3 out of 5

An interesting result of mainlining a show or comic that’s intended to be serialized in a cadence – so, monthly, in the case of X-Force at the time of publication – is how it casts a new light on spanning plot threads; with the physical consideration of time removed, do elements that were intended to build up successfully do so?  Or do you get to that twist and reveal with a So What? shrug, the beat landing with thud?

Some tension will likely be lost, but if said twist or reveal is still effective when you’ve compressed that timeline down to a sitting, then I feel it’s a sign of quality writing.  If you get the latter effect, though, or perhaps more concerning, a feeling like you’re not even sure from whence whichever concept sprang, then the writing isn’t exactly bad per se, but it suggests a short-sightedness of the construction: pursuing whims and distractions over substance.

After casually shipping Edie and Guy over a handful of issues, this one-shot, in which they finally ‘do it,’ mostly falls into that middle category: It’s treated like a build up, but I’m hardly sure what the big deal is.  Like I already assumed this happened?  And I could opine the laziness of this conceit – of course you have to lump your currently only-female character into a relationship – but for a book springboarded off of making fun of such tropes, I guess we can give that a pass.  With some credit: Pete executed a cute duck and weave in the book, catching us off guard with the bold subtitle, only to have ‘do it’ mean something much more mundane, as our duo take a road trip to explore Edie’s past and get her teleportation skills fig’d out.  Their banter is where it gets stale for me, as turning Guy into Pete’s psycho-analysis mouthpiece and Edie into tough pixie girl feels like retroactive character work, not quite in line with our initial pictures of them.  But oh well.  Within the context of a marvel book, this kind of between-beat stuff is still impressive to read.

Darwyn Cooke guest-arts, and he looks like Darwyn Cooke.  …Which is in the same throwback vein as Allred, and likely if you like one you like the other.