X-Force vol. 3, or reading 1/4 of X-Cutioners Song makes about as much sense as you'd think it does.

As I predicted, X-Cutioners song (issues 16-18) didn't really make a ton of sense. Currently in comics, if there's a crossover series, it usually is in a limited series and any individual titles can tie-in in some way. X-Cutioners Song on the other hand, is one ongoing story that jumps between four different titles to get a year's worth of story in in three months. (I'm realizing a recent example that follows the 90's crossover format is the 2009 Dark Avengers/X-Men crossover Utopia which jumped back and forth between those titles.) 

This was probably a beneficial tactic at the time because they got to involve all the different X-characters in one story and if you were only reading one title you had to go buy all four for a couple months if you wanted to keep up, temporarily boosting sales. But if you're just reading one title it just makes things confusing and annoying. Doing a little research I discovered that one of the X-Factor chapters didn't even involve a single Factor team member, it only followed Wolverine, Bishop, and Cable. That would be even more annoying. At least I had an X-Force character as a main player in the story in Cable.

It probably wouldn't have been as bad if they had just bothered to take half a page to fill me in on what went down previously instead of quick, unhelpful, one sentence summaries like "Assassination attempt on Xavier!" How am I supposed to know that it was Stryfe posing as Came to attempted said assassination, causing the X-Men to decide X-Force was involved and THAT'S why they're all fighting?

Other than all that complaining, not a whole lot else of note went on for our team, except for Cable sacrificing himself at the end to save everyone. But he'll be back so it's not like he's gone forever, this story mainly just served as an opportunity to hint at his origin a bit.

Stryfe does unleash the Legacy Virus at the end of X-Force 18, which would be a huge plot point in all the X-titles for close to 20 years, but the way it's done is such a teaser that there was no way you'd ever know reading it at the 
time that Mr. Sinister's assistant just opened such a huge can if worms. (Although I didn't notice until now that I actually own both the issue where the Legacy Virus is unleashed and the issue where it's cured. That's kind of neat I guess.)

One other thing that I wonder ties in again to what I said last time, which is "was all this planned?" This crossover was originally pitched by Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld before they left to form Image Comics. Obviously there's no way the new writers could have known what kind of story they had in mind for it, but I can't help but wonder about their plans for Stryfe and Cable. Before Liefeld left, he had revealed Stryfe and Cable have the same face, but not of they were the same person, time lost versions of the same person (ala Immortus/Kang the Conquerer) or clones or what. Now at the end of this story it's pretty clear that one or both of them are Cyclops' son and Stryfe is dead. Was that their original intention for their creations, or was it something the new writers thought up?

Lastly, I haven't had a lot to make fun of art-wise since Rob Liefeld left, so this time we're making fun of the new letterer:

The accentuations in these issues are ridiculous!

This was the third in a series. If you missed the first two installments, they are here and here.

Now reading: Roadwork by Richard Bachman

In the stereo: Fashion Focus by Starflyer 59