From the Box: The X-Cutioner's Song

After great effort (and a lot of help from the Marvel Chronology Project) I put together a reading order of my archive of X-Men back issues and got to reading, starting at the 1991 launch of the second X-Men book (now called X-Men: Legacy). Not too far in, I came upon the 12-part, 4-title crossover, the X-Cutioner's Song. I've had the trade paperback of this for a while, but it always seemed to convoluted to really get into - but as I didn't want to read only half of the story, I dusted it off and got to it.


It was a laborious read, I'll have you know. To get into, you need to have some knowledge about past X-Force/New Mutants history as well as X-Factor knowledge. The basics are thus:

• Stryfe, who leads a bunch of generic villains known as the Mutant Liberation Front, looks exactly like X-Force leader Cable when not wearing his helmet.
• Apocalypse has two (rather redundant) groups of followers: the Four Horsemen and the Dark Riders. Neither should be in action without Apocalypse, who has been MIA since a battle with the original X-Factor.
• Mr. Sinister has a thing for Scott Summers and his juicy DNA (ewwww).
• The New Mutants left the X-Mansion to become X-Force, and none of the X-Teams particularly enjoy that.
• No one has much love for Cable.
• Cyclops was forced to send his son into the future after the baby was infected (by Apocalypse) with the techno-organic virus.

Once you have that down, we can get underway. Apparently, Cable shoots Professor X at a Lila Cheney concert, the Dark Riders (not working for Mr. Sinister instead of Apocalypse) kidnap Cyclops and Jean Grey, who are then traded to Stryfe for Summers DNA, which is a ruse - the container actually unleashes the Legacy Virus. The X-Men and X-Factor go after X-Force to get Cable, jail them, go around fighting for a while, then end up on the moon when Stryfe and Cable duke it out until Cyclops detonates a time portal. Ending comes, la la la. Oh yeah, Stryfe is apparently Cyclops' son who happens to be a little bitter about what happened to him. You can understand that, right?

The story, while about four parts too long, wasn't anything terrible. It got all the teams together, tied up a couple loose plot threads (for a while) and put a lot of focus on Wolverine, Cable and Bishop - the overly popular characters in the huge muscles, huge guns era of the early 90s. Looking back, with over 15 years having passed between then and now, the story doesn't really hold up too well.

• Down the line, someone decided the son should be the good guy, so it was revealed that Cable was actually Cyclops' son, not Stryfe.
• The crossover was a prominent reason that Peter David left X-Factor. The book would continue on with sub-par storylines for years, then sink into drivel before being retooled into the even worse Mutant X.
• Shortly therafter, a character was introduced actually called the X-Cutioner (a name so ridiculous, you'd think they went back in time to the Silver Age to make it) that had absolutely nothing to do with this story. Later readers would be confused by the two.
• Apocalypse had yet another death scene, this time in front of Archangel. That would have meant something had he not been revived when someone else needed a benevolent villain to stand around and holler nonsense.
• The story's epilogue released the Legacy Virus, which was a really big deal at first with characters worrying about the quickly-spreading disease infecting "hundreds" of mutants, and killing off big names like Magik, Mastermind and...uh...Revanche. Eventually, the Legacy Virus hit the background when (I suppose) creators didn't want to kill off major characters for the hell of it and the "hundreds" turned out to mostly be Genoshan mutates. No one seemed to notice when Moira MacTaggert and Pyro held on for years with the disease when everyone else died in like five days. Eventually, the virus was done away with at the cost of Colossus.

And thus you have the legacy of the X-Cutioner's Song. If you're aching to dive in, check out the trade. Actually, I managed to find all twelve individual issues for 50 cents each in a bargain bin, some even in the original bag complete with card! How X-Citing!

We've moved past Messiah CompleX and into Divided We Stand - so let's take a look at the X-Books on my plate and see how they're doing.

Uncanny X-Men
Obviously in a phase that you could call "rebuilding" but actually just killing time before July's issue #500. But as far as bridging filler goes, the San Francisco story is very good fun. This apparently will set up the X-Men's new base of operations, so that's neat. The Wolverine/Colossus/Nightcrawler story builds on an oft-forgotten relationship between Storm's team during the Paul Smith/John Romita Jr. era of the 80s, and it's good to see the three working together. With Storm off being married and Kitty Pryde apparently out of the picture, these three are the last of this core group, and they make a good trio. This has been quality stuff.

X-Men: Legacy
I recall a book called Excalibur (vol. 2) that was focused on the relationship between Charles Xavier and Magneto as they tried to rebuild Genosha - and if memory serves correctly, it wasn't very good. Whether or not Mags stays in the book, the first issues of Legacy have been very good, with an interesting look into Xavier's past, and finally fleshing out one of the most overlooked characters in the X-Men, which is even stranger being that he's the CENTER of the whole thing. Those familiar with all these X-Events that are being flashed back to (such as myself) have to be loving this.

Astonishing X-Men
No, I'm just kidding. This book's last Whedon/Cassaday issue hasn't come out yet. That's next month.

X-Factor
Here's a book whose entire premise was torn asunder through House of M and Messiah CompleX. While some titles would flail about desperately seeking direction, that has become the point of X-Factor and its being done very well. You can't help but love all the members of this team, and desperately miss (as they do) Layla Miller. Solicitations say the book's getting Longshot and Darwin on its cast, and I have to say I'm excited.

X-Force
Do I really need to go on another rant about X-Force? It has a cast with claws and knives so they can stab people. Stab, stab, stabby, stabby, stab. Blood, death, good for them. There is apparently a move at bringing back some older baddies (Bastion, Magus) but I have ceased caring. The book's apparently a hit, though. Bah - should have read The Order instead.

Young X-Men
After only one issue, I really want to see where they're going with this one. It's obvious to me that the last-page setup is not what it seems, so we'll just have to see. I'll give an update on this one next week after issue #2 comes out.

So where does that leave us? In pretty good shape, I'd say. Things are looking to get more focused when Uncanny hits 500 and Astonishing launches under Warren Ellis. It's a good time to be an X-Men fan, if you ask me.

(I don't read Cable, New Exiles, or either Wolverine book and the First Class titles don't really fit here, so they've all been skipped.)

It's time to kill it off, so to say.

You may recall my rant after the first issue of the new X-Force came out. After expressing concerns for the first issue and the premise as a whole, I finished up with the line, "[O]nly one issue’s come out thus far. I’ll keep getting it to see where it goes ..."

Turns out I was lying. Two issues into X-Force and I'm getting out.

The more I look at it, the more I think that I stuck with Kyle and Yost through New X-Men for so long because I enjoyed the characters (created by Nunzio DeFillipis and Christina Weir) and the premise. Yeah, it started off dark after M-Day - and for all sense and purpose, it should have - but surely the youth book would get lighter and happier like it used to be. Nope - instead we got death after death after death to the point where you really stopped caring anymore. In their first six issues, the writers' death count hit double digits. They didn't get through a single arc without at some point leaving a character dead/dying at the end of a cliffhanger. It was the drawing point of the book.

So now that the 'youth' aspect is gone, Kyle and Yost get to keep the 'death' part, and use less-than-appropriate characters to crank it up to 11. Three of the book's cast (thus far) of four have claws, the other has twin knives. They're good for stabbing. Stab, stab, stabby stab, stab. After two issues of stabbing and killing with a very weak plot basis (Cyclops is all for this against Emma Frost's wishes?) I've had enough. Turns out that if I don't enjoy a title enough, I will actually drop it. Hell, New Excalibur lasted four issues before I realized I wasn't going to keep paying for it.

To pull off an extreme-violence book, you need to back it up with well-done storytelling. Garth Ennis has been doing this forever with his Punisher series. Sure, there's a lot of gruesome violence, but it's a compelling read as well. X-Force lacks the latter. It's violence for violence sake - that's the premise of the title, and for me, that's rubbish - and finally I've decided to put my money where my mouth is - or more like back in my pocket and quit buying stuff I don't like.

So X-Force's spot will go to Captain Britain and MI: 13, which I am very interested in. After all, it can't be as bad as New Excalibur, right?

Five points to think about:

Here are five quick thoughts off of my head to spur some thought in yours.

1. The Iron Man movie will not be big enough to launch a second series and countless minis.
2. Wonder Woman needs a costume change. Sure, her look is iconic but the character would benefit from having a more conservative outfit in the "world of men".
3. At least one Wolverine series will be cancelled within a year. My money's on First Class.
4. One of the three new X-Books (Young X-Men, X-Force, Cable) will not make it to issue #20.
5. People have gotten over One More Day well before Casey's countdown has finished.

X-Force

The first of three shiny new books for the X-Men line, X-Force hit the shelves yesterday (Cable debuts in March and Young X-Men follows in April). The new title, written by former New X-Men writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost, has been heavily hyped since before the start of Messiah CompleX. Hell, a big chunk of the story served as a preview of X-Force. So the title finally debuts, albeit a week late. So how was it? Was it worth the hype? Well, no – not really.

The theme of the book is quite simple: after Messiah CompleX (and apparently all the events leading up to it) Cyclops has decided that desperate times call for desperate measures and has put together a team that will get the job done with a sense of finality. In a nutshell, it’s a killing squad. This plays right up Kyle and Yost’s alley (as they have great trouble getting through a story without killing someone) and it also gives another opportunity for a Wolverine-headlined book (as if Wolverine, Wolverine Origins, the upcoming Wolverine: First Class and countless mini-series weren’t enough). So okay – it’s new for the franchise, and in theory it could work.

The problem here is the execution. X-Force was basically thrown at readers during Messiah CompleX to hunt down and apparently take out Cable. It really didn’t work then, as they had no evidence that Cable had caused anything, save have possession of the baby, yet Cyclops still gave the "any means necessary" order. The lineup was strange as well – Wolverine and X-23 – being the bloodthirsty animals they are – fit. Warpath, Caliban and Hepzibah were odd, but could possibly work (even though Caliban apparently was just there as cannon fodder). Wolfsbane was about as ill a fit as you could get. In no form of the character could you justify having her there. So X-Force spent Messiah as more of a tracker group than an "any means necessary" group.

X-Force opens with a look into Wolverine’s thoughts. I’m not going to go into his point of having never been to Colorado (Really? Wolverine?), but it’s supposed to be a big deal that X-Force disbanded after Caliban died. That’s right, a team that had been together for one mission – and obviously not very long, since Caliban and Hepzibah were members – and it’s a big deal that they’ve split.

Then Cyclops makes the point that Emma doesn’t know he’s doing this, which makes me scratch my head. Emma Frost is the 2nd most powerful telepath in the world, and she shares a bed with Cyclops – can see into his subconscious – yet he’s hiding this. And what for? Emma is amongst the more cold-blooded members of the team. She was the one that first brought up offing the Scarlet Witch at the beginning of House of M. She was the one who broke Cassandra Nova’s neck. Why would she not go fully with the idea of permanently removing villains who pose a threat to herself and her students? The tone of "secret missions" is set for no particular reason besides that it seems cool.

So the team gets back together – sans Hepzibah who’s not even mentioned – and off they go on their mission against the Purifiers, who have apparently infiltrated SHIELD to get the head of Bastion – something I’m going to have to wait and see on. The issue has the apparently obligatory heavy-blood fight (complete with blades through the face, for good measure) and it ends with the overused Kyle/Yost device of making it look like someone gets killed for the cliffhanger. We’ve seen this too many times to really even matter anymore.

There are three things beyond the details of the issue itself that concerns me about this book. First are the comparisons to the original X-Force series launched by Rob Liefeld back in 1991. Obviously I have strong doubts about this, but I don’t think it’s fair to argue that it shouldn’t be called X-Force because it doesn’t have the same premise as the original. Hell, the original lost the original premise within 20 issues. The "Cable makes soldiers out of the New Mutants" bit ended when Cable vanished after X-Cutioner’s Song and they began setting their own place in the world. Yet, that Liefeld concept is what I keep reading about. This is not going to be that – quit trying to think that it should be. It’s actually the third appropriate use of the title – the second being when Warren Ellis took the book on in 2000.

My second concern is the book’s art, courtesy of Clayton Crain. Don’t misunderstand me on this one – I think the art’s flat-out gorgeous. But with such wonderful art usually comes long delays in a book. Take examples from Jim Lee on All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, whichever Kubert is working on Action Comics or Bryan Hitch on Ultimates. I’m not familiar with Crain, so perhaps he’s above the mold on this one, and I certainly hope so. The book’s art is amazing and definitely a drawing point.

Finally, I’m concerned about the premise of the title. The "desperate times call for desperate measures" idea is somewhat new to the X-Men mythos, especially taken to the level that it seems to be here. However, how long can you really draw this premise out? Surely, some villains will have to be killed to give the book some sort of credibility, yet does that mean all X-Men villains will be hunted as the book continues? How can you justify them being X-Force worthy? If they all are, then why bother with X-Men at all? Will new villains be created just to be killed? This seems like much more of a mini/maxi series premise than an ongoing. I can see two or three story arcs coming out before the title begins to drag.

So go ahead and give this title a try if you like the premise and enjoy great art. I’m obviously not optimistic about it, but hey, only one issue’s come out thus far. I’ll keep getting it to see where it goes – and hopefully many of my concerns are unfounded.