Uncanny X-Force 9, X-Men Legacy 14

Uncanny X-Force 9
Humphries (w) and Talajić and Alphona (a) and Loughridge and Sotomayor (c)

Psylocke, still feeling betrayed by Cluster and Fantomex, seeks revenge on the latter and she gets her chance when Weapon XIII allows her to take a chance at killing him. The two, mid-battle, air their grievances with one another and Psylocke lets him go, turning her anger instead on Weapon XIII. Cluster reveals to Psylocke that she and Fantomex want to go back to the "white-hot room" to put themselves in one body again. Meanwhile, Bishop has awoken and exclaims that he's led the queen revenant back with him.

I'm still not sure on this title. There are reasons to like it and reasons to not quite trust it. I like the ideas behind the Fantomexes but it certainly made the characters themselves a lot less complicated. I'm all for them becoming one character again if it will give them back the depth they had as one. There's some interesting stuff in about Fantomex, including the loss and pain he feels from having the brains that cared about things separated from him and what that means he's going through. However, I'm not sold on the Psylocke of this book, who pretty quickly became a thief with Fantomex (and admits to loving it) and who seems fairly petty at times. Her love with Fantomex in the previous Uncanny X-Force wasn't exactly solid as a rock so her immense sense of betrayal with him comes as a bit of a surprise here. I was excited for this part of the arc as someone who really loved Fantomex in the last series and who has enjoyed all of his rather limited appearances in the Marvel Universe but I've come away more unsure on the series even than I was going in. Now the team will likely reunite and we'll see where that leads us. The art has been pretty compelling, even as it switches back and forth between artists as the story switches back and forth in time. There are things here to keep reading for but will they be enough as time goes by? Hopefully it'll pick up a few more things here and there and we'll have a pleasant answer.

X-Men Legacy 14
Spurrier (w) and Huat and Yeung (a) and Villarrubia (c)

Pete Wisdom, of course, didn't kill David at the end of last issue. David's watching from another plane and controlling things from there, but it doesn't stop Blindfold from coming to his aid and attacking Wisdom nonetheless. Wisdom figures out, though, that all of the bad guys who have been manifesting around Britain have been a distraction for him specifically from David and he intends to find out why. He also intends to find out why the people he saw last issue are making their way to suspicious locations and David telling him that it's an attempt to "wipe mutophobic Britain off the map" doesn't exactly calm him down. There's not really a way to talk about this issue without spoiling it a bit, so beware, spoilers ahead. David is, as he's done in the past, moving all the chess pieces into position but he's not doing it to end threats to mutants by destroying them, he's trying to end threats to mutants by showing mutants in an unquestionably heroic light. Psylocke helps the British army, Chamber helps charge a nuclear power plant allowing for a few weeks of completely free power on the grid, Pixie is using her magics to calm down a potential riot after a heated soccer match, and so on. His machinations even get Wisdom, unwittingly, to stop an assassination attempt on the racist President Abdi, showing mutants as the bigger man and ending in Abdi's removal from office. Though Wisdom understands now what David was doing, it doesn't stop him from being rightfully angry (particularly for not being let in on the plan) and he leaves David in a cell to be visited by his mother (next time!).

I continue to love this book. Even if you didn't totally believe that David had gone crazy last time and that he wasn't controlling the mutants to do his own work and even if you didn't believe he was trying to do something entirely sinister, his actions are still well-guarded and the book is well-structured enough to give you pause. More than that, either option (violent or non-violent) is an interesting choice and would totally fit within the scheme of the way David's been working recently. Everybody involved comes out looking good and every character looks pretty well-fleshed out, even the bit players like Alchemy and Chamber and particularly David and Wisdom. This book continues to be, for my money, the hands-down best X-book currently coming from Marvel. Great stuff.