Weekly Comic Book Review

By Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost (Writer), Clayton Crain (Art), and Duane Swierczynski & Ariel Olivetti (Epilogue)

Some Thoughts Before The Review: One… more… comic… Just one more… The Messiah War is almost over…

The Story: The Messiah War comes to a close as everything comes to a head. Apocalypse, followed by Death, seeks to end the age of Stryfe. X-Force tries to figure out how to deal with the time devices. Hope is in peril as Bishop tries to take one final shot…

What’s Good: As you’ve probably guessed, the best thing about X-Force #16 is that it finally brings an end to the Messiah War storyline. That said, if you’ve been enjoying the Messiah War storyline for what it is, you’ll probably find a lot to like about the arc’s conclusion. All the elements of the story come together for one final confrontation as Apocalypse says epic stuff (which is almost fun to read in a “wow this sounds silly” way), putting Stryfe in his place.

What’s Not So Good: I really can’t say what the biggest sin of the Messiah War is without heading into spoiler territory so… SPOILER WARNING!!…  Here’s the biggest sin of the X-Force/ Cable crossover – When it’s all said and done, everything goes back to how it was before the crossover started. Bishop winds up somewhere in the time-stream, Cable winds up somewhere else with Hope, X-Force is back in the present…Seriously…what was the fucking point?!

Alright, so with that complaint out of the way, I can now tell you the other awful thing about X-Force #16: Clayton Crain’s artwork. Dark, muddy, unclear, smeary (didn’t know that was a word until now), and hard to follow. Crain’s work makes a really poor story seem even worse. Look, I generally like Crain’s work. I think his style is a great fit for the X-Force series and when all of his art clicks, it looks incredible. However, the conclusion of the Messiah War is a great example of how horrible things can look when absolutely nothing clicks…

Conclusion: Save your money and skip X-Force #16. Also, do not even consider picking up the Messiah War trade if you have been waiting for that.

Grade: F+

-Kyle Posluszny