X-Force #5 is perhaps the most interesting read on the shelves this week in my opinion. The story has been great thus far and this issue prominently features a fan favorite of the X-Universe, Archangel. If you don’t like this character then you just don’t like bad-assery. Write that down! I was looking forward to this issue for a month now. Almost with as much anticipation as I am waiting for the end of the month when Skaar and Hulk will share shelves together. Either way I think you are getting the point go pick this title up off the shelf and support the artist and writers, let me give you the break down for what is happening though.



When we last left the X-Force team, Wolfsbane attacked Angel. She wasn’t in her right mind of course. Matthew Risman and her father doped her up in order to attain samples of Angel’s wings, which they knew held the techno-organic mutation they needed to create their “Choir.” Wolfsbane success came at a cost to Angel as his body began a transformation into something we have all seen before, Archangel. This is probably due in part to an auto-reaction of the apocalypse strain swimming in his blood.



Archangel is not pleased at all and in a great deal of pain. He wants those who have harmed him to pay. I don’t think he is all Apocalypse, but he is definitely changed, it isn’t even clear if he is bad, he is just fighting his rage and the X-Force team is trying to calm him down and subdue him, but he is having none of it. After brushing aside attempts to subdue him Archangel departs the best way he knows how, through a window and to the skies.



The X-Force team follows him in the Blackbird, but I wonder how they have the Blackbird all to themselves, especially since none of the other X-Men are supposed to know too much about them. However, the Blackbird can barely keep up. The X-Force team has a hunch Archangel is heading after those who have stolen from him his path definitely doesn’t seem random, it’s more like he has a destination.



The interesting story is with the Purifiers though. Matthew Risman has his Choir and I was expecting the X-force team to have to deal with them and the Purifiers under Bastion’s control along with a pissed off Archangel, but take a turn as Matthew Risman is now intent on using his Choir to stop the heresy that Bastion has committed in the name of William Stryker. He plans on destroying Magus and then Bastion himself for defiling the corpse of William Stryker and not sticking to Stryker’s plans.



This series has been anything but non-violent and there is no reason to assume the violence should stop here. The next few pages are some of the bloodiest comic book battles I have ever seen. I would love for Yost and Crain to go to DC and work on a Joker special, because I want to see the deranged funny dude wipe some rear ends off the face of the Earth in this artistic style.



The series has been great and I am looking forward to the conclusion to this arc, which will be interesting as it seems there will be a free for all in the next installment.

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