Pipeline #1089: New Mutants Ends and X-Force Begins

I didn't get a chance to see 'Deadpool 2' this weekend, so I'll review some Deadpool-adjacent [...]

I didn't get a chance to see "Deadpool 2" this weekend, so I'll review some Deadpool-adjacent comics instead.

I just re-read "New Mutants" #100 and "X-Force" #1. And you know what? They're still a lot of fun, twenty-seven years later.

Rob Liefeld X-Force #1 cover detail
(Photo: Rob Liefeld)


The Visuals

First, there's the Rob Liefeld aesthetic. It's a lot of mix-and-match. There's the striped pants, the cyber-parts, glowing eyes, the pouches, the fantasy guns that just look cool, the fantasy double-sword that looks cool, the vests, the glasses, the variety of capes (full, mini, side), the always-wavy hair, straps, belts, the geometric backgrounds, etc.

Every artist has their stock imagery. As soon as they design enough costumes, you'll see the bits and pieces they rely on. With New Mutants and X-Force, this is Rob Liefeld at the age of 24. His pouches had become a trademark already, and that imagery hasn't died nearly 30 years later.

Make fun of him all you want, but he achieved at age 24 more than most artists twice his age ever do in their career.

His storytelling is spare, but it also emphasizes the most important parts. No, he's not drawing fully-rendered backgrounds and every lace on every boot and every seam on ever pair of pants. What he did give the readers of the time is all the in your face action that they wanted. It's not that there weren't any great artists at the time in comics, but a lot of it had been around for awhile. A lot of it was starting to look alike, and stale. The creators who moved beyond that and brought in different influences while amping them up were the ones to garner the most artistic success.

From that, you get Image Comics.

Nicieza as Whedon

Shatterstar arrives in New Mutants #100 by Liefeld and Nicieza
(Photo: Rob Liefeld, Fabian Nicieza, Brad Vancata, Joe Rosen,)

You can't talk about the success of these comics without discussion the part that Fabian Nicieza's writing powers played in all of this. His job was to lay some dialogue over Liefeld's final art. He's credited with just the scripts. And the job he does over Liefeld's art is commendable. He adds a lot to the reading experience. He's not just marking time while the art drives everything.

Nicieza scripted this book with much of the feel of a Claremont script. That's the right thing to do, given at the time that Claremont's style was inseparable with the mutants. But Nicieza didn't include the flowery prose that packed caption boxes around the art. He used Claremont's skills with technical jargon and the mutant argot. Then he added humor, and lots of little bits of it.

Nicieza's scripts took those "cool" parts of Claremont's scripts and married them to Liefeld's art and storytelling. He kept things super snappy and punchy. Dialogue balloons are short. Characters talk back and forth, with lots of little asides and soft-spoken moments for comedic effect. The book read quickly, because Nicieza kept the readers moving across every page, chuckling as they went.

I realized while reading these two issues that Fabian Nicieza was writing Joss Whedon scripts long before Whedon would arrive in comics, either with his own scripts or through his influence from "Buffy." Characters were often self-aware and ready on any occasion with a quick one-liner or a solid moment of verbal repartee.

Nicieza was doing that long before everyone started to copy it from "Buffy."

Everything Going On, and a Lot Of It

X-Force #1 back cover detail by Rob Liefeld
(Photo: Rob Liefeld)

This is a team book, so there's a lot going on. Liefeld married together the remnants of the New Mutants with some new characters, each of whom has their own little war they need help with. It's a complete "you scratch my back/I'll scratch yours" deal that keeps the team together. Given how rough and tumble the team is, you need that glue to hold it together.

New Mutants #100 is structured like a long story arc that's just wrapping up. It's the team being attacked at the same time from multiple angles by different bad guys. Instead of having to fight one bad guy at a time, they're forced to fight people from Shatterstar's future at the same time as those who are coming after Feral. At times, it even feels like the New Mutants are ready to fight each other, though they hold it together long enough to fight off these foes.

The trick with this "long running story arc ending," though, is that this isn't long-running. This is a done-in-one-issue story. Both of the characters at the heart of this story -- Shatterstar and Feral -- are new to this issue. It's not a long-running story arc; It's a condensed and sped up story arc all in one issue, though it is an oversized one: 38 pages. (X-Force #1 clocks in at 32 story pages, plus some extra bio text pages in the back.)

And then there's that ending. It's what officially sold me on the series. It's the first time in my youngest years of comics collecting that I can remember being so shocked and surprised by a twist. It came out of nowhere and meant nearly nothing to me, factually speaking, but the image of Stryfe taking off his helmet was immediately seared into my mind. It was the "Who Shot J.R.?" of my time.

It was a long three month wait for "X-Force" #1 after that particular revelation.

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