It’s tough for me to keep the faith about Marvel sometimes. I used to love the shit out of it, and y’know I still do, but my taste has been skewed far towards DC in recent years. At first I thought the Ultimates series would revitalize Marvel, and they were great, but the fact that all the original series’ were running concurrently to it made the Marvel landscape uselessly complex and confusing. I was also never quite sucked in by Civil War, which was overall a disappointment in my mind (sorry).

When I heard about Uncanny X-Force, it really wasn’t a blip on my radar. Just another of the multitude of X-Men based titles floating around. Especially when I realized it had none of the original X-Force in it (no Cable, no Domino) is was like lolwut. Luckily, my friend and fellow comic enthusiast Burke informed me that it was actually supposed to be alright, and even bought me the first issue. Thank goodness, because this series has turned out to be not just alright, but fucking great.

The team now consists of Wolverine, Psylocke, Archangel, Fantomex, and Deadpool. Deadpool has been the shining star of Marvel for the past year, even though he has been stretched a little thin. Cable & Deadpool was probably my favorite recent-ish Marvel series, so I was excited to see him in Uncanny. The first 4 issue arc, which just finished this week, concerns the X-Force’s attempts to track down the reincarnated Apocalypse and kill him. Thing is, he’s been reincarnated in the body of a young boy.

It’s the classic “if you could go back in time would you kill kid Hitler?” conundrum, and the book handles it really well. Apocalypse’s bodyguards are also really cool interpretations of the 4 Horsemen, whose introductions in issue 3 might be my favorite part so far. The characters are all awesome, especially Fantomex, who I wasn’t too familiar with before the series. He’s a kind of half-cyborg constructed from parts of a Sentinel Robot. He’s fuckin cool.

Rick Remender writes the series, and I really wasn’t at all familiar with him before this book. He’s really great though. With the X-Force being the cold hearted assassins they were created to be, a lot of people have used the series as a place to play out stories with little substance that are far too violent for the rest of Marvel’s lineup. However Remender, while still getting in some good violence, has kept it mostly character based, especially in regards to the relationship between Archangel and Psylocke.

Jerome Opeña’s art is gorgeous, and the comic has a very unique color palette. It’s grimy and dirty without necessarily being dark. A lot of rich purples and oranges and stuff, very cool and original. Much of the series also takes place in space, so there’s a lot of opportunity for gorgeous vistas and whatnot. At this point you could get all the issues for like $10, so I would highly recommend you do so. My favorite Marvel series right now for sure.

- Whole Milk