Nate Cosby’s awesome series of recapped Marvel epics reaches “X-Cutioner’s Song,” and everything goes downhill from there:
NATE: What? WHAT!?!?!?!?!? This is…this doesn’t…now I’m MAD. I’m going to crack this.
Diet Cable hates everything, so he shoots Baldy with a cough gun. The X-Men get mad, they fight everyone (like they always do), then they fight Apocalypse, who gets away, but Diet Cable shoots him with…I assume a leprosy cattle prod of some kind. Apocalypse needs a place to stay, so he goes to the X-Men and heals Baldy, then they all go up to the moon to fight Diet Cable. And they win. Is that it? Please say that’s it.
JORDAN: Well… you left out the part about, um, Diet Cable kidnapping Cable parents and Cable Classic saving them. But, basically, yeah, that’s it.
Man, I hated that story. Bought every issue of it, though. I was dumb back then.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
And that was the FIRST time I stopped reading comics….
February 8th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Diet Cable? AWESOME!
I actually liked that crossover. A lot. It was worth it for the epilogue about Prof. X walking again for a few hours.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I think people underestimate just how much kids were into that story at the time.
And how much they were into X-Force in general. That huge number of kids who got into the X-Men through the Marvel Trading Cards and what not gasped at the end of New Mutants 100 when Stryfe took off his helmet.
That’s probably the last time a large amount of kids came into the industry at one time.
And EVERYONE discounts just how decent a comic X-Force became after Liefeld left (and before Loeb came on). Especially after the X-cutioner’s Song was over.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Matt - You’re right; Nicieza crafted a solid few years of X-Force following Liefeld’s departure, and the period following X-Cutioner’s Song as the team struck out on their own was particularly strong.
I kind of liked the crossover - and Lobdell’s Xavier/Jubille epilogue was a good self-contained issue.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Screw you, haters–especially YOU, McMillan! I loved X-Cutioner’s Song when it came out and then love will NEVER DIE!
February 8th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
This is my favorite part…
“PANZO: Then a lot of other stuff happens. Most of it is awesome. And the parts that aren’t awesome are The Sweetness.”
February 8th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I was also dumb back then, but I was reading X-Factor and was worried it wouldn’t make sense without it.
X-Factor wouldn’t have made sense, but it would have been less painful just reading three issues.
February 8th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Rich, MattD- you are spot on. Out of all the comics I’ve ever read, X-Force #26 (i think) called “The Open Hand, the Closed Fist” is as vivid in my memories as any other. First Boomer creates new costumes for everyone, then Cannonball makes a great point about X-Force’s Prof.X/Cable hybrid mission statement which ends with him slapping Chuck and walking out of the mansion. I love that issue, and Cannonball’s never been written better.
As for the crossover itself, I LOVED it. However, I was around 13 years old and it coincided with the first time I had gotten into comics hardcore. The scene where Havok surprises Stryfe by breaching his Summers DNA energy shield is one of my all time favorite f-yeah! moments. Love X-Cutioner’s Song with every fiber of my internal child’s being.
February 8th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
apk - Geeking out, but the open hand, closed fist ish was #19, I think. #26 was another good one where the team was reacting to Cable’s return, and it introduced the plotline of Siryn’s alcoholism and James’ devotion to her.
Okay, why do I remember that 15 years later without even looking it up?
February 8th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
More praise for Nicieza-era X-Force.
Issue #31 was my first issue and one of the two comic books that got me hooked on comics. It was an action free issue that dealt with Siryn’s recovery from alcoholism.
So basically Nicieza hooked a 13-year old boy with a non-action, non-costume issue dealing with Alcoholism in the midst of the nineties. It was that good.
February 8th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Nicieza’s X-Force was one of my two favorite comics of youth–Nicieza’s New Warriors being the other–and #19 remains one of my favorite single issue stories ever.
February 8th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I’m probably just being overly sensitive. But I just kind of think it’s bad form to have Marvel mock the Marvel comics of the past. Especially since Marvel still sells trades of the X-cutioner’s Song.
That being said, I really do hate Cable and Stryfe. And isn’t there a character named X-cutioner who had no role in this crossover? I remember that confusing me in the past.
February 8th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
That confused the heck out of me too, as did Holocaust appearing in the Stryfe’s Strike Files one shot that accompanied the event but then not actually debtuing until Age of Apocalypse like two years later in an alternate reality.
February 8th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
This was actually the crossover that destroyed what fondness I had left for the X-books. I quit them all cold turkey because of it.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Ben Morse now works for Marvel, so what did I expect? That he would say anything negative about a Marvel book?
February 8th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
“I was dumb back then.”
Graeme,
Don’t make it so easy for your detractors.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:06 am
jae lee’s art was great.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:12 am
and archangel killed a guy accidentally with his wings, the guy was named kamikaze.. boomboom upon hearing his name, says “figures”
also, fourarm and some other villain have a funny moment where they’re complaining about the heat, and ond one says: “when i was a kid i wanted to take over the world, so that i could lower the temperature” and fourarm tells him: “you were a pretty stupid kid, huh?”, the guys: “yeah.”
great comics.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Well, if the shoe fits, Graeme…
I think it’s pretty funny that they’ve got a Marvel guy bashing old Marvel stories when they’re putting out stuff that makes the ’90’s look tame. What’s worse, having a clone be Spidey or him selling his soul to the devil?
“X-Cutioner’s Song” was boss. Fabian Nicieza was at the top of his game, the story was solid, and there were many wonderful little character notes that made the larger arc worthwhile. Remember Wolverine, Cable, and Bishop sitting quietly on Graymalkin, and Cable’s carving a wood figure of Domino, while Wolvie’s carving images of the moon into the table–which turns out to be a plot point?
Good stuff. And yes, the scene where Havok breaches Stryfe’s force field was a “Fuck yeah” moment.
Not everything that was cool when you were a kid sucks when you were an adult.
February 9th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I want to say this story sucks…in the worst way–but I can’t.
I was so into all of the books coming out circa mid-90s and the epilogue in X-Force is still one of my favorite non-X-Men X-books to this day.
You know, the Greg Capullo “puffy” looking art…where Cannonball almost slaps Prof. X…and then he’s almost punching him but he’s hiding a lil field mouse in his hand.
It was a nice metaphor for the whole parenting dilemma between X and Cable.
It wasn’t that bad, was it?
February 9th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Thanks god some people give props to Nicieza’s X-force. That and his New Warriors hooked me on comics when I was a kid. The characters existed as human beings as well as superheros. Compare his ploting and character moments back in the nineties to what you had going on in Messiah Complex and it’s pretty clear where the greater story telling lies.
February 10th, 2008 at 4:55 am
Martin:
YES! I loved that scene with Cable, wolverine and bishop.
heres a great little bit:
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/5802/xfactor086011993xcutionjm4.jpg
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/7493/xfactor086011993xcutionou3.jpg
February 10th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Martin, don’t you know you’re supposed to be completely over that OMD nonsense by now. Let it go. Give it up.
Sorry, just trying to do the “big dumb animal” a solid by pointing that out, since he forgot.
February 10th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
It’s true, I never liked any Marvel product before I came to work for Marvel. The metamorphosis has been incredible.
February 11th, 2008 at 9:42 am
“jae lee’s art was great.’
I can’t agree with this. It’s beautiful now, but at the time Jae Lee’s art was hard as hell too look at. All pointy teeth and tiny ankles. It was a mess.
February 11th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I’m actually with Joe there. I love Jae Lee’s art today, but during X-Cutioner’s Song I remember HATING it with a passion and nearly skipping his chapters (and given that those were the Peter David-written X-Factor issues, that’s saying something).
February 11th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
ah, yer crazy. [okay its abstract but it really is cool]
February 12th, 2008 at 7:49 am
I loved X-Force… The open hand- closed fist issue was brilliant. Loved how Cannonball was written back then. Then he graduated to the X-Men and was written as if he HADN’T been a team leader for about 4 years. Damn shame.
Oh, and about that blog post - the Legacy Virus wasn’t techno-organic. It was organic-organic.