X-Force

Publication history

Publication

The X-Force series was successful in the early 1990s, with its popularity holding steady after Liefeld left. As with other X-titles in the 90s, Marvel implemented various reforms to the title throughout its run until 2001, with varying degrees of success. Declining sales on the X-Force series eventually prompted Marvel to revamp the title in 2001 with a new cast in the form of a group of self-interested young mutants who were gathered together by a corporation to become media stars and used the name X-Force. X-Force was canceled with #129 and relaunched as X-Statix, which coincided with a similar rebranding of the team in the story. After X-Statix was canceled with #26, Marvel reunited the original X-Force team for a six-issue 2004 miniseries plotted and drawn by Liefeld.

In 2007–2008, during the Messiah Complex crossover event, a new version of the X-Force team was formed with Wolverine leading a militaristic black ops branch of the X-Men. This squad would form the basis for a new X-Force series starting February 2008 by writers Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, plus Clayton Crain as the artist. The series came to a conclusion in September 2010 as part of the Second Coming storyline that ran through various X-titles. The title was then relaunched in October 2010 as Uncanny X-Force with Rick Remender and Jerome Opeña as the creative team and Wolverine, Psylocke, Deadpool, Archangel, Fantomex, and E.V.A. as the initial roster.

The Uncanny X-Force series ended at issue #35 in 2012 and was once again relaunched as Uncanny X-Force (vol. 2) as part of Marvel NOW!, with a new team led by Storm and Psylocke, written by Sam Humphries. A concurrent X-Force book written by Dennis Hopeless, Cable and X-Force, was released at the same time, bringing Cable back into the X-Force fold. The two series ended in 2014 after a crossover between the two titled "Vendetta". A new X-Force (vol. 4), written by X-Men: Legacy writer Simon Spurrier, was launched featuring a black ops squad consisting of Cable, Psylocke, Fantomex, and Marrow.

Uncanny X-Force

X-Force was replaced in October 2010 with Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender and Jerome Opeña. This new series introduces team members Psylocke, Fantomex, and Deadpool. According to Remender, "This is a group of characters that have had their souls stained by evil forces in the past, a common thread connecting them. They've already made the hard compromises in the past; they've all taken life."

The title had a three-issue "Fear Itself" tie-in miniseries, written by Rob Williams, with art by Simone Bianchi. As of issue #34, thirty-one characters were killed and 14 of them were from the "Age of Apocalypse" timeline.

Uncanny X-Force (vol. 2): 2013–2014

As part of Marvel NOW!, two new X-Force series would replace Remender's Uncanny X-Force. Prior to their announcement, the two titles were teased by a single word and the book's creative team: "Wanted" with Dennis Hopeless and Salvador Larroca and "Killers" with Sam Humphries and Ron Garney. "Wanted" was first revealed to be the brand new "Cable and X-Force", with "Killers" later revealed to be a relaunched "Uncanny X-Force."

Cable and X-Force, written by Dennis Hopeless and penciled by Salvador Larroca, featured Cable on the run after awakening from a coma in the post-AvX world. Harkening back to the early days of the original X-Force, Cable leads an outlaw X-Force team consisting of Domino, Colossus, Forge, Doctor Nemesis and Boom-Boom, whose missions of stopping tragedies before they happen puts them at odds with the newly formed Uncanny Avengers, led by Cable's uncle Havok.

The relaunched Uncanny X-Force was written by Sam Humphries and penciled by Ron Garney, and featured a Psylocke-led team with an initial roster of Storm, Puck, and Cluster. They would be joined by Spiral and Bishop as they sought to locate a psychic mutant girl who had been kidnapped.

Fictional history

X-Force (vol. 3)

The Purifiers, led by Matthew Risman and Eli Bard, resurrect Bastion by attaching his head to a Nimrod unit. Bastion retrieves an offspring of Magus from the ocean floor and revives several deceased X-Men enemies, including Cameron Hodge, Bolivar Trask, and Graydon Creed, by infecting their corpses with the Transmode Virus. The virus allows Bastion a degree of mental control over the revived corpses. He also infects two living subjects with the virus: Donald Pierce and the Leper Queen.

During X-Force's raid on a Purifier base, Risman holds Wolfsbane hostage. While Wolverine calls for the team to stand down, X-23 decides Risman is bluffing and activates a concealed detonator that sets off a series of powerful explosives. The explosion brings most of the base down around them, but Risman escapes with Wolfsbane during the chaos. After interrogating and killing numerous Purifiers, X-Force finds Wolfsbane held in a warehouse, barely alive. Angel retrieves Elixir to heal Wolfsbane, who wakes up soon after. Wolfsbane savagely attacks X-23 and Laura before handing over Angel's wings to the Purifiers.

Elixir heals both his and Angel's wounds, then discovers that Angel's wings are not organic and cannot be regrown. Angel transforms into Archangel, complete with metallic wings. Archangel wounds Wolverine and X-23 before taking off toward the Purifiers' base, sensing his old wings. Meanwhile, the Purifiers use samples of Angel's stolen wings to develop techno-organic wings for their soldiers, giving them similar abilities to Archangel. The group of Purifiers given wings is dubbed the Choir. X-Force pursues Archangel to the Purifiers' base and slaughters most of the Choir, while Risman discovers Bard absorbing the Technarch offspring. X-23 kills Risman and briefly fights Bard. Bard overpowers her, but is prevented from killing her when Warpath stabs him, causing him to flee. Wolverine takes on Bastion, who deems the threat posed by Wolverine "unacceptable" and retreats. Afterwards, X-Force finds Archangel unconscious and in human form, complete with feathered wings. Wolverine informs Cyclops of the turn of events, and Cyclops asks which of X-Force's targets should be next.

Once X-Force regroups at Angel's Aerie, they test the reactions of Wolfsbane and Angel to one another. Wolfsbane reverts to full feral form upon seeing Angel, who responds by transforming into Archangel. Wolverine and Elixir restrain Wolfsbane while Cyclops talks down Archangel, who has trouble controlling his Apocalypse-like mentality while transformed. Laura calls in the Stepford Cuckoos to erase Elixir's memories of X-Force, to help them remain covert. Cyclops assembles X-Force, including Elixir, and unexpectedly declares Vanisher as their next target.

X-Force (vol. 4)

The new X-force consists of Cable, Marrow (who despite losing her powers during M-Day is repowered using a psychic headband), Psylocke, Fantomex, and Doctor Nemesis. They are investigating an explosion in Alexandria that put Hope Summers into a coma and find a new mutant nicknamed Meme, who is comatose and can only communicate through computers. They discover Russian billionaire Yevgeny-Malevitch Volga is behind Alexandria explosion and the kidnapping. He has been kidnapping mutants and supercharging them with kinetic energy and making them into human bombs. While in Paris, they pretend to kill a mutant that can read the minds of cats, so the French secret mutant forces, Le Bureaus Discret, will come to investigate, then they kidnap Le Necrogateur, a mutant that can read the minds of the deceased. Using his powers they find Volga's headquarters and that Volga found a mutant that can teleport between dimensions. Threatening the death of his family, they force the teleporting mutant to bring back a powerful weapon from Earth-1287, that creates super soldiers but greatly decreases their lifespan. During the attack on Volga's base Marrow discovers that she was pregnant during M-Day and volunteered to get her powers back, but at the cost of her pregnancy. She has a mental breakdown and X-Force is captured. It seems all is lost when Cable is super-charged and blown up by Volga. It turns out that Cable was present at Alexandria and it was he and Hope that caused the explosion when he was supercharged by Volga's henchman. Hope mimicked his powers and the chemicals caused her to fall into a coma. Cable survived the explosions since he was not really there—Dr. Nemesis keeps Cable locked in stasis and creates a clone of him every day and uploads his memories. Cable and Dr. Nemesis attack Volga's base again and teleports his supercharged henchmen into outer space and then Volga seems to commit suicide by super-charging himself and killing the Cable clone again, but Marrow creates a bone shield to protect the team. Volga's spirit survives the explosion and another Cable clone emerges from the X-Force base to mourn over Hope, who was able to manifest herself in a digital avatar by copying the powers of a brain-dead mutant, Meme. Psylocke is able to discover the switch with her psychic powers, but promises Hope that she will not tell Cable.

Cable and the X-Force who have barely survived their ordeal with Volga, track a team of British special forces into the desert. The team is tracking terrorists known as the Quaddees. It turns out Volga sold his tech to both the British and the Quaddees. X-Force begins abducting the team, but are attacked by Pete Wisdom, Meggan, and Excalibur from MI-13. Soon the Quaddees kidnap one member of the team, so the three groups decide to work together. Psylocke is able to find out that the super-powered British Special forces team will all die soon from Volga's tech, so the team sacrifices themselves so MI-13 and X-Force can escape. They also learn that there's a secret organization called the Yellow Eye spying on all mutants, who also kidnapped Domino. This series also retcons multiple X-Men backstories with the introduction of ForgetMeNot. His power is to immediately be forgotten by anybody who speaks with him and to be completely unnoticed by people around him unless he acknowledges them. Only Xavier knows of his existence—even setting a psychic alarm clock to check in with ForgetMeNot every hour to remind him somebody remembers him. He hangs around the X-Mansion repelling attackers and saving the X-Men multiple times, without them realizing it and blaming it on dumb luck or a deus ex machina. Dr. Nemesis, using an algorithm based on blurs in camera footage and missing toilet paper at the X-Mansion creates a teleporter to bring ForgetMeNot to the X-Force base on an abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. The team has great difficulty catching ForgetMeNot, since whenever he hides they forgot about him then take a coffee break, where a prerecorded video by Dr. Nemesis plays reminding them to find ForgetMeNot. This turns into a vicious cycle, almost like a time loop, until ForgetMeNot realizes that he was brought here to trick the Yellow Eye spybots (which look like tiny gnats) into allowing himself to be tracked, place a reverse tracking beacon on one and then the drone will forget him immediately and not self-destruct. This plan works; however, Fantomex then kills ForgetMeNot. Stating that he knew about him all the time since he has three brains and nanobots in his brain. Fantomex says he does it because he is evil and bored. The ships cleaning bots sweep away ForgetMeNot's body and Dr. Nemesis forgets speaking with him and assumes he figured out how to track the spybots on his own.

Inglorious X-Force

Having failed a solo mission to prevent the assassination of the first mutant President of the United States, which will lead to a war between mutantkind and humanity, Cable travels back to the present but finds himself back in X-Force's original base in the Adirondack Mountains with his equipment damaged and suffering from partial amnesia. Seeing the names of Archangel, Hellverine and Boom-Boom etched onto his arm, Cable follows these clues to recruit the three into stopping the assassination attempt as X-Force. X-Force seeks out Ms. Marvel, who Cable reveals will be the future mutant president and recruits her into the team for her protection. Unbeknownst to the rest of X-Force, Cable has an ulterior motive to recruiting them, as the message "One Of Us" was also written on his arm, making him believe that one of the three is the future assassin.

Awards

Issues #57–58 of the first series were part of the Onslaught storyline which was a top vote-getter for the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for Favorite Comic-Book Story for 1997.

The original X-Force

Before the team best known as X-Force debuted, Marvel introduced an unrelated, little-known group also called X-Force. It was a short-lived group that was designed to replace Freedom Force. The members were not mutants, but received their powers artificially and were named after the X-Men. This group was organized by a government agency known as M Branch and only appeared in the pages of Cloak and Dagger #9–10 (1990).

Other versions

In the alternate reality of the "Days of Future Now" storyline, the X-Force consists of Banshee, Black Tom Cassidy, Cannonball, Domino, Meltdown and Omega Red.

In X-Men '92, the X-Force consists of Cable, Domino, Deadpool, Psylocke, Archangel, and Bishop.

In other media

Television

X-Force appears in X-Men '97, led by Cable and consisting of Jubilee, Sunspot, Psylocke, and Archangel.

Film

20th Century Fox were in the midst of developing a film adaptation of X-Force. On July 11, 2013, it was reported that Jeff Wadlow had been hired to write and direct the adaptation. Lauren Shuler Donner and Matthew Vaughn would have produced. On December 3, 2013, Rob Liefeld confirmed that Cable and Deadpool would be appearing in the film. The film was planned to be released sometime in the year 2017. In 2015, a piece of concept art depicting Cable, Domino, Warpath, Cannonball, and Feral as members of the team was released. After the release of the live-action film Deadpool, its leading actor Ryan Reynolds felt that the title character would soon be in an X-Force film, and producer Simon Kinberg stated that there was potential for X-Force to be rated-R like Deadpool in contrast to the PG-13 "mainline X-Men movies". X-Men and X2 director Bryan Singer stated in an interview with Fandango that he would like to see X-23 appear in the film as the new Wolverine. In addition, Psylocke was rumored to appear in the film as she is a very prominent member of the team in the comic books; however, actress Olivia Munn (who portrays Psylocke in the film X-Men: Apocalypse) has not addressed these rumors. On November 9, 2016, Kinberg announced to The Hollywood Reporter that the film was still on their schedule. In February 2017, it was reported that Reynolds would co-write the script with Joe Carnahan. On September 7, 2017, Drew Goddard was brought on to write and direct X-Force. On February 21, 2018, Hollywood North Buzz reported that the film would start shooting that October before the Disney/Fox deal was finalized.

X-Force appears in Deadpool 2, led by Deadpool and consisting of Domino, Bedlam, Shatterstar, Zeitgeist, Vanisher, and Peter. Deadpool and Weasel form the group to confront Cable. However, all except Deadpool and Domino are killed after their first mission begins. Later in the movie, a second lineup of X-Force is formed, comprising Deadpool, Domino, Cable, Colossus. In a post-credits scene, Deadpool uses Cable's time-travel device to travel back in time and save Peter.

Following the release of Deadpool 2, co-writer Rhett Reese confirmed the X-Force film would be an R-rated take on the X-Men and would have "all the sex, violence, and silliness one would expect from the Deadpool-skewed militarized mutant force". Reese also said "they can get their hands dirty a little bit. There's more gray area. It'll be raunchier, it'll be rated R, I'm sure. We'll get to see an ensemble movie that's pushed, hopefully, as far as the Deadpool individual movie was pushed."

On February 5, 2019, X-Men film producer Lauren Shuler Donner revealed that X-Force, as well as the rest of the Fox Marvel films, were "on hold" until the Disney-Fox deal went through.

Video games

X-Force appears in Deadpool's ending in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, consisting of Domino, Fantomex, and Archangel.

X-Force appears in Marvel Contest of Champions, consisting of Archangel, X-23, Domino, Cable, Deadpool, and Psylocke.

X-Force appears as a team bonus in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, consisting Wolverine, Psylocke, Nightcrawler, Deadpool, Storm and Cable.