X-Force, then.  What can you say about X-Force?

Let's be blunt.  X-Force is a review-proof comic.  To say that X-Force is bad would be... well, somewhat beside the point. 

Does it fail, when judged by conventional criticial standards?  God, yes.  The plot is rudimentary, obvious plot problems are simply (and cheekily) glossed over, characterisation is virtually absent (though to be fair, Liefeld at least seems to have had a serious stab with Shatterstar), and the art is...  Oh lord, the art.  The art.

The incredible thing about Liefeld is that after all these years, many of the basic fundamentals of art still seem to elude him altogether.  When you open the book, look at the first page, and realise that Liefeld has inadvertantly drawn a midget on a giant horse, it's almost reassuring to see that he still hasn't grasped concepts of proportion or perspective.  There's a delightful panel of Shatterstar confronting some monks on a cliff edge which would just about work if Liefeld hadn't shoved a mountain in the background which seems to be a good 90 degrees away from where it should be.  Perhaps he's been studying his cubism.

I wouldn't want to speculate on why Cable now has a flip-top hand.  And he seems able to simply produce his Psimitar from nowhere, despite the fact that it's a bloody great stick, seven feet long.  Or thereabouts - it's hard to tell with Liefeld.  To be fair, he can still do a decently kinetic action sequence, and the looser edge to his pencils is probably for the best.  But he's a one-trick pony, and you can't build an entire comic around that one trick.

But really, who cares?  To say that X-Force is a bad comic is like saying that a tricycle is inadequate for drag racing.  Of course it is, but if you wanted a drag racer, why the hell did you buy a tricycle in the first place?  Equally, if you wanted anything remotely good, why on earth did you pay money for an issue of X-Force?

At this point in his career, Rob Liefeld comics basically sell to four types of reader:

1.  The Morbidly Curious.  How crap will he be this time?  The more outrageously inept, the better.

2.  The Mockers.  People who want their sneering to be a little better informed.

3.  The Completists, Who Only Have Themselves To Blame.

4.  Genuine Rob Liefeld fans, who almost by definition do not subscribe to conventional standards of quality (or at least, not exclusively so).

There used to be a fifth constituency (people buying other comics who had to read a Liefeld story because it was a key part of a crossover), but in the modern context they no longer apply.  So the only people actually reading this comic are completists, people who actively want it to suck, and people who aren't really looking for quality in the conventional sense anyway.  If those are the only people reading, it seems almost futile to point out that the book fails to achieve standards of quality which neither its creators nor any of its readers were seriously hoping for in the first place.

The cynics will find the book well down to the usual standards they were hoping for, although it's not as bad as something like Captain America.  The genuine Liefeld fans are perhaps another matter; they'll get the rudimentary plot and the art they were after, but they might be a little disappointed that this is really just a Cable and Shatterstar story at this point, without the rest of X-Force and without any brightly coloured supervillains to fight. 

But the readers will get what they were wanting from the book.  Even the completists, who have a lump of paper that they can shove in a box and never, ever need to look at again...

Of course, if you're not a completist, you don't want to laugh at how bad it is, and you don't think Rob Liefeld is a misunderstood genius, then this is not for you.  Run to the hills and don't touch the book with a ten foot bargepole.

Rating: C-

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