Cable’s latest recruits in Inglorious X-Force have been a surprisingly entertaining ragtag crew of misfit mutants, and the reasoning for getting them together is one that adds a surprising layer to the roster: at some point in the future, one of them is going to assassinate future President Kamala Khan. Keeping Khan in the ranks allows Cable to keep an eye on the motives of his team, and serves as good “background recon” as he keeps the crew going from mission to mission to prevent further attacks against mutankind. The roster has been fun to see interact with one another, but we haven’t really had a lot of time to explore the inner thoughts of the members until now, when Tabitha Smith (aka Boom-Boom) takes center stage in Inglorious X-Force #3, a surprisingly moving character issue.
With X-Force successfully taking down the Blasphemy Cartel last issue (and Cable crossing Hellverine off his list of subjects), the team turns their attention to the Malachi Process. Created by the Beyond Corporation, it allows users to clone specific mutant ability cells and graft them onto humans, thereby upping the “super-powered bodyguard” risk in the world. A quick hack of the Beyond Corps’ servers shows that the Malachi Process is being housed in Minnesota and being overseen by Nextwave, the former team of C-Listers that Boom-Boom was a part of many years ago and would like to forget ever being a part of. But when the newly resurrected Nextwave leader Dirk Anger arrives, Boom-Boom has to confront her past, whether she wants to or not.
I’ll be honest, there’s a lot about the history of Boom-Boom that I straight up did not know about (a man can only hold so much useless comic book trivia in his brain). But I was extremely impressed with how well Tim Seeley’s script balanced the exposition for Boom-Boom here. It’s the right amount of “need to know” and emotional depth to make Boom-Boom more than just the comic relief character on the team, but not so much that it holds the issue up from moving forward narratively. This is quite the narrative change from what Seeley has been doing, but Boom-Boom is so well written here that I don’t mind her taking the spotlight after we’ve had two issues of big brooding Cable hogging it.
That all being said, putting Tabitha front and center does mean that Daken and Warren Worthington III are shunted to the back, but not nearly as much as Kamala Khan is. Despite being the reason why this team is assembled by Cable, there’s still a frustratingly small amount of Kamala in the series, so much so that I honestly forgot she was in the issue at times. As a big fan of the original Ms. Marvel run that introduced Kamala, seeing her get put into another supporting role and seemingly forgotten about is more than a little annoying, but at least there isn’t the chance of her dying again in this book (I hope).
Marvel
I’ve sung Michael Sta. Maria’s praises already in the previous two issues of Inglorious X-Force, so allow me to do it for a third time here! This issue has arguably the biggest and weirdest shifts in the series yet, but Sta. Maria’s style is able to adapt pretty effortlessly, and show his skills with humor too. When Anger’s initial “guards” in front of his fake town arrive I was truly taken aback at how funny the designs were. From an cyborg Capybara to a character called “Lactosimos Skim”, there’s some truly insane designs that are over far too quickly, but show that there’s a hilarious Deadpool series with Sta. Maria at the drawing table yet to manifest. Yet when the time comes to go into full creepy body horror later on, Sta. Maria doesn’t hold back there either. That ability to shift almost on a dime isn’t one you see a lot from artists in comics, and it feels like Sta. Maria is using Inglorious X-Force to really show off his range.
Inglorious X-Force #3 is still a very fun comic, but I am wondering what else is planned for the title overall. It looks like we’re going to be going beyond five issues given recent solicitations, and that’s truly great. But by issue’s end we’ve only got one suspect left for Cable’s secret mission, so I wonder if we are going to get to see some new blood added to the roster soon. This third issue gave us a lot of character work to endear us to Boom-Boom, and while we may not have much time left in this arc, I hope it’s a sign that Seeley and Sta. Maria will give other members the spotlight soon.
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