X-Force #102

Reviewed: X-Force #102 by Ellis, Edgington and Portacio

The Plot: Pete Wisdom leads X-Force into defeating bizarre, government-created killing machines, and rededicates the team to a new mission.

I recently vowed to myself (and you, if you were reading) that I would never again purchase an issue of a Spider-Man title as long as the current creative and editorial teams (capable of neither creating or editing anything of value) are in place. The fact that X-Force #102 makes me feel much the same about the X-Titles leads me to question if I am the audience these companies are constructing sooperhero comic books for anymore.

Let's see.

I began reading Spider-Man and other sooperhero comics in 1972, and my interest peaked in the early '80s, during the era of Wolfman and Perez's New Teen Titans, Frank Miller's Daredevil, Claremont and Byrne's X-Men, Claremont and Sienkiewicz's New Mutants, and Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.

At the time, I was also reading Cerebus, Elfquest, Love and Rockets and other alternative and underground titles, so I certainly could not be accused of only being interested in a small area of the American comic book artform.

As a pre-teen, I even enjoyed Richie Rich, Archie, hell, even the poorly-printed stuff Charlton was putting out, like E-Man and Emergency and Space: 1999.

So, I've been reading comics a long time. I love the artform so much I gladly spend cash on them to give to my two young children, even knowing that maybe 10 percent of them will survive their first hours in their hands intact. I hope against hope that the brightly-coloured confetti Aaron and Kira almost invariably turn their comics into will develop into a life-long love affair of the type I have enjoyed. I love comics.

I currently am loving the Avengers, by Kurt Busiek and George Perez, so I certainly can't be accused of hating standard sooperhero comics. I bought and enjoyed Uncanny X-Men during Chris Bachalo's run, and I have very fond memories of Byrne and Claremont's run on Uncanny way back when, so I certainly can't be accused of hating All Things X.

I adored Warren Ellis's run on the Authority, and even went out of my way to seek out and purchase the Stormwatch trade paperbacks that told the story that preceded it. I like, but do not pretend to always understand, Ellis's Planetary, and recently paid cash for the three Transmetropolitan TPBs and didn't regret it at all. So, I am far from a hater of Warren Ellis.

X-Force #102 is one of the ugliest pieces of work I have seen in some time, and it perplexes me. Why do I hate it so? Is it just me?

Warren Ellis was brought in to plot arcs for this and other second-tier X-titles, as a part of the "Revolution" event that has seen all the X-titles jump forward 6 months into the future, with the main two X-books (Uncanny X-Men and its adjectiveless cousin) once again being written by Chris Claremont. Claremont's return issue left me fairly ambivalent--I could take or leave future offerings of similar quality. X-Force #102 leaves me no such mixed emotions. There's nothing in it to make me want more. In fact, it was one of a handful of comics in the recent past that I have actually considered bringing back to the store for a refund.

The ugliness starts early, with a poorly-designed cover (it looks like it might be part of a set of connected covers, but I don't care enough to check--even if it is, such covers should be able to stand on their own, and this one doesn't) one-fifth of which is consumed by the "Revolution" logo. Whilce Portacio has very little space left to work in, once you subtract additional space for logos and the UPC seal. Perhaps the fact that the art is covered by so much detritus is a plus, though, because, well...Whilce Portacio cannot draw comics.

Let me say that again. Whilce Portacio cannot draw comics.

Before you accuse me of throwing stones at glass houses, let me remind you, you do not have to be an orthopedic surgeon to know the doctor has botched your knee surgery. You don't have to be a gourmet to know the meat has spoiled. I can't draw very well, but then again I am not paid to. Whilce Portacio, for reasons known but to God, is.

First of all, I'll assume the "Revolution" event is designed in part to attract new readers. Bringing on popular writer Warren Ellis (whose plots for these issues, I'm guessing, would probably fit on a crumpled bar napkin) is also likely a bid for new readership. Hell, it sucked me in. I can assure you, had Ellis not been involved, I would have not even noticed this on the stands.

Especially with that ugly-ass cover. The only character I even recognize is Cannonball, and only then because his ass is on fire. The rest of the characters are completely unknown to me, and 32 pages later, they still are. Other than Pete Wisdom (who I knew nothing about going in, a status quo that has not changed overmuch), I have no idea what any of the characters names are, what their personalities are like, or why they are involved in superheroics. There is nothing in this book to make a new reader feel at home, and in fact quite a bit to drive them away.

The story begins six months in the past, as Pete Wisdom (seriously, the only thing I know about this guy is I think he boinked Kitty Pryde once, and believe me, it's not my job to know him, it's their job to introduce me to him) blows up some British dissection lab, much to the dismay of some government guy. Wisdom explains that he intends to police the "world intel community" and stop their "disgusting crimes against humanity." What has inspired this crusade is unknown, both to Wisdom and likely to the creative team as well. It's just a deus ex machina to introduce the new direction of the title.

The exchange between Wisdom and the government guy takes place aboard a boat composed mainly of black lines and glowing squares, with no sense of place at all, after the setting is established in the splash panel. The government agent's face in profile appears so identical and without expression that it appears Portacio photocopied it and pasted it in at least four times--but I think that's mere laziness on Portacio's part. Bill Sienkiewicz, an actual comics artist, once did much the same with the image of a political candidate in Elektra: Assassin, but he was doing it for a reason, to make a point. As art. Portacio does it because, well, he can't draw very well.

Six months later some woman, part of some military operation, is surprised when Pete Wisdom shows up to help contain an outbreak of "cellular automata," government created killing machines. Another reviewer pointed out the similarity to Ellis's Planetary in this plot, but it took that review to make me see it. It's hard to find a plot amid all the Serious Posing and Grimacing all these nameless, characterless characters are busy doing. The sooperheroics on the pages that follow, as Wisdom brings in X-Force to destroy the creatures, features some of the most poorly-designed, unattractive pictures I have ever seen masquerading as comics. At the end, Wisdom gets the team to agree to his new agenda, which probably comes as something of a relief, since they apparently were doing nothing before this story began. They are mere ciphers in service to the threadbare plot.

Of course, the threadbare plot alone does not explain my distaste for this issue. The recent issue of Penny Century I reviewed had even less to hang its story on, and yet I liked it quite a bit.

I'm left to conclude, after all is said and done, that Whilce Portacio bears a large part of the blame for my feelings about this issue. He splatters his pages with black ink and ominous poses, apparently hoping to evoke Bill Sienkiewicz's style, with Portacio's own "modern" twist--the Image-like lack of page design, backgrounds or decipherable storytelling. Maybe in the hands of someone who can draw comics, I would have liked this story better.

There's a two-page epilogue in this issue in which some woman doubles over in pain, gets a bloody nose, develops glowing eyes, snaps some guy's neck, then asks a bunch of black spatters all over the page to "hu...help me..."

I felt much the same after subjecting myself to this unreadable crap.