Uncanny X-Force #3 Review

Writer: Rick Remender
Artist: Jerome Opena
Cover By: Esad Ribic

The Apocalypse Solution Part 3

This book has really been a pleasant surprise so far. Since I’m not a huge fan of team books, I wasn’t overly excited for the return of X-Force, but I’m hopping on the bandwagon now. Although I wasn’t too keen about the art at first, it has begun to grow on me. Opena’s style with the use of dark tones and the greenish-bluish shades seem to find its niche in this series. After two very good opening issues, Rick Remender keeps them coming with chapter three of The Apocalypse Solution.

In this third installment we get a quick background of the final horsemen, the cream of the crop whom Apocalypse had chosen as the last resort for his cause. Of course after chapter two, the members of X-Force found themselves in a very sticky situation, and it looked as if they were done for. The new horsemen had them at their mercy and were awaiting orders to execute “Xavier’s cronies.” Moving forward in part three, the priority of the mission has now become survival and they barely do so. With the use of some trickery by Fantomex, some mind games from Psylocke and a noble attempt by Deadpool to at least try and help (that’s all you can ask for, right?) it looks like they are able to salvage what they can and make it to safety. The book ends with a possible turning of the tables when Psylocke confronts the evil looking (not evil acting…well at least not yet) child Apocalypse in the final panel, but Remender has left this conflict for next month.

I enjoy when the good guys use their brain instead of their brawn to get things done. In this case, Wolverine was at a disadvantage so he needed to rely on the team to bail him out of his dire situation in which he was outmatched by Sanjar (one of the horsemen), due to his particular mutant ability. In fact the fight with Sanjar is the most memorable scene of the issue, because of a curveball thrown at the reader at the end.

As far as the characters go, I like the dynamic personalities of the team, and all five of them bring something different to the table. Wolverine is written well and his eagerness for a rematch while everyone else is recuperating shows his resiliency and stubbornness that often define who he is. The dark tone of the book allows Deadpool’s ridiculous persona to stick out even more than usual, and I feel that he really contributes to the series because of this. It is comic relief in a series that one may not expect much of due to the tone and the mood, and I think it shines (but maybe that’s because I’m a big Deadpool fan). Lastly, I am predicting that we will know what type of power of the child Apocalypse (let’s just call him Damien for now…) welds next issue when confronted by Psylocke, so that is something I look forward to.