I bought these two tpbs on a whim. Best purchase I have made in years.

The concept behind the group is that these are the X-men's executioners - Wolverine, Psylocke, Archangel, plus Fantomex (apparently some sort of Sentinel hybrid who comes across as an arrogant Frenchman) and Deadpool. They go out and solve the dirty problems the X-men are philosophically unable to do so.

What sounds like an exercise in Charles Bronson brutality but with masks and claws instead evolves into various arguments about the point of vengeance, nature v nuture (especially when they visit the Age of Apocalypse), and whether the task includes killing children because of their potential. It loses its way a bit when the group go off to Captain Britain's interdimensional hang out, but otherwise does not lose pace at all.


And the result of it is remarkable. Here I dabble in spoilers... Sorry, but don't know the spoilers UBB code. (edit - worked it out)









This is one of the most haunting things I have read in comics, and provides the pretext for Wolverine swearing off killing.

There's also a poignant moment between Deadpool and the young Apocalypse which is so laden with meaning that it made me pause to think about it.

I really recommend it.

I haven't read an X-Men comic book since the middle of Grant Morrison's run. Before that I hadnt read an X-Men comic book since Paul Smith left the series.

With that in mind, can I pick this up and still enjoy it? Or will it be so bogged down in continuity that I will be unable to understand what is going on?

The writer, Remender, used to own a comic shop.

He says he was rapt with old the old Chris Claremont stories from the 1990s.

So there is a revisitation to some old X-foes - Spirit King, and the Reavers (I really liked this single issue as the Reavers plot, a story about some very bad cyborgs who nearly kill of the X-men, was something I read many times over in the early 90s) - and allusions to some of the old plots (Nimrod's shell is a trophy - Nimrod being a very very bad future Sentinel), as well as recurring appearances by Deathlok.

But it isn't necessary to be up on it. I think it is helpful in understanding what is happening with Angel and Archangel to know he was once a Horseman of Apocalypse. But other parts of what was either going on in other X-titles at the time of first publication, or had otherwise happened in recent X-continuity - the creation of the island of Utopia as a mutant haven for example, some other crap about a thing called "The World" - I just kind of breezed through all of that.

The story opens with a massive, genuinely confronting shock, which Remender clearly wrote in order to get people hooked onto the title. I read in the interview with the writer at the end of volume 1 of the collected edition that this particular story caused the issue to sell more than any other Marvel title that month.

Fantomex in particular is a very complicated character. Remender really plays that out in one exchange between Wolverine and Fantomex as to why Fantomex does a particularly charitable and honourable thing at great effort to an adversary: Fantomex wants to know that evil isn't hardwired into people's characters, and wants to know that there is hope for himself.

It isn't all sweetness and light, though. Some of the villains are very hardcore. The Skinless Man is a real piece of work as is the Age of Apocalypse Blob.

And Deathlok discovers love!

It is just tremendous.

At other forums Uncanny X-Force is considered a great many peoples' favorite super hero stuff from the last decade pretty regularly.
I need to read it at some point...

Definitely worth a read, Piggo.

Deadpool trades one of the students' books about inner peace for some softcore porn. One of the best gags in the series.

I enjoy the books that Deadpool is in, but was never a fan of the humor. Most of it seems forced. Ido enjoy the injokes about being mistaken for spider-man.

Plus he has a man-crush on Spider-man.

There was a cracker of a story recently where he jumped onto the roof of a plane. If it had been Batman or Captain America, he would have landed safely because of a batrope of digging in his shield or whatever. But not Deadpool. Ribs up through his back and multiple fractures.

The only comic in publication with a letters column. A funny one, too. Loves me Deadpool