By Jim Beard
Two more thrilling chapters of the monumental
Writer Chris Yost's tenure on X-FORCE nears its end, but he's happy about what he calls the "sense of urgency" he's brought to the title and also a "sense that these are the end times for mutants."
"As emotionally devastating as the death of Nightcrawler in X-FORCE #26 was, #27 starts off with an attack as brutal as the X-Men have ever seen," he explains. "Bastion's plan to wipe out mutantkind is in full effect at this point, all the pieces are on-or off, as the case is with the teleporters-the table. This is it. This is where they all die.
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| X-FORCE #27 cover by David Finch |
As a warning to readers, Yost assesses the threat level in X-FORCE #27 as extreme to say the least.
"X-Force is on the front lines when the attack goes down, and they get a first hand glimpse of what they're up against," he says. "[Co-writer] Craig Kyle and I have written some brutal fights in our time, but this one-it's nasty. I'm going to go with Threat Level: Terminal."
Meanwhile, writer Simon Spurrier lines up the characters of the X-MEN: SECOND COMING - REVELATIONS: BLIND SCIENCE one-shot and sheds a bit of light on the X-Men's Science Team in this tale.
"[It] concerns the team investigating the weird rigs which have appeared near the X-Men's home," he notes. "The group seems to have inadvertently triggered a bomb, and the story opens with them staring helpless at a countdown. But when the timer hits '0' they find it's not a bomb they've activated but something far stranger, which dumps them into a situation and location they don't understand. They have to find out what the hell's going on, work out how-and why-this influences things in
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| X-MEN: SECOND COMING - REVELATIONS: BLIND SCIENCE #1 preview art |
"For me, the Science Team's biggest draw is the mix of [characters]. It's a small enough unit that each different personality can play out without any overlaps or repetitions of the emotional beats, but not so small that there's no potential for internal conflicts. These are three opinionated, super-smart, super-capable people after all-the best at what they do-and that's a recipe for some tasty disagreements. 'What they do,' by the way, is approaching problems from unexpected angles. They're the lateral thinkers of the super hero world, with added gadgets, guns and gray-cells.
Spurrier also kindly gives a brief run-down on the Science Team members, and some insight into their motivations.
"Doctor
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| X-MEN: SECOND COMING - REVELATIONS: BLIND SCIENCE #1 preview art |
"Kavita Rao is the real surprise in the roster. She's got a really fascinating history-one which is explored quite deeply in this story, in fact-and it's colored her personality a great deal. Once upon a time she was this ambitious, high-flying, world-changing geneticist who made a really bad decision and came close to doing something truly abhorrent. That 'near-miss' is one of the things that ultimately encouraged her to join the X-Club, so there's a real redemptive thing going on. It's shaken her self-confidence and made her doubt herself a lot of the time. Kavita is the moral and ethnical heart of the team."
Spurrier's sure that the book works on several levels and provides ample opportunity for excitement and characterization. And he's quite sure what constitutes his very most favorite part of it:
"Five words: Doctor
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