September 24, 2008

X-Force #7 Review

X-Force #7
After the amazing conclusion to "Angels and Demons," the X-Force team is back for its newest arc entitled "Old Ghosts."

The book starts out very strong as we see the reaction Rahne has to seeing Angel. It's pretty cool to watch and read without giving away too much. From here however, the book takes a turn for the worse.

The main problem is the new readers of X-Force or any X-Men comics have no idea who some of these characters are. Who is the little golden boy named Elixir, what's his power and what did he do that he wants to forget so bad as to call upon Emma Frost's freaky space girls? Who are those girls anyway? They clearly have some sort of telepathic power but for those of us who are new, we have no idea.

The book then decides to bring back the old "Mutants are bad and must be destroyed" senator. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it's a little exhausted in X-books. From there it ends with X-Force's new target, a guy named Vanisher. Once again, who is this guy? I can understand why the team wants to go after him but give the readers a little character background.

Lastly, the biggest problem with the book is the arrival of new artist Mike Choi. The most exciting thing about reading X-Force each month was to see the visuals Clayton Crain used to tell the story. Now, we have some dude who draws kind of like Crain but doesn't deliver that visual punch one expects to see when reading X-Force.

I'm not excited about this issue but I have a feeling it will explain itself in the end. Until then, I guess I'd better read up on my X-characters and drool over Crain's art in issue #6.
3.5/5 stars

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