X-Force Annual #1 - Marvel

This ended up being another great Annual. It was different from the normal X-Force book . . kind of. But that's ok. Robert Kirkman brought us more of the humorous side of Wolverine's personality. But to me, the best part of the book was that Jason Pearson was the artist. I first got turned on to Jason's work during the incredible series Body Bags. If you haven't read it though, it wasn't a Marvel book, it was Dark Horse. It was a really, really fun series . . both in story and art. Anyways, back to the book at hand. The story starts out like any other X-Force mission. Wolverine is infiltrating a Hydra base, and this time he's doing it solo. How does he get in? They fly overhead and drop him from an airplane. Hilarious stuff. He's after a specific agent. We don't know why or who, but when he finds him he has to fight his way out. He starts out all stealthy . . 'No killing, no claws until I find the one I'm looking for.' Yeah! Right! That lasts about 20 seconds. So when he attempts an exit with the guy, basically he has to fight almost everybody on base. But many bullets and bruises later he makes his way to the roof for the extraction. There's a couple of story twists after that. First, the reason they extracted this guy was because his daughter was dying. She needs a bone-marrow transplant in order to survive, but he never would've done it had they asked because she's a mutant. Second, he's actually a General. Hydra is on them in the hospital almost immediately because he has a radioactive isotope in his blood so Hydra can trace him no matter what. And finally, since Hydra is there and ready to take him back, he doesn't have time to give a proper sample . . so he holds his arm out. He looks at Wolverine and says, 'You've got about 3 seconds before I change my mind.' Wolverine takes out his claws and removes about a foot of his arm. As Wolverine watches Hydra take him away all he can say is, 'Damn. That's hardcore!' It really was. Like I said . . not your normal X-Force story, but . . it was still cool. I liked the twists and the scene between the General and his daughter at the end . . and his estranged wife. It was comical, hardcore and touching all at the same time. Not something you'd necessarily expect from a Wolverine story. There's also a Deadpool back-up story. In it Wade gets involved with LOA when the resurrected Acolytes come after her for information about Magneto. It appears that Selene wants him returned to Genosha, but Cortez wants to get a little payback first. Anyways, long story short, Wade tries to kill them . . piece by piece, but soon finds out that he can't. They won't die. That is until LOA accidentally phases through them. There's something about her that turns them into so much dust. I'm sure we'll see some more about this in the Necrosha story-line. It was your usual half-witted Deadpool story . . full of comedy. This chapter was by Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost and Carlo Barberi. I thought it was a funny story. Plus . . it gives the X-Men a weapon to use against the undead that Selene is sending after them. Well . . that and Doug Ramsey. But that's another story entirely.