User blog:Johnnybravo44/Uncanny X-Force Vol 1 18 review by Johnnybravo44

At last we are delivered the conclusion issue of The Dark Angel Saga. Plenty of spoilers below. Warning Will Robinson.



Not only can Remender write a wonderful eight part story, but he can easily add in quite a few other bits that would be jumping off points for upcoming stories. Plus, he wrote issues here with Deadpool gone and Wovlerine completly sidelined. He gave plenty of time to even the "minor" characters Sunfire, Iceman, etc, with it still making sense, and being done correctly. Rick Remender is the type of writer Marvel needs more of.

Seriously though, I haven't loved a story this long in forever. Few story arcs can keep me entirely interested, on the edge of my seat, eagerly awaiting till the next issue, like this did. I can easily compare this to other classic story arcs, including my other personal favorites: The Brood Saga Uncanny X-Men #161-167, The Bishop Saga Uncanny X-Men #281-288, and, of course, The Dark Phoenix Saga. Mainly the Dark Phoenix of course, which I can assume helped influence this in some at least minor way. Such a great story..

We start off with the AoA Iceman hunting Sunfire. I had originally said before something along the lines of "I love how cool this Iceman is and I wish mainstream Iceman could be this cool". Well, with Wolverine & the X-Men #2, it appears that Jason Aaron has taken the hint, but enough about that..

I also wondered before what the point was to showing Archangel and Pestilence in bed together. I doubted Remender. While I was assuming it was an uneeded random sex scene (like DC seems to be filled with), there was a point to it.

Dark Beast is so much more badass-ier than regular Beast, yet, I found myself forgetting practically each issue that he was shown in that he was from the Age of Apocalypse reality. Which is fine by me, better, in fact, that we're actually seeing him doing what he should have been doing since the second he came over to this reality. Really nice touch there.

Plus we saw quite a bit of Sunfire here. Granted he died this issue, it struck a chord too. He died for an Earth that wasn't even his, and that took some stones. And hey-we haven't seen the mainstream Sunfire in a while, so this was nice.

Also in this issue we discover that kid Apocalypse is alive and living in a faux young Clark Kent-esque dream sequence while being artificially grown faster. That was a brilliant addition of Remender's and you just know he had that planned for some time now. Had to, since Fantomex was the one who "shot" (used his powers to cover up doing so) kid Apocalypse. He goes by Genesis now, and speculation is he'll be shown at the Jean Grey school soon. He's also called "Evan" and I'm not sure if there is a specific reason for that. Better than "En", which I assume means "The". Regardless, it was another nice touch to bring him back in.

And yet he was just a distraction as we got to finally see what we've all been waiting for-Betsy stabbing Warren. As he dies, we see a dream like sequence of what could have been between the two. I thought it was funny the girl's name was Jean.

Anywaysss I loved it. The whole book, the whole story arc. We got to see plenty of action, new faces, death, explosions, and yes, even love. And we're left with plenty of upcoming material: we'll (eventually) see what happens to Ichisumi and the "seed" inside of her, the Black Legion will (presumably) be around in the Age of Apocalypse series, Weapon X will be fought in #19.1, Genesis will have to be shown again, and there will be plenty of talking between the rest of the X-Force gang. Can't wait.

Entire arc was pretty perfect, and this issue was an easy 5 out of 5 stars to me. And I'm not afraid to label the whole thing like that. Most people are. Most people say "it can't ever be 5 out of 5 stars, like Avengers #1 was" or whatever. Screw that. I know a great story when I see one.

Agree or disagree? Want to add on anything? Comment below! :)

--Johnnybravo 44 04:39, December 16, 2011 (UTC)