X-Force #35 Review

Writer: Benjamin Percy

Art: Chris Allen, GURU- eFX, VC’s Joe Carmagna, Tom Muller, Jay Bowen, Dean White, and Joshua Cassara

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Price: $4.99

Release Date: December 7th, 2022

Beast’s off-the-books plans go belly-up when Sevyr Blackmore stages a space prison break that even Maverick and the Mercs can’t keep it in hand as X-Force #35 by Benjamin Percy wraps! A major turning point for X-Force is on the horizon as a team…and breaking points for more than one key X-character!

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THE DISPATCH

Well, that escalated quickly. Beast’s secret prison arc wraps up in this week’s X-Force #35, Sage quits alcohol cold turkey, and Solem soaks in another cameo. And just as I thought everything was getting good, Percy quickly skirts everything away. I can’t help but focus on how rushed Beast’s prison arc was. The potential left on the bone for Beast as a villain is just all wiped away as this extremely short-staffed X-Force team manages to bring Beast in.

Additionally, the rapid pace of X-Force #35 leaves little opportunity to get to know any of the characters a bit more. It’s almost as if everyone is a guest star in this cliff notes version of their own title. Moreover, how did X-Force simply find Beast so easily? I mean, he’s been up to no good for quite some time now. He’s had enough time to build a secret prison and do scientific treatments/ studies/ experiments on them. However, it takes the interface of Omega Red into Sage’s computer to find Beast instantly. Really? It all seems a bit too easy and convenient for my liking.

Furthermore, after X-Force #34’s huge reveal about Sage’s alcoholism, Percy basically sweeps that under the rug and moves passed all in about 3-4 pages. What was the point of sandwiching her disease between a prison break? The growth of Sage’s character could have been monumental. X-Force #34 was great! It had emotion and character build-up which we haven’t received in quite a number of issues. So, now we throw that all to the side and rush through it? Again, that’s the best word to summarize X-Force #35… rushed.

ART

Chris Allen delivers small panels, busy backgrounds, and less character detail making many of the action sequences come across as almost blurry and hard to decipher. Moreover, when Allen does take the time to promote scenes with large panels, his character definition comes across as a bit flat, less crisp, and lacking dimension. Overall, his pencils work for the issue but the rapid pacing mixed with his busy nature of storytelling quickly threw me out of the comic causing less structure and interest as X-Force #35 unfolded.

FINAL THOUGHTS

X-Force #35 takes two promising storylines with both Beast and Sage, wraps them up together, and quickly spits them out the other side. Both story arcs were literally oozing potential after X-Force #34 only to have Percy race through them both to possibly move on to another arc. There was so much more we could have dug into with Beast as a villain. There was so much emotion attached to Sage’s alcoholism that seems flushed away. However, they’ve both been brushed aside for what? Readers need to be prepared for surface-level content mixed with emotionless action that’s incredibly flat in this week’s X-Force #35 which is so disappointing considering loads of potential dripping from last month’s issue. Let me know what you think, have a great week, and God Bless!