Quick review: Uncanny X-Force #18

The Dark Angel Saga – Conclusion

The black bag version of Uncanny X-Force #18

By Rick Remender, Jerome Opeña and Dean White
X-Force has gone from being a dirty book hidden in the quarter bins to a bloody great comic and now a must-read for X-Men fans. Rebooted after the Messiah CompleX as a black ops team sent on missions by Cyclops, the book took on new life after Cyclops was forced to disassemble the team only for the group to re-form, this time with no limitations. Wolverine, Psylocke (Betsy Braddock), Fantomex, Deadpool and Archangel (Warren Worthington) made up the team and almost straight away they had trouble.

In attempting to stop the rebirth of Apocalypse, the team traveled to the moon to assassinate a young boy who was destined to become the vessel for En Sabah Nur (AKA Apocalypse). Of course the boy was protected by four new Horsemen far more terrifying than the previous iterations. Even after subduing the guards, the team was faced with a crisis… should they kill the child or rescue him?

This created some friction in the ranks as killing a child seemed a bit too hard core, even for Deadpool. However, Fantomex had no such qualms and kills the child outright. This act tipped the first in a line of the dominoes of an epic fall that has led to the Dark Angel Saga.

Warren Worthington, the most privileged of the X-Men, comes from money… lots of money. He’s so important and influential that he was a member of the Hellfire Club that secretly plotted the domination of the planet. When his wings were clipped in the Mutant Massacre (that’s a call back of over two decades!), he was taken in by Apocalypse to be reborn as his dark agent of death, Archangel. His skin was tinted blue and covered with tattoos, his wings now made of metal blades that could be fired at will. He was a demonic force of evil for some time, but eventually came back to his senses and settled back into his own self… or so it was thought. In recent years, he obtained the ability to shift in and out of his Archangel form, but had great difficulty in maintaining his psyche. His lover and confident, Psylocke, trained him to quell his inner demons, but the inner battle was fierce.

Finally, his darker half took over and, without another vessel to enter, Warren became the reincarnation of Apocalypse. Through a journey to the alternate reality where Apocalypse conquered the planet, the X-Force team had managed to find a ‘Life Seed’ that could cure Warren, but it would certainly mean his death.

Only eighteen issues along, Uncanny X-Force is without a doubt the most polished and charismatic of the X-Books, which is odd as it exists in a virtual bubble. All of the cast members are vibrant and full of potential, even the over-exposed flavor of the decade Deadpool. Fantomex, a character so enigmatic that no one dared use him until Jason Aaron made sense of him in Dark Reign: Wolverine: The List (what a title), has become a magnificent hero with so many facets to his personality that it is impossible to predict what he will do next.

Warning: There are Spoilers ahead…

The Dark Angel Saga is primarily a punch up for the end of all things, X-Men of various reality fighting each other with all of reality hanging in the balance. The only possible resolution has always been the assassination of Warren so that Apocalypse is forced to leave his subject, but no one, not even Wolverine, is capable of such an act. Added to this is the problem that Apocalypse has the resources of several immensely powerful mutants and you have the makings of an epic.

Jerome Opeña, whom I was familiar with from his work on Moon Knight, has been pulling out all the stops in this book. Each page is so full of dynamic action that it seems animated rather than static. The fight sequences are startling and exciting, something that is a rare accomplishment in superhero comics where the image of one guy punching another guy has been going on since the 1930’s.

But perhaps the most astounding moment comes in the conclusion where the inevitable death of Archangel arrives and Psylocke grants her lover a most unusual gift, psychically projecting an entire lifetime into Warren’s mind as he lay dying. It’s an incredibly touching moment that arrived at just the right spot. After so much violence and histrionics, a sincere touching act was poetically soul-crushing.

On his death bed, Warren sees himself as an old man married to Psylocke, equally aged. A long life of love, peace and family building behind him, Warren still has doubts of his worth and Betsy gives him a parting blessing.

Next week a new beginning no doubt begins for the Uncanny X-Force (yes, two issues in one month). It’s a great jumping on point, I suppose, but the past several issues have been absolutely awesome. Rick Remender has taken a group of characters who have, for the most part, been over-used to death and created a phenomenal action comic with layers of comedy, drama and hyper violence that I have never seen before… unless it was in a very very old X-Men book.