The recent Inglorious X-Force series from Marvel has walked the nostalgia/new story tight rope extremely well for the past few issues, and has made me care about characters I never really did before. The fifth issue, from writer Tim Seeley and artists Michael Sta Maria and Roi Mercado, finally gives use some answers on which member of Cable’s new strike force is going to kill Ms. Marvel. Well, “answers” in the sense of “we now know who’s it’s NOT going to be”, but Seeley and co. do a good job of making the end result feel less frustrating and more like a new status quo for the team going forward.
Warren Worthington III has fully transformed into a new form. Now dubbed “Blood Angel”, Worthington’s new abilities (thanks to Sinister’s gene splicing) will help him take the fight to Apocalypse whenever he eventually returns. As Daken, Cable, and Ms. Marvel confront Mister Sinister, Boom-Boom is able to enter inside of Warren’s mind thanks to him saving her life last issue, and she helps him to find his own path forward, one that is fully owning all aspects of his abilities and not being a tool for someone else’s schemes. All of this leads to Sinister being defeated again, and another member of the team being checked off the potential suspect list. Which leaves us, and Cable, with more questions about who’s behind the future assassination of President Kamala Khan.
Previous issues have focused on an individual member of X-Force, and this one finally gives Warren center stage in a story that is far more interior and introspective than I was expecting it to be. Angel/Archangel has never been one of my favorite X-Men characters, but like with everyone else on this team, Seeley has done such great character work in a single issue that I found myself rooting for him by the end. Lots of Marvel’s mutants have been put through the emotional wringer, but Angel has had it harder than most, and the way Seeley unpacks and reshapes the character into his own new person by issues end is really surprising and well thought out. While it’s a little annoying to not have a full reveal for the future suspect, I have to admit that Seeley’s script was so great that I honestly forgot that that was the initial hook for this series until it was brought up in the issue.
That being said, those looking for an exact answer to the “who killed Kamala Khan (in the future)” question are probably going to be a little miffed by the end of the issue. While Cable is left almost where he started five issues ago, we readers are left with an cliffhanger that poses some new, and deeply disturbing, notions of Cable’s current mindset, and that the suspect we’ve been hunting for may be the one who started this team in the first place. It’s a reveal and idea that hits a little faster than I would’ve liked, but it gives Cable more time in the issue when he’s barely factoring in earlier.
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On the art side of things, Michael Sta Maria makes a very welcome return on art, and he’s joined by Roi Mercado to help out. While I was a little concerned seeing another name alongside Maria’s on the credits page, I have to admit that Mercado’s style works well with Maria’s. While it is noticeable when Maria isn’t drawing the page, it’s not so out of the established style of the book that it becomes distracting. Maria’s art was sorely missed in the previous issue, but that time off and assistance here means that we get some truly fantastic pages from an artist that I am very excited to see more of in the future.
When I first signed up to review Inglorious X-Force five months ago, I did it on a whim. To be completely honest, there wasn’t anything about the initial pitch that seemed that interesting to me, and the team was made up of a bunch of characters I don’t really follow or particularly enjoy (Ms. Marvel being the exception). But over the course of these five issues I’ve found that I’ve really come to enjoy this ragtag group of mutants, and the sheer fact that they shouldn’t be a team has become the very thing that makes them such a great team. Seven year-old me would be shocked to learn that Boom-Boom is one of his new favorite X-Men characters (he’d also be wondering why Wolverine and Ghost Rider are the same person, but there’s not enough time, kid). With the series continuing on after this and beating the “five-issue curse” that’s befallen a lot of Marvel series of late, I’m really intrigued to see what else is in store for Cable and these mutants, and what new revelations Seeley can conjure up to make me love them even more.
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