Uncanny X-Force, Vol. 1: The Apocalypse Solution [Paperback]

Rick Remender (Author), Jerome Opena (Illustrator), Leonardo Manco (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2011

The X-Men do not kill. But when Apocalypse - the mutant despot who has countless times brought humanity to the brink of destruction - returns, Wolverine knows there's only one solution: the recently reconstituted X-Force! The new team - consisting of Deadpool, Archangel, Psylocke and Fantomex - must destroy En Sabah Nur. But can Wolverine's secret team survive Apocalypse's deadly Final Horsemen? And even if they do, can they kill the reborn Apocalypse when the greatest threat the world has ever faced is now no more than an innocent child? Collecting UNCANNY X-FORCE #1-4, and material from WOLVERINE: ROAD TO HELL and ALL-NEW WOLVERINE SAGA.

Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: Marvel (October 5, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785148558
• ISBN-13: 978-0785148555
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.2 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #73,462 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rick Remender is the writer/creator of comics such as Fear Agent, The End League, Strange Girl, Black Heart Billy, Last Days of American Crime, Night Mary, and XXXombies. He is also the writer of Marvel's Captain America, Uncanny Avengers, Uncanny X-Force, Punisher, and Venom.

Outside of comics he has served as lead writer on EA/EPIC/PCF's Bulletstorm game and was a writer on the Electronic Arts hit game Dead Space . Prior to this, Remender served as an animator assistant on films such as The Iron Giant, Anastasia, Titan A.E., and Rocky and Bullwinkle.

During his time wrist grinding as an artist Rick penciled books such as The Last Christmas, Bruce Campbell's Man with the Screaming Brain and numerous issues of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles while also inking books such as The Avengers and The Terminator . He has provided album covers and art for bands such as NOFX, 3 Inches of Blood, Lagwagon and No Use for a Name.

He taught storyboarding, animation and comic art at San Francisco's Academy of Art University for many years.

He and his tea-sipping wife, Danni, currently reside in Southern California with a beautiful baby girl, a giant baby boy and a monster known only as Lester Magoo.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling, self-contained story light on character development April 26, 2011

By G. Steirer

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Uncanny X-Force: The Apocalypse Solution collects issues #1-4 of Uncanny X-Force, a brief story from the single issue Wolverine: Road to Hell, and a six-page back-story summary originally published in All-New Wolverine Saga. Like all Marvel premiere edition hardbacks, production quality is high: medium-gloss paper, finished boards (in black with pink stamping), and a solid spine. Extras include a bunch of variant covers and four process pages for a single page of Uncanny X-Force #2.

Story-wise, The Apocalypse Solution offers up a compelling, largely self-contained story in which X-Force, aided by Fantomex, hunts down a resurrected Apocalypse and his new Horsemen. Like the previous X-Force series, Uncanny X-Force is one of Marvel's darker books, with gory fight scenes, a blurry moral code, and some mildly lewd language. Writer Rick Remender is at his strongest here when plotting fight scenes or supplying silly dialogue for Deadpool (a character who Remender handles quite well). He is less good, however, at fleshing out the relationships between the team members; Angel's relationship with Psylock, in particular, reads as little more than a plot device. As for the art, Leonardo Manco's inky pencils for the brief Road to Hell story are gorgeous. Jerome Opena's art for the main series is attractive as well, though it relies heavily on Dean White's (overly) monochromatic coloring for its dark mood.

Though not the meatiest X-Men book out there, The Apocalypse Solution would make a good purchase for X-Force fans and those X-Men readers looking for a darker story.... Casual X-Men readers, however, would probably be better off skipping this book and picking up Warren Ellis' similarly dark but more imaginative Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis. Read more ›

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Uncanny X-Force is Perfect for Longtime Readers or Newcomers Alike October 30, 2011

By Joseph Born

Format:Paperback

Rick Remender and newcomer Jerome Opena have delivered a perfect first volume. This paperback collects the first four issues of the Uncanny X-Force ongoing series. Remender has assembled the perfect mutant covert kill team.
Wolverine; Designed by the clandestine Weapon Plus program to be the killer. Psylocke; Telekinetic, telapathic ninja. Archangel; Augmented by mutant tyrant Apocalypse to be Death incarnate. Fantomex; Also created by the Weapon Plus program. Supposed to be an improvement over Wolverine. Deapool; Merc with a Mouth.
These five mutants have one job. To prevent the rise of Apocalypse. The art in this series is breath-taking. Opena's style is refreshing, and the coloring is excellent. The dialogue is great. We see this fledgling team truly form a bond in this volume. Apocalypse's new four horseman are truly interesting. We'll see them battle from the desert mountains to the moon. There are twists and developments in this book that surprised me. I did not see them coming.
This a dark book. The whole plot of this arc is to assassinate a child. This is not recommended for children. Check this out. You won't regret it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wolverine's X-Force revamped...and improved July 19, 2011

By J. L. Castillo

Format:Hardcover

This story picks of just after the amazing X-Men: Second Coming story. This new X-force team comes together at the end of that story, and has many similarities to the previous X-force team (written by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost). They are similar in that both teams are lead by Wolverine, have slick black and grey costumes and are unknown to the world. However, while the previous X-Force was all Cyclops idea, this new X-Force is unknown to exist even to him.

This story has plenty of things to love: Deadpool is finally a member of an X-team, and frankly, fits like a glove to X-force. His character is spot on and has great chemistry with the rest of the team, especially Fantomex. Fantomex is also an amazing addition to this team, as he is mysterious and not very known, but extremely interesting. His attraction towards Psylocke is something that shows a lot of promise for an interesting triangle (Psylocke dating Archangel and all). And lets not forget Archangels inner strugle to not be consumed by his dark side, especially struggleing in this story dealing with Apocalypse. Psylocke is also en excellent addition to the team, providing a very usefull mental conection between the team on their missions (much like Martian Manhunter does for the JLA). Wolverine has his great moments as well and proves to be the natural leader of a bad ass team like this.

The Apocalypse Solution is a fantastic way to start out this series. It is probably my favorite Apocalypse story not called The Age of Apocalypse. The New Horsemen come out as credible threats and are probably the best Horsemen ive seen by Apocalypse's side. Ozymandias is still as good as a lackey as always and Apocalypse's new form is...... unexpected.

I highly recommend this book to those who like the mroe gritty side of X-men, and especially those who enjoyed the previous incarnation of X-Force by Yost and Kyle. This series shows tons of promise and the ending left me speechless. Cant wait to see where they take it from here, i already ordered the next book Uncanny X-Force: Deathlok Nation Read more ›

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fun, Exciting Story June 20, 2011

By GraphicNovelReporter.com TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

X-Force is a black-ops squad led by Wolverine that operates in secret from the X-Men. Officially disbanded, the small band of killers tackles the dirty assignments that the main X-squadrons cannot handle. The X-Men do not kill; X-Force does, and quite willingly. It's that simple. Or at least it should be, until an age-old foe rears his ugly head once again.

Apocalypse, the first mutant, as old as civilization, has been reborn. A cult led by the Four Horsemen has resurrected their fallen leader, aiming to install mutantkind at their rightful place at the top of the food chain. When X-Force learns of Apocalypse's rebirth, they set out on a mission that's equal parts necessity and vengeance, traveling from secret caverns of Egypt to a hidden-base on the moon. Their plan is simple--kill Apocalypse and anything standing between them. Except their ancient foe is not quite how they remember--the demigod has been resurrected as a young boy.

Writer Rick Remender grabs the reins from Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, previous X-Force scribes, to relaunch the series from square one and hits the ground running. The brilliance of the X-Force series is that it inherently makes sense given the altered landscape for Marvel's mutant heroes in the aftermath of House of M, which saw the vast majority of mutantkind wiped out. The landscape in which the various X-teams operate has been irrevocably altered in the wake of M-Day, and there has been a necessary shift in their perspective of a world that hates and fears them.... A black-ops squad whose core mission is to eliminate their enemies is a natural evolution of the main mission statement of the X-Men and it make sense that a group on the brink of extermination would do whatever it deems necessary in order to protect itself from further, greater harm.

Kyle and Yost, in their X-Force title, set up the political landscape wonderfully, contrasting post-9/11 sensibilities against the apocalyptic ramifications of M-Day, which has since reverberated its way through X-Men lore as a constant focal point for change and has provided some of the best X-stories in decades.

Remender is far less political in his storytelling, focusing instead on the relationships between his core characters and cranking out a self-contained story that is by turns shocking and exciting, delivering an action-heavy tale with some thick meat on its bones. X-Force set up the rules and established the team's place within the X-Men universe, while Uncanny X-Force charges full steam ahead with its take-no-prisoners attitude, crafting an exciting black-ops book that rises above the standard blood-and-guts fare. Character is key to this book's success, and the cast he has assembled here works well, with each of the title's five main leads having significant relevance not only to the plot, but to each other as well. There is a shared sense of camaraderie amongst the team, building off at least a decade's worth of history, and each character gets their moment to shine.

The truly wonderful thing Remender does is in creating various wrinkles to an otherwise simple story. There is a beautiful dynamic at work between Archangel, a former Horseman of Apocalypse, and his lover Psylocke, who has been helping him learn to control the more violent impulses of his nature. Wolverine forms an interesting point in this triangular relationship by training Psylocke to murder Archangel, should the need ever arise. The team is rounded out with Deadpool, a mouthy mercenary who is, thankfully, used sparingly as comic relief, and Fantomex, who also provides some comedy and proves to be a very fun foil to Wolverine.

Their struggles against the Four Horsemen are consistently convoluted and twisted, and the war occurring within Archangel's soul provides some terrific emotional arcs for both him and Psylocke. In casting their most dangerous adversary as a child, a blank slate who has no understanding of his place in history or his role amongst the mutants, Remender makes a bold complication for his rugged band of killers forced to square off against a youthful innocent. There's a remarkable morality play at work here, akin to the question of "If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you?" The more pertinent question, of course, is could you?

Jerome Opeña provides clear, detailed artwork that nicely executes Remender's script. His panel layouts are fluid and concise, creating an easily readable graphic story that flows quickly. His action scenes are energetic, and nicely grotesque where required, such as when Wolverine squares off against Death, a mutant who conducts a host of diseases and plagues through metal. As such, Opeña makes it wickedly gruesome as Wolverine's adamantium skeleton riddles his body with tumors and boils. The coloring is appropriately subdued and captures the tone of the book well, helping to craft a dark atmosphere suitable to the at-times questionable morality of the X-Force team and their occasional off-kilter sense of humor. It is not oppressively bleak and dark, as some chapters of the previous X-Force title were under artist Clayton Crain, but neither is it warm and inviting.

Remender wisely strips Uncanny X-Force of the loaded history and continuity of the central X-Men universe, providing readers with a fresh start, in much the same way Joss Whedon did with Astonishing X-Men. For those who are interested or need a quick refresher, there is four-page appendix detailing the history of X-Force since M-Day. But, ultimately, the aim of the book is to tell a fun, exciting story that is not burdened with loads of backstory and history that would take a wide expanse of flow-charts to unravel. This is a title for discerning fans of X-Men, but one that readily welcomes new readers who may not be overly familiar with the extensive history of Marvel's central X-titles. It easily fits the bill for both longtime fans looking for a good action yarn and new readers looking to hop onboard the X-Men bandwagon without needing Google handy to help decipher what's happening and why. Remender quickly fills in the blanks, tells readers what they need to know, and sets off in grand, violent fashion.

-- Michael Hicks Read more ›