Broken Frontier

A young superhero has been taken hostage by mutant-hating religious fanatics called the Purifiers and X-Force must slice, dice, and “stabby stabby” their way to save him. Williams handles the team with such a great balance of violent action, deft characterization, and black humor that one would be hard-pressed to notice it’s not main series regular Rick Remender writing the book.

Bianchi’s pencils set a grave tone with gritty details that build tension with horror-movie framing. He also manages to add his own stylistic flair to each character; while Archangel’s metallic wings look impressively layered and complex with an alien elegance to the design, Wolverine’s cat whiskers suck the cool right out of him. There’s a scene where the team interrogates a member of the Purifiers for information and the Purifier cries out that they are monsters and demons; looking at the group clad mainly in black, red eyes glowing under masks, and with numerous sharp weapons on display, the reader would be hard-pressed not to agree with him. 

Despite the negative light shone on X-Force, Williams crafts a tale that keeps the sympathy squarely in their corner. The plot hones in on one splinter group of the Purifiers headed by a new villain named Jonathan Standish. Whereas most Fear Itself tie-ins have focused on teams battling a specific hammer-wielder in grandiose fashion, this story focuses on how Standish has been affected by the arrival of these super-powered fear-mongers and how it drives him to religious extremism.

The personal nature of the story proves to be more engaging than any of the explosive brawls showcased in other books. Williams chose to tell a story perfectly suited to the secret-ops style superbly set up by Remender’s run on Uncanny X-Force.