X-Force #25 – Review

by Craig Kyle & Chris Yost (writers), Clayton Crain (artist)

The Story: The members of X-Force have been having a crappy day. Immortal witch Selene has resurrected millions of dead mutants and laid siege to their island home of Utopia. While big daddy general Cyclops and the rest of the X-Men hold down the fort, X-Force has been sent to the dead island of Genosha (now Necrosha) to nip this whole thing in the bud, with x-treme prejudice (I couldn’t help myself there).  Victory was near, but then Selene went and became a god.  I hate it when villains do that.

What’s Good: I’ve got to be honest, there was something about the entire Necrosha storyline that left me cold.  Despite my previously professed love of all things X-Force and my palpable anticipation of the crossover, when the issues actually started to come out, I felt disappointed.  It wasn’t bad, just… empty.  Luckily, there is the “Last Impression” rule of entertainment that says, “if it ends good, then it is good.”  This is what made the Sixth Sense do so well at the box office, and what made The Village wow so many-   Err, well, maybe that rule isn’t so tried and true, but you get my meaning.  If a piece of entertainment leaves a good taste in your mouth, then you’re likely to look back favorably upon the whole meal.  Kyle and Yost manage to redeem themselves somewhat in this issue, and while I still don’t love everything about it, it certainly entertains.

Starting off by reminding us that this story is taking place in a cohesive universe of characters was a nice entry into this issue.  Not only does seeing Selene’s ascension to godhood affect the Marvel magic heavyweights raise the stakes of the plot, but it also humorously reminds us that the quickest way to mystical might in the Marvel universe is to get your medical degree.  While there were many other fun moments in this issue, ranging from Wolverine and X-23 taking turns cutting off body parts of Senyaka to Warpath’s confrontation with long-lost brother Thunderbird, the stand out has to be Elixir’s throw-down with Wither.  It’s a story beat that the writers have been building towards since their New X-Men days, and I was very pleased to see it played out finally.  While the big action set pieces didn’t always succeed for me in this installment, I was happy to see smaller character beats like that confrontation show up.