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Now that the Xavier Institute is closed for business, and Chuck’s moral compass is not of a great deal of use in the world of “Divided We Stand”, Cyclops (acting head of The X-Men and newly-anointed badass) has put together his covert wetworks team to hunt down the worst threats to the mutant race and given them license to terminate with extreme prejudice anyone or anything that stands in their way. And thus, we have the newest incarnation of X-Force, which is certainly NOT to be compared to any previous version. This is the all-new all-bloodthirsty version and, while being a great idea to really let the big blades of the X-Universe really cut into some mutant-killing flesh, as of X-Force #3, it’s just not living up to its potential… yet.

Last issue, the fearsome foursome of Wolverine, X-23, Warpath and Wolfsbane were behind the eight-ball as the leader of the Purifiers, Matthew Risman, had shot Wolfsbane in the knee and also shot her full of heroin. Little did they know that the spunky little firecracker that X-23 is had also wired the building to explode, killing most of the Purifiers there except Risman, who was able to escape with Wolfsbane. Bastion had also, since his resurrection in the first issue, essentially taken control of the Purifiers and planned to resurrect another mega-bad foe of the X-Men… namely Magus. Now, for X-Force to get this info, they killed and tortured their way through a lot of Purifiers. Unfortunately, this was all done off-panel, and I’ll get to that later. Now in #3, The Purifiers are getting a lot of mutant-killing experts like cyborg Donald Pierce, formerly of the Hellfire Club, The Leper Queen (no idea who that is, other than she was about to be executed for killing mutant children), Cameron Hodge… and digging up the body of a guy by the last name of Creed… and Bastion is putting his final touches on what will be the inner circle of the Purifiers. Hint: It involves using Magus’s techno-organic abilities and bringing more dead people back to ‘life’.

Meanwhile, Warpath, Wolverine and X-23 are ready to take the fight to them, but they don’t find anyone to fight. They just find Rahne looking a lot like Uma Thurman after she OD’d in “Pulp Fiction”. They get her back to Angel’s Aerie and hope they can get her cleaned up. Um… yawn?

This is obviously a much more bad-guy-centric issue, and that’s actually pretty cool with me. I like finding out the evil deeds that these men (and futuristic robots) are scheming. I like how far they’re going to take it, and with who. The writing team of Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost is giving the bad guys a pretty good amount of page-time and the writing is snappy and scary. Clayton Crain’s digital/hand-drawn art looks like the love-child of Bill Sienkiewicz and Dave McKean on crank… and frighteningly, I think that’s a good thing. But this comic, and its ‘bloody variant’ covers, promise a great deal of bloodshed which, in a world where mutants are pretty much screwed, seems like a really good thing. But it’s not delivering yet. I feel that this should be a MAX title, as opposed to just having a ‘Parental Advisory’ label, because when I read the words ‘covert wetworks’ and see people like Wolverine and X-23 in the comic, I’m expecting a lot of death and disembowelments and other assorted viscera flying across the panels. I want to feel the blood dripping off the pages, and so far, X-Force is not going there. But it is only issue 3 and it could be on its way. One can hope.

But seriously, does my desire for seeing very graphic dismemberments and bloody deaths make me seem a little off to you? If so, please strike back with your name, address and vital statistics below. Don’t forget your blood-type.

X-Force #3
“Angels & Demons: Part Three of Six”
Written by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost
Art by Clayton Crain
Letters by VC’s Cory Petit

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