X-Force #45 Review

 

Writer: Benjamin Percy

Artist: Robert Gill

Colorist: GURU-eFX

Letterer: Joe Caramagna

Cover Artists: Daniel Acuña; Whilce Portacio & Arif Prianto

Publisher: Marvel

Price: $3.99

Release Date: October 4, 2023

 

Domino’s raid on an exclusive Russian bathhouse netted her a mysterious ring. Is it linked to Mikhail Rasputin? Can it help Sage rebuild X-Force? Let’s leap into X-Force #45 and find out!

 

Story

The Chronicler writes the story of X-Force’s downfall. His mutant powers influence those he writes about. Mikhail used his brother Colossus to help Orchis destroy the thriving community of Krakoa. But the massacre left Orchis running the world, and Mikhail craves power. So Mikhail gives the Chronicler a new task. Find another character for your next story arc. Choose someone inside Orchis who can work for me!

 

Sage lost her team at the Hellfire Gala. Mikhail holds half her people prisoner. She must reform X-Force to free the mutant community from Orchis' shackles. The key to achieving her goals lies in the mysterious ring. She's secreted the strange artifact in a No-Place tumor. But who can help unlock its secrets?

 

In X-Force #45, Benjamin Percy weaves readers into two intertwined dramas. The Chronicler yearns to escape Mikhail’s domination. Sage wants to defeat Mikhail. But the clock is ticking, and a misstep could sweep either player off the gameboard.

 

 

 

 

Art

Robert Gill packs pages with detailed art that portrays characters consistently from panel to panel. Darkness surrounds Colossus amid the tragedy of his life while parchment leaps from tall stacks upon the Chronicler’s desk. Orchis agent Jun Wei tantalizes with a dragon tattoo that slithers across her skull, while Deadpool savors the good life in Las Vegas. Settings filled with life and energy invite readers to visit every locale featured in X-Force #45.

 

GURU-eFX loads his palette and doesn’t hold back. Panels set in Krakoa and Las Vegas explode with color. Darkness surrounds people in Mikhail’s world, yet nothing hides from the reader’s gaze. Gray seeps into a colorful, unlit corridor in Dr. Strange’s house while the fire crackling in his hearth casts the library in pink and orange. Glowing symbols hover before his eyes as he studies the mysterious ring, while tears trickle down the Chronicler's cheeks as he writes a character’s demise in X-Force #45.

 

Joe Caramagna writes the Chronicler’s narrative in white boxes and Deadpool’s dialogue in yellow balloons. He gives aging eyes a break from his tiny script with a fact sheet on Orchis agent Jun Wei and the Telepathic Notations of Dr. Strange. Giant, angry letters roar amid the darkness when someone withdraws a gun and pulls the trigger. Who shot J.R., you ask? Forget Dallas! Discover who shot who in X-Force #45!

 

Final Thoughts

While Sage and Domino seek the key to mutant liberation, a prisoner’s desperate bid for freedom could doom countless others in X-Force #45.

 

Rating 9.4/10

 

To preview interior art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.