3 out of 5

And it was decreed that there would be a month of wordless comics.  Morrison – in New X-Men – and Milligan, here in X-Force, being buddies, perhaps coincidentally both went about their task similarly: using dream logic to tell their respective tales.

How’s it work for Millie?  Alright, I guess, if’n a bit obvious, which is sort of how it goes for Pete when he gets too heady with things.  More entertaining, honestly, are the script notes Marvel included in the back of the issue; here we get the glib Pete, inserting jibes into his notes to Allred that end up being combed out when he tries to plot long-term.  …Although the references to Bosch and Borges remind us of that nose-wrinkly literary bent of Milligan’s.  Take the good with the bad, and it’s of course interesting to compare how well Allred took these descriptions and made ’em happen.  (Even if the scene transitions are pretty much lacking, in both script and art.)

Regardless: Doop pops a zit, freezing time, and inside that time bubble, he has to rescue all his X-Force pallies, ensconced in nightmares that either represent their vanities (Edie’s tongue is gone – no talky), or fears (Miles faces his father and an inability to express his intelligence via a library of blank books), or jokes (Spike apparently cross-dresses, which is treated as a questionable throwaway gag).  And then I guess Tike has issues with his sweat powers, despite spending two issues telling us about his internal racial identity struggles and OCD.  Oh well!

And then we’re back, time moves forward, no worse for wear.