I’m not alone in buying this book because of the cover, and it’s worth reading ohcaroline’s review for someone else who did as well.  I was onboard for X-Force for the first three issues and was really excited by the title.  I like X23, and I loved Yost and Kyle’s New X-Men a lot so I figured that it would just continue the chewey mutant goodness.

What the writers did really well in New X-Men was focus on characters, and take a lot of minor X-student characters and make them into really interesting citizens of the X-verse.  Had those versions of the writers showed up for the book I would have loved it.  Instead we got the other side of them, their ability to really tie things into long forgotten X-continuity, without the deft character touch.

Six issues after dropping the book they pulled me back in with a very good cover of Domino and Wolverine in a scene that’s a call back to Days of Future Past.  (Thankfully Logan never held Kitty this way, because that would just be creepy).

Domino and Wolverine is interesting, and Domino brings a nice outsider’s perspective to the team and a bit of sunshine, though she seems pretty impressed with how badass everyone is when as a member of the original X-Force (with Cable and Shatterstar) she’s already been exposed to a great deal of unbelievable badassery.  Everyone else is so bleak and dark that reading the book is like hanging out at a Nine Inch Nails concert after party, without the chance of weird goth sex.  The book sadly retains it’s X-Treme violence, and complete lack of characterization beyond Domino who seems to be the only one with personality. 

The story?  X-Force is killing people.  Why?  Coming on mid-arch I’m not sure but I think it’s to do with the fact that once you’ve put on black leather body costumes you’d better kill anyone or all that dieting to be able to squeeze in there was all a waste.

Ghost Rider shows up, and that’s kind of neat since he’s not really been appearing in other books since… well I haven’t seen him in an X-Book since the Jim Lee days when they fought the Brood.  Why don’t X-Force fight the Brood, now that might be good times.