X-Force #5
Domino to the rescue in X-Force #5, by writer Benjamin Percy, artist Joshua Cassara, colorists Dean White and Rachel Rosenberg, and letterer Joe Caramagna. Wolverine and Kid Omega are down, but can Domino, after all the enemy has done to her, follow orders from Krakoa? This issue is an action-packed nailbiter.
The human mercenaries have disrupted the Krakoan gate, so Domino needs to find an alternate method to get to a still-living Wolverine… with the other half of his body. Sage gets in touch with Black Tom, who sends Gateway to Domino. She starts to drag the lower half of Wolverine’s body along with her when Forge shows up in a Krakoan biotech exoskeleton to help her. Meanwhile, the mercenaries begin to steal the Krakoan biotech they were looking for… but Wolverine, though half the man he usually is, attacks them. They gun him down again, but Domino, Gateway, and Forge show up, evening the odds. Together, they take out the mercenaries, save Wolverine, and take a prisoner. Back on Krakoa, the prisoner reveals all he knows about who he and his compatriots were working for… a man with a peacock tattoo.
Benjamin Percy puts a lot of focus on Domino in this issue. She’s a very messed up individual right now. She was captured and flayed, so a group of soldiers gets access to Krakoa, and she wants revenge. She wants to go and kill the ones who attacked Kid Omega and Wolverine. One of the laws of Krakoa is to kill no humans, but X-Force missions are allowed to break that rule if they have to. One of the big questions of the issue is, will she be able to control herself enough to actually take a prisoner so the X-Force will have someone to interrogate? Percy uses this little plot point to build tension throughout the issue, as Beast, back at Krakoa and acting as one of the mission’s handlers, tries to keep her from snapping.
While there’s a lot of action in this issue and it’s quite exciting, the real crux of the story is Domino dealing with her PTSD and trying her best to follow her orders. She still ends up killing most of the mercenaries she comes into contact with but takes control at the end, even finding a way to convince the mercenary she’s cornered to admit that he’s more than just a biologically engineered weapon and that he can be interrogated. Back on Krakoa, she asks a now healed Wolverine if the wounds in her head will ever heal. His answer is honest but tragic- the things in our head don’t heal very well, but whiskey helps. Which is a Wolverine way of saying finding something else to do helps.
Joshua Cassara’s art is terrific. It’s sort of reminiscent of Leinil Yu’s, but his linework isn’t as heavy as Yu’s. His style is highly detailed, and that fits this book perfectly. He makes the Krakoan biotech look very good- it has an alien quality, an inhuman air that is perfect. Kudos must also be given to colorists Dean White and Rachel Rosenberg. They really help bring out the detail in Cassara’s work, and it’s partly their colors that make the Krakoan biotech look so perfect.
X-Force #5 is an action-packed blockbuster that also serves as a look at Domino and her PTSD. Percy slips this in under the radar, but informs her every action throughout the book- she wants to save Wolverine because he saved her from her dilemma, as a way of making herself feel better. She wants to kill the mercenaries because they remind her of her captors, and killing them will make her feel better. When it’s all over, though, she’s still broken. It’s a stark and heartbreaking look at the effects of trauma on a person. Joshua Cassara’s art captures the feelings of these moments and makes the book’s action look great. This issue works on so many levels.
Grade: A
