Hunting Ground
“Hunting Ground” / “The Sword of Damocles” / “The Skeleton Key”
X-Force #1-3
Written by Benjamin Percy
Art by Joshua Cassara
Color art by Dean White and Guru-eFX
The first issue of Benjamin Percy and Joshua Cassara’s new X-Force series arrived in the context of a mostly quite jovial Dawn of X relaunch in the wake of House of X/Powers of X and spoiled the triumphant mood by ending with a nightmare scenario that threatened to undo everything: Human commandos arrive on Krakoa and murder several mutants, including Charles Xavier, whose Cerebro resurrection machine was destroyed in the process. It felt bad. It felt like “oh no, not this again.” But within two more issues, Percy and Cassara have proven themselves to not be doing anything cheap or dull, and the grim actions of the debut issue serve as the inciting incident for a series in which a set of X-Men do whatever they can to avoid anything like that happening again. It’s X-Force reimagined as a mutant CIA, and thankfully it seems that Percy isn’t interested in making that out to be an entirely good or respectable thing.
Of all the writers working in the context of Jonathan Hickman’s new X-Men status quo, Percy seems to be the one who best understands and matches his tone, and is the most invested in developing the consequences of the mutants creating a nation-state. Percy, who literally wrote a book about how to thrill audiences, is very good at pacing the action of his story and delivering bold, memorable images at a regular clip. Cassara’s art is well-suited to the hyper-violence and creepy imagery of Percy’s story, and is particularly good at framing pivotal moments and reveals. Every page has a very thoughtful rhythm, and Percy’s use of text pages steers away from Hickman’s use of charts to embrace his strength as a novelist with pages with plot beats that work better with the quiet interiority of prose than they would as illustrated pages.
Quentin Quire is featured prominently in the second and third issues, and Percy’s version of the character is based fully in Grant Morrison’s original characterization of him as an arrogant young man who is a bit too eager to tell you about how much he loathes humanity and feels that Charles Xavier is too soft in his morality. This is great news if you’re like me and despise Jason Aaron’s cartoonish and defanged approach to the character, but it should be noted that Percy has not entirely abandoned some surface aspects of that version of the character and his relationship with Wolverine. But it’s a relief to see that the most important thematic elements of Quire are back in play without necessarily turning back the clock on more recent character development.
The third issue, in which Xavier is inevitably brought back to life by The Five and Jean Grey using a back-up Cerebro helmet, goes deep into the philosophical – and narrative – question of what happens when all mutants are effectively immortal now. Jean Grey, who was no stranger to death and resurrection before all this, gives a soliloquy about her feelings on the matter and concludes that without the threat of death, people become less selfish and more focused on the collective good. I like this framing a lot – it becomes less about bravery, and more about an aspirational value of cooperation and selflessness.