Uncanny X-Force #5.1 – Review

by Rick Remender (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (art), Dean White (colors), and Cory Petit (letters)

The Story: X-Force races to stop Lady Deathstrike and the Reavers from destroying Utopia.

Review: Out of all the .1  issues thus far, Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force may very well have come the closest to accomplishing what the .1 initiative is meant to.  It provides a perfectly accurate representation of what readers can expect from the series month in and month out in both tone and narrative.

As such, this is a brutal comic book.  It pulls no punches and it’s violence and gore are uncompromising, but never remotely close to exaggerated or slapstick.  Instead, it’s an X-Men comic of gritty realism and it feels like X-Men MAX, a MAX title without swearing, essentially.  The book thus carries a harsh and dark tone that is as alluring as ever.

This month, Remender does his best character work on Wolverine.  He manages to accomplish that fine balance of making it clear that Logan is an intelligent and well-read guy, while also maintaining that gruff, beer-swilling surface demeanor.  It’s always a tough job for any writer tackling the character, but Remender definitely succeeds.  Moreover, he gives some wince-inducing narration from Wolverine as well.

As far as villains go, Lady Deathstrike gives a solid performance.  She’s as crazed and ruthless as ever but, more than that, thanks to Wolverine, Remender makes her look as legitimate as possible.  Rafael Albuquerque’s depiction of her is also solid, reminding me quite a bit of the American vampires of that title.

There are problems though.  Psylocke’s fretting and navel-gazing over whether she enjoys killing her enemies too much is, at this point, a fairly tired internal struggle for comics in general and it’s one we’ve seen way too many times, with Remender not adding anything new to it.  In fact, the whole thing makes Betsy even come across a tad melodramatic.

Worse still, this whole inner turmoil spirals out of Remender’s use of X-continuity relating to Betsy and the Reavers.  Especially for a .1 issue, it was surprising to see Remender lean so heavily on X-Men continuity, particularly that which lies outside of his own series.  Uncanny X-Force has, to me, been particularly strong due to its independence so it’s a weird choice by Remender, particularly given that this issue is meant to bring in new readers.