtení.

[Chantaal · Rating 2 out of 5]

X-Men 2021 project continues!

Previously:
House of X/Powers of X ⭐⭐⭐
X-Men, Vol. 1 ⭐⭐
Marauders, Vol. 1 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Excalibur, Vol. 1 ⭐⭐⭐
X-Men/Fantastic Four: 4X ⭐⭐⭐⭐

After the promise of the X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover, X-Force falls flat on its face for me. It's nothing but a gory mess, with characters that act nothing like themselves, and decisions made because the story demands it.

Death means nothing to the X-Men anymore, so the gory deaths shown here are just for the sake of making X-Force the badass book. That's cool and all, but the story doesn't hold up, nor do I care one bit about it. Xavier is shot...and lives. Wolverine is cut in half...and lives. Domino is sliced up by crazy scientists...and lives. There are no stakes any longer, and that in turn makes the need for the creation of X-Force feel inauthentic.

My favorite part of this was seeing Black Tom Cassidy finally back in action. I love all three members of the Cassidy family, even the crazy uncle that Black Tom is.

[Tom Ewing · Rating 3 out of 5]

The problem with X-Force has tended to be that “a black ops team to permanently end threats” sounds kewl but runs into the fact that in a shared universe it’s very rare for an interesting threat to be permanently ended. So X-Force are either a staggeringly ineffective covert ops team - or they end up fighting identikit anti-mutant orgs allowing for a high redshirt body count at the price of interesting stories.

This latest relaunch leans into both these issues. Mutant nationalism means there’s a steady stream of angry humans to fight, and the latest batch prove they’re a threat by offing a mutant leader (who may in fact have been wanting to be offed - an interesting point that, in one of the most annoying facets of Dawn Of X, gets revealed in a text page). Cue much violence and body horror as the X nation seeks vengeance.

There’s some suggestion that the various anti mutant factions are now all working together but this doesn’t seem to have made them less anonymous. Still, it gives the cast - including the ever-entertaining Wolverine/Quentin Quire pairing - something to do and structurally makes this the book where you get an actual issue by issue storyline about securing Krakoa from its enemies, leaving Hickman’s main title free to be all cryptic and disconnected.

As for ‘staggeringly ineffective’, the other thing that always happens in an X-Force book is that the team’s awful decisions come back to bite them, and this time they are being run by the prince of awful decisions, Hank McCoy, something the book is not subtle about suggesting might be a bad idea. All in all a more solid and purposeful incarnation of the concept than we’ve had for a while.

[Travis Duke · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars because x-force is my favorite x team and I always have a soft spot for the violent arm of x-men. The story is pretty good but not great, a crazy merc team is basically hunting x-men and Xavier calls out the big guns, X-Force. The team is fine but one again not great, Quintin fills in for the comedy that was once deadpool or fantom-x, hes OK. I am glad wolverine and Domino have made the team, thats the x-force butchery I know. I wish the story was better.... at this point it feels like a template used too many times. Regardless I am on board for the next few volumes.

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was really good, perhaps my favorite of the series after the flagship title under Hickman. I've always enjoyed a good X-Force title and they've ranged from the ruthless to the de-fanged, so it's nice to get a serious team back together again. With the new status quo for mutants, the forces arrayed against them are worse than ever, so the team must be more ruthless than ever and, so far, that seems to be the case. The artwork is also a pleasure, some of the strongest in any current X-book.