Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics, Review | Tagged: Dawn Of X, marvel, x-force, x-men, X-ual Healing - The Weekly X-Men Recap Column

That's One Way to Kill a Wolverine in X-Force #4 [X-ual Healing]

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2019 12:00:27 -0600

by Jude Terror

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Six X-books hit stores last week: New Mutants #4, X-Force #4, Marauders #4, Excalibur #4, Fallen Angels #4, and one surprise book no one was expecting. As a Christmas present to myself, and since I've written over 3,000 words about them collectively (but get paid per article, not per word), I'm going to publish each recap as an individual article, and then reveal the Wolverine's Weiner X-Pick of the Week at the end. Will X-ual Healing continue that way into the new year? Maybe. Maybe not. They'll collectively get more clicks this way though.

In any case, if you don't feel like waiting for each article, just wait until the end of the day and read the finale. Now, let's get on with the show…

Sworn to sell comics for Marvel executives who feared and hated the fact that Fox owned their movie rights, The Uncanny X-Men suffered great indignities, but thanks to a corporate merger and a line-wide relaunch, the X-Men can finally get back to doing what they do best: being objectively the best franchise in all of comics.

What Happened in X-Force #4?

X-FORCE #4 DX
OCT190913
(W) Ben Percy (A) Joshua Cassara (CA) Dustin Weaver
THE BEST DEFENSE…
TARGET: ALL ENEMIES OF MUTANTKIND!
First, the new team strikes back against the humans who took one of their own. Then, with its orders established, the new X-Force hits the ground running, taking on deadly threats targeting mutantkind's rightful place in the world…
Parental Advisory
In Shops: Dec 18, 2019
SRP: $3.99

Charles Xavier was resurrected last issue and X-Force given an official charter, but the danger isn't over as this issue opens with another group of armed assailants invading an Xavier pharmaceutical factory and killing a Multiple Man dupe. At a Quiet Council meeting on Krakoa, Xavier spins a history lesson about Hercules into a proclamation that X-Force must be like the mutant C.I.A., with both an intelligence arm and a black ops arm. And so, Beast, Sage, and Jean Grey are sent to investigate the attack on the factory last night, where they use reconstructed memories from the dead dupe to learn that these attackers were professionals, and though they were similarly skilled to the assassins that killed Xavier, there are some key differences in their methods and equipment. They stole a shipment of Krakoan flower petals, but Sage believes they were actually after data from the Krakoan computer. An infographic page tells us that Charles Xavier is the richest man in the world.

After the intelligence breach reports their findings to the Quiet Council, the black ops team of Wolverine, Domino, and Kid Omega visit Forge for some new weaponry. Domino gets a plant-based Krakoan arm cannon that can transform into a blade or whatever its wielder needs. Kid Omega gets nothing because he boasts that he's already the perfect weapon. Wolverine makes a special request to forge to make use of the stockpile of adamantium they've got, which an infographic showing Forge's daily planner reveals Forge intends to make, but not before screwing with Wolverine a bit first. We don't get to learn what it is… yet.

When a report arrives that Greenspace, an Xavier-owned clean energy company, is under attack by the same assailants as before, Wolverine, Domino, and Kid Omega jump into action. But the attackers have hacked the gate and they turn it off at the exact moment Wolverine and Kid Omega jump through, decapitating Quentin and slicing Logan in half, while Domino is left behind. They prepare to loot the half-bodies.

Was it any good?

Most of this issue was spent establishing the charter of the X-Force team, though it feels a bit like overexplaining since we knew this is what the book would be about before it even launched. We're four issues in and we've already had Xavier die and come back to life, new villains introduced, and a new team formed… but it still feels like it's moving a little slow. Pacing complaints aside though, the team does have a great dynamic and several mysteries have been seeded. Who are the group or groups behind the attacks? What are they doing with all of the data they're gathering? And what is Forge making for Wolverine? And though we know that Kid Omega and Wolverine can be resurrected easily, it was still a pretty badass way to kill them off at the end of the issue. And death really hasn't had much meaning in the X-books for decades, but at least now there's some logic behind that.

Keep checking back as we recap all of last week's X-Men books today, and pick the best at the end for the Wolverine's Weiner X-Pick of the Week.