by Miller C. Lashbrook
While in socially distancing at home I have been gobbling up comics old and new on Marvel Unlimited. I thought that when I finish an arc or a set of issues that would be collected in trade paperback that I would write a reflection/review afterword. So, here is the first of many. Possible SPOILERS ahead.
One of the big chunk of comics that I have read during isolation has been the new era of X-Men comics that launched in the past year with Jonathan Hickman’s House of X/Power of X and now Dawn of X, the new status quo for the X-Men, with books helmed by various talents. One such series is a relaunch of X-Force, the usually grittier sister series of X-Men. These first six issues are written by Benjamin Percy, with art from Joshua Cassara and Stephen Segovia and coloring from Dean White and GURU-eFX.
I really enjoyed these first six issues and its take on the new X-Men landscape with the mutant nation of Krakoa. If the main X-Men book in this era is focusing on the royal family or the first family, this series follows the people supporting the political movements being made. Having X-Force function as the counterintelligence and black ops organization for the mutant nation was a clever choice that not only lets the team do what it is known for (violence and espionage), but it also makes this story one of importance for the grand picture going on.
Some may find the political, business, and science talk in the series to be a little too much or boring at time, but I think that it reminds the reader that this is a living, breathing world, and not all the humans are going to be okay with mutants asserting themselves so much into the global landscape. The book carries a welcome sense of danger, using pain and regression as the worries, rather than death itself. We know that mutants can come back to life thanks to the Resurrection Protocols, yet tension still exists as readers the fear of the mutant nation being thwarted in its infancy.
The cast of characters being used here is great and has some great moments together, specifically X-Force veterans Wolverine and Domino as well as Jean Grey and Beast. I do not know if there is a clear star of this book, but Beast as a sort of M (from OO7) character leading the missions, particularly in issue #6, gets a lot of time to shine.
At the end of the day, if you are going to begin reading Dawn of X, then X-Force is a must read and should be at the top of the stack along with Hickman’s main X-Men series. If you like political and corporate espionage you will have a lot of fun. 4.5/5 Twinkles ✨
Featured image is the cover from Issue #1
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