I’m a big fan of “Uncanny X-Force”. I love the current members of the team and have enjoyed the unique relationships they have. So naturally I picked up the team’s “Fear Itself” first issue hoping it would tap into the same elements that make their regular series so good. While we do see some of those elements, for the most part this is just an average story that we’ve seen before.

Rob Williams’ story isn’t bad, it just feels uninspired. There’s very little here that feels like a “Fear Itself” tie-in. It’s more of an X-Force mission to grab a stereotypical religious extremist. We do get some funny banter from Deadpool early in the book and a fun scene with Fantomex and Psylocke, but as a whole the story is simply average. The “enemy” is uninteresting and his motivations are out of the blue. There’s just not much here to latch on to.

Simone Bianchi’s art doesn’t pick the book up and carry it either. The first few pages are the best but even they don’t offer a lot. There are some erratic panel layouts and the drab colors and washed out tone wasn’t that appealing. He does pencil some great characters, particularly Deadpool and Fantomex, and it’s hard not to like their look. But it get’s lost in the cluttered layout and dingy colors.

This book would qualify as a disappointment. I didn’t know what to expect but this feels like an unecessary book. It’s not terrible but it’s not a story I care to follow. In fact, I think I’m “one and done” with this “Fear Itself” mini-series.