Discount Discoveries: X-Force #15-25

January 16, 2009 on 12:18 pm | In Comics, Uncategorized | No Comments

I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy sitting on a gummy floor for hours on end, sifting through unbagged and randomly assorted comics in various stages of use, wear and tear. I seriously cannot resist a bargain, especially when I see literal metric tons (I DO carry a scale with me at all times, you know) of brightly colored newspaper and staples sitting in cardboard boxes marked “$0.25 each.” There is no sight more glorious! And since I know you’re a comic fan as well (why else would you have surfed to the outer rim of wizarduniverse.com?), I know you like getting your fingers dirtied by newsprint as much as I do. So here I am, giving you a little bit of advice on one particular run of comics that you could complete for a mere $2.75 (if you are shopping in the cardboard box that I described above).

X-FORCE #15-25
by FABIAN NICIEZA & GREG CAPULLO

I get hassled a lot for my love of the ’90s X-Force series, but the love is a genuine one for stories that are a lot better than people remember and definitely a lot better than the circumstances they came out of. I mean, series co-creator Rob Liefeld has a lot of strong suits but serious plots with solid characterization…kinda not as important as big guns. With issue #15, Fabian Nicieza first teamed-up with Greg Capullo and effectively began transitioning the team out of Liefeld-land and into something a bit more complex. Well, they started before being derailed by Big Crossover 1992.
Man, I could spend a whole ‘nother blog just writing why “X-Cutioner’s Song” rules, but that IS a whole ‘nother blog. Anyway, Nicieza somehow managed to make his team’s contribution one that really commented on the main theme of the series: the struggle for independence. The issue leading right out of the “Song” is the best issue of X-Force ever and easily one of the best comics of the ’90s, period.

With this issue, X-Force strikes out on their own without Cable, Professor X, or any adult to guide them. This is what X-Force should have been from the start, a series about teenagers struggling to turn into the adults they want to be instead of the adults their parents want them to be. Plus, Capullo redesigned the team’s uniforms in this issue.

Yeah, those are pretty much my favorite uniforms ever.

X-Force was still X-Force, though, just with a new layer of characterization and the superb storytelling of Capullo tossed on top. Yes, Shatterstar DID fight War Machine. And it was way awesome. But what was even more awesome were the dynamics that Nicieza started to work in. Cannonball became an extremely competent and confident leader while Shatterstar, Sunspot and Rictor all formed a bond similar to the 3 Stooges (they thought it was a great idea to dump an immortal villain into the ocean).

There were really no missteps in this run and Capullo didn’t have a single fill-in. He only managed to do eleven issues, but those eleven issues tell a pretty complete story full of character arcs (and lots of fighting, it IS X-Force). Since his run was mainly characterized by the team’s flying solo status, it only fits that Capullo’s last issue featured the mandatory return of Cable.

Nicieza wisely matured Cable, making him less of a gun-toting sociopath who was way okay with murdering villains after they surrendered and more of a gun-toting father figure. The last issue of this duo’s run is pretty great, managing to comment on both their history as a team and as the New Mutants and give fans the Magneto vs. Cable brawl they never knew they wanted.

If you see any of these issues in the discount bargain bins, snatch them up. They’re well worth it and still not collected in trade paperback, no matter HOW many letters I’ve hand-written to Marvel.

-Brett