Uncanny X-Force #23 Art

Uncanny X-Force #23 Spoilers

Spoilers: While Deadpool and Wolverine are fighting the Goat; Meggan, Brian, Kurt and the Captain Britain Corps try to prevent the enemy army from getting near the tower. Elsewhere, Betsy uses Krokwell’s poison to get rid of the Skinless Man, freeing Fantomex. The Skinless Man flees, while Betsy learns the rest of X-Force are in danger in Otherworld. The Goat’s army succeeds and breaks into the Omniverse Tower, and he’s about to spread his will across the all, into every mind. Betsy and Fantomex reach the Goat’s tower and distract him by posing as Merlyn and Roma via Fantomex’s misdirection power. The Goat breaks the misdirection, but it gives Betsy enough time to look into his mind and learn who he truly is. The Goat heads to the Omniverse Tower where he takes everyone out, except for Jamie, telling him he would like to see what happens next. The Goat becomes the Omnigod, spreading his essence across the universe. Betsy contacts Brian via telepathy and tells him that the Goat is Jamie from the future who made a deal with the Goat of self-propagation, in order to seek cosmic omnipresence and enlightment, but in the process the Goat ended up inhabiting Jamie’s body. Betsy tells him the only way to stop the destruction of everything is by killing Jamie. Brian refuses to do it, so Betsy takes over Brian’s body and snaps Jamie’s neck, ending it all. Betsy tells Brian he made her do it so he gets to stay the good guy.

Uncanny X-Force #23 Preview

Uncanny X-Force #23
Written by: Rick Remender
Pencils by: Greg Tocchini
Cover by: Leinil Francis Yu

The Story:
• The Trial Of Fantomex Concludes!
• The Multiverse Is In Danger, The Captain Britain Corps Is In Shambles And It Is Up To X-Force To Save The Day.
• A Terrible Choice Must Be Made For The Protection Of All Reality!

In Stores: March 28, 2012

Deadpool #52 Art

Deadpool #52 Spoilers

Spoilers from X-Man's Comic Blog: Kingpin captures Hydra Bob, since Kingpin figured Bob knew more than he was letting on. Deadpool uses Bob's capture as an excuse to get X-Force to attack Kingpin's headquarters, which leads to a lot of ninjas being eviscerated by Wolverine and his teammates. With Logan slowly becoming wise to the fact that there was more going on here than meets the eye, Deadpool betrays his X-Force teammates and chases Kingpin to the roof. Before anything can go down between Kingpin and Deadpool, X-Force and Hydra Bob manage to reach the rooftop. Deadpool decides to toss some grenades at X-Force to get them out of his hair, but Fantomex shoots the grenades back at him, destroying Kingpin's getaway helicopter. Kingpin leaps off the roof and escapes via a parachute, while Daken shoots Wolverine in the back from a nearby building with what Deadpool presumed was the serum that would rob Deadpool of his healing factor and finally allow him to die. Wade moves to teleport to Daken to get the serum, but before he can, Bob grabs Deadpool and stabs him in the chest with what appears to be the real serum.

When Two Tribes Go To War: "AvX" - The Telepathic Advantage?

CBR: In today's edition of WHEN TWO TRIBES GO TO WAR, CBR's in-depth look at "AvX," we take a look at the X-Men's seemingly telepathic advantage over the Avengers. What are the X-Men's telepaths capable of? What kind of strategic advantage do they give the X-Men leader, Cyclops? And how will the Avengers work around and fight back against the mental might of their adversaries? Helping us answer these questions and more are Senior Editor Nick Lowe who's in charge of the X-Titles, and Senior Vice President of Publishing and Executive Editor Tom Brevoort whose office oversees the Avengers titles.

CBR News: Nick and Tom, the X-Men have several powerful telepaths in their ranks including Emma Frost, Psylocke, Rachel Summers, and their founder, Charles Xavier. I can't really think of any Avengers with comparable psychic abilities, though. Am I missing any? And why is it that telepathy and its related powers seem to be associated with mutants and X-Men instead of Marvel heroes with other origins?

Tom Brevoort: The Avengers have had a few over the years, characters such as Moondragon -- but telepathy really hasn't been a regular part of their arsenal. As for the X-side, I think that comes from two interconnected things: Jean Grey and her status as not only a founding X-Man but as the lynchpin of probably the book's best-remembered storyline, and the fact that Chris Claremont was a heavy SF reader during a period where numerous authors were exploring the idea of telepathic and telekinetic powers and how they might plausibly work within a SF context. Chris adapted, adopted and improved on a number of those ideas as he wrote "Uncanny X-Men."

Nick Lowe: Let's read between the lines, here. It's because the X-Men are the best.

Telepathy in its most basic form is the power to send and receive thoughts, which is a useful communication tool with a number of strategic uses in battle. What kind of advantage does it give Cyclops and other characters in terms of communication and coordinating troop movements?

Lowe: It certainly doesn't hurt. Cap and the Avengers know going in that the X-Men have this advantage, so you've got to think they've got some defensive planning in place to keep Emma from just shutting their brains down. And the coordination helps, but you have to remember how training centered Cyclops is. You can't go more than an issue of X-Men back in the day without Cyclops drilling his team in the Danger Room and that hasn't changed. He's always training his crews and they operate like well oiled machines. No one does as much teamwork as the X-Men (heck they have well-known moves like the fastball special).

Telepathy also allows a person to reads the thoughts of others, which makes it a useful to gather intelligence. Of course, many mutants have a personal code that keeps them from reading the thoughts of others. How would a conflict like "AvX" affect that code? Are there some heroes that won't have qualms about reading the thoughts of Avengers once things heat up and get tough?

Brevoort: I think it depends entirely on the individual character. My expectation is that the Avengers and the X-Men both are going to comport themselves as heroes, no differently than they've ever done. That said; the stakes they're fighting for are so important that they will push our heroes to the wall in terms of what they will and will not do. And certainly some of the X-telepaths have used situational ethics to guide their actions in the past. Of course, keep in mind that Tony Stark has a lot of experience in building tech to protect himself from telepathic intrusions or attacks.

Lowe: Tom is right (yeesh that felt weird coming out of my mouth) about how the X-Men are going to behave. They're still heroes. And like I said before, Cap would have to be an idiot not to have something in place to defend his team from this on some level. And he's no idiot.

Powerful telepaths have another morally gray ability, the ability to erase and control minds. This begs the question, when things get tough will there be some X-Men tempted to use this ability? Or is this seen as a last ditch "nuclear option?"

Lowe: This would not be something Cyclops would be down with unless there were no other option and even then -- but, and sorry to repeat again, the Avengers need to have some sort of plan for this.

Brevoort: Again, I wouldn't think this would be an easily-used option if it were ever seriously considered at all. The X-Men haven't done this sort of thing even to their most ruthless foes, so I don't think they'd be inclined to do it to guys they know are heroes but whom they happen to be in contention with.

We've talked a bit about how effective an ability telepathy is in general, so let's switch gears a little bit and talk about how effective it is against the Avengers in particular. Are there any Avengers who have a natural immunity to telepathic and psionic powers?

Brevoort: Iron Man's armor has been proofed against telepathic attacks in the past. The Vision's android mind is such that it's anybody's guess whether a telepathic strike would do him any harm. A telepathic attack on the Red Hulk is likely to just make him angrier and more savage, so if it didn't immediately take him down it would likely make things worse. There are a few other examples, but they're mostly the exceptions -- for the most part the Avengers are no more protected from a telepathic assault than anyone else would be.

How aware are the Avengers in general of the strategic applications of telepathy? Can we assume that leaders like Captain America are aware of what telepaths can do and are ready and able to work around them?

Brevoort: I'd say it's a certainty -- especially since there are present and former X-Men among the Avengers' ranks, who would be likely to disclose that information even if Cap wasn't already aware of it.

Lowe: They definitely know it.

The X-Men may have an advantage in the area of mental powers, but the Avengers have three of the greatest scientific minds on the planet in Tony Stark, T'Challa, and Hank Pym. How easy would it be for these guys to whip up something that makes them and their team mates resistant to telepathic powers?

Brevoort: Given that we've seen Tony at least do this before in the past, I'd say it'd be relatively easy. Doesn't mean that it'll work, though, or be 100% proof against a determined X-Man digging down deep and fighting for a legitimate cause.

Lowe: It's not going to really matter in the end as the X-Men are far superior in every way.

X-Men Solicitation for June 2012

X-Men #30 & #31
Writer: Brian Wood
Art: David Lopez
Cover by: Jorge Molina
• Written by Brian Wood (Wolverine and the X-Men Alpha and Omega, DMZ, Demo, Northlanders) with art by David Lopez (Mystic, New Mutants, Catwoman).
• When a new race of mutants is discovered!

Wood Empowers Mutants in "X-Men" & "Ultimate Comics X-Men"

CBR: This June, acclaimed writer Brian Wood takes over the writing duties of both "Ultimate Comics X-Men" and "X-Men." Wood's run on the books was announced today at the "Marvel: The Next Big Thing" panel at the WonderCon Convention 2012 in Anaheim, California and CBR News spoke exclusively with him about his plans for the titles.

Moving on to you work in the Marvel Universe with "X-Men." What do you feel is the mandate of this book? What types of stories are you interested in telling?

I'm departing a bit from what Victor Gischler's been doing. Frankly, I couldn't do what Victor does and it's not what an editor would hire me for anyway. I come from a background different from most comic book writers and I don't have the same breadth of knowledge regarding characters and continuity. I come in pretty fresh and research as needed, and that's going to make for a different sort of X-Men title.

The goal I've given myself here is to take the "security team" label I've seen associated with this book and really explore that, really run it out to its fullest potential. They won't just be interacting with known villains, but be taking the mutant/human conflict out to its bleeding edge, all over the world, taking on missions that will be very grounded. I've always responded best to the X-Men stories that had humanity itself as the threat.

You've got an interesting cast for these stories: Storm, Psylocke, Colossus, Domino and Pixie. What made you want to include these characters in this series? And how would you describe the initial dynamic between them?

This is the pre-existing cast save for a couple tweaks: Warpath is out, Pixie is in, and Jubilee was taken off by editorial. So on balance not that much has changed, but my concern was to make sure I had a team of characters with complimentary powers that covered a lot of bases with no overlap. Like any sort of "security team" would have, a guy that does this, another who is an expert in something else, and so on. I don't see myself changing the characters in any way that would disrupt the existing dynamic, but I am interested in writing Pixie -- I think she's fascinating. Her history is vast, complex, and the powers she has have a load of potential.

For your initial story, which kicks off in "X-Men" #30, you're pitting your cast against a newly discovered, centuries old, mutant race. What can you tell us about these characters? What makes them good adversaries for your cast?

I think their mere existence alone is pretty interesting. I call them the neanderthals to us modern humans, a "proto" race of mutants that predated those we know, and are entirely connected, genetically. They lived and died out centuries ago. It's a huge, huge revelation, not only because it gives the mutants a much longer history than they thought, it also gives them a greater "claim" to the world than they had -- it reduces the argument some might have that mutants don't belong in society or are otherwise freaks or aberrations. And what can these proto-mutants tell us about modern mutants? Is there a future race of mutants yet to come, that are much further refined? These proto-mutants are primitive, crude, and more elemental in their powers.

As far as being adversaries, I think the big question is why are they back. if this is an extinct race, how have they returned?

Going forward, what types of adversaries are you interested in featuring"X-Men?" Will you be using established characters or creating new ones? And will the team be limited to X-Men adversaries or can we expect them face a wide range of Marvel Universe threats?

In both books, I think the biggest conflicts will be from the threats that come from humans. Personally, I've always related best to the X-Men stories where the mutants are at odds with society rather than merely at odds with a villain. This is not to say I'm not writing villains, but my focus will be on that human/mutant conflict and what that says about all of us. Core X-Men themes at play, here.

We've talked quite a bit about story and character, so let's finish up by talking about your artists. David Lopez will be bringing to life your "X-Men" scripts and Paco Medina will draw your teen heroes in "Ultimate Comics X-Men." What do you feel are the primary artistic strengths of each? And what's it like working with Paco who has been part of "Ultimate Comics X-Men" since its first arc?

It always takes me a little while to figure out the answer to a question like that, because I really try and study an artist's work and their way of working, to better tweak my scripts to match. In other words, I write to the strengths of the artists (like so many other writers do as well). David and Paco are super talented and enthusiastic. I want to give them great scripts to write and find the best way to collaborate over the long term. As an artist myself, I'm sensitive about it. I don't ever want to come off indifferent to them or overbearing in how I write what they are meant to draw.

Wood's "X-Men" #30 and "Ultimate Comics X-Men" #13 both arrive in June.

Psylocke by Jae Lee

Uncanny X-Force Solicitation for June 2012

Uncanny X-Force #26
Writer: Rick Remender
Art: Mike McKone
Cover by: Jerome Opeña
• Meet the Omegas and watch them destroy Wolverine, AOA-Nightcrawler and Deadpool!
• Psylocke goes to the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning to visit Angel, but she finds something she was not expecting.
• The new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants kicks their plan into high gear!

Kieron Gillen on Psylocke

From his Formspring:
Kieron Gillen: [Psylocke] She's effectively a core part of Uncanny X-men. You'll see how I use her in AvX.

Deadpool Preview Pages

X-Men #26 Art

X-Men #26 Spoilers

Spoilers: As the hordes of killers storm the island's beaches coming after Raizo's head, Domino convinces Deadpool to fight them, promising Wade she'll go on a date with him. Raizo sends some of the Forgiven to deal with the killers. Storm sends Colossus and Warpath to help them. The battle commences quickly, switching back and forth between the command center and the field, as familiar faces (Lady Bullseye, the Bruiser, Black Axe, Scorpion, etc.) crack skulls with vampires and the X-Men. Storm wants to take Jubilee and leave, but Jubes convinces her to help the Forgiven. At the Command Center, Psylocke is taken out by a psionic white noise generator, while Storm and the vampires are gassed by Lord Deathstrike, leaving everything in jeopardy and Raizo himself nearly fatally staked. Only Jubilee is left standing to face Lord Deathstrike.

Remender Sentences "Uncanny X-Force" to a "Final Execution"

CBR: Most Marvel Comics super heroes don't kill, and as a result find themselves facing the same villains over and over again. Killing these villains won't make their lives any easier, though. The mutant heroes of writer Rick Remender's ongoing "Uncanny X-Force" series are discovering that the hard way. Remender's cast comprise a clandestine kill squad led by Wolverine that targets the Marvel Universe's vilest villains for elimination.

X-Force's opponents have included killer cyborgs, the super powered cult of the villain Apocalypse, and Apocalypse's chosen heir, their former teammate Archangel. X-Force successfully neutralized these foes without anyone knowing about their involvement -- at least they thought they did. In the current "Otherworld" arc X-Force has become embroiled in a war in the titular realm after Captain Britain discovered the team's existence. Then in May, an arc titled "Final Execution" begins, which finds the team in greater danger thanks to a mysterious villain who has targeted them. CBR News spoke with Remender about both arcs and his future plans for the series.

X-Force's ranks include Wolverine, Psylocke, Fantomex, Deadpool, and the extra-dimensional counterpart of Wolverine's deceased friend, Nightcrawler, who hails from the "Age of Apocalypse" reality and joined the team in the aftermath of the recent "Dark Angel Saga" arc. "I liked the idea of exploring this Nightcrawler because so much of this series has been about nurture versus nature. I liked the idea of looking at someone who was inherently good, jovial, and kind, like Kurt in our world and seeing what a very different set of circumstances could have given birth to," Remender told CBR News. "I think what we're discovering especially in issue #22, in stores now, is that in the core of his heart this Nightcrawler isn't too different from our own, and maybe it's the sort of toothy enamel that he uses to protect himself that's different.

"I've got an arc for him, too," Remender continued. "You don't put a character on your team unless you have a really strong arc in mind. So we'll get a real good look at where this Nightcrawler's story is headed soon and then it will take off around issue #27."

The Age of Apocalypse Nightcrawler isn't the only X-Force cast member Remender has plans for. The writer has arcs planned for his entire cast, especially Wolverine, who will have to deal with some big changes during the upcoming "Final Execution" arc.

"In order to be interested in a character I need to have an arc. I need to see them learn, grow, and change. Often it's impossible to have all these big changes happen to these characters since they appear in multiple books and whoever is writing one book will have to adapt their story and that can be really difficult," Remender explained. "You don't normally see this type of thing. I worked very closely with my editor Nick Lowe to make sure that it tied in and everybody else was okay with it. The big idea here is to do something that you don't see very often with a character like Wolverine. Given the mandate and the kind of things that this team does, this seemed like the right book to conclude a chapter of his life and to majorly change who he is in a natural and exciting way. I think that's why Nick and I were both excited about it and why everyone else bought into it. We weren't doing this just for the sake of doing it. This was something that was born out of the story we were telling and everybody thought it was terrific."

In the current "Otherworld" arc of "Uncanny X-Force," which features art by Remender's "Last Days of American Crime" partner Greg Tocchini, Wolverine and his team have traveled to Otherworld to rescue their teammates Fantomex and Psylocke, who had been abducted by Psylocke's brother, Captain Britain. Britain abducted them after discovering Fantomex shot and killed Apocalypse shortly after the villain was reborn as a small boy. The Secret Avenger then put Fantomex on trial and tried to convince his sister to leave the team.

"I'm showing this story to you from Fantomex's point of view because he's one of the main characters in the book, but had this been a story about Captain Britain and the Captain Britain Corps, Fantomex would be the bad guy. From their perspective this guy shot a kid in the head! So they're sort of right in the way they view him. They've also got other reasons for wanting Fantomex gone that have yet to be revealed. Brian is hoping that Betsy will trust him when he says this guy isn't good and shouldn't be left alive. So yeah, everyone loves Fantomex and this is his book so the Captain Britain Corps is seen as the villains, but they really haven't done anything shady except to say, 'We probably need to take care of the child killer,'" Remender remarked. "If you look at things from Captain Britain's point of view his sister is running around murdering people and hanging out with a guy who shot a kid in the forehead. For him, his sister is lost. She might as well be in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants."

Captain Britain and his Corps may be playing an antagonistic role in "Otherworld" but they are not the villains of the arc. That role is filled by an army of demonic invaders warring with Captain Britain and the Corps. When the other X-Force members travelled to Otherworld to rescue their teammates they became embroiled in that battle. The conflict has largely involved monsters and magic and while Remender has demonstrated a flair for many genres in both his creator-owned and Marvel work, he's not known for telling large fantasy-style stories.

"I did a 40-page 'Red Sonja' story because Paul Renaud, a brilliant artist and friend of mine, asked me to write it for him and I'm incredibly proud of it. I think it's one of the coolest things I've done. It's this 40-page one-shot called 'Red Sonja: Vacant Shell.' Once I started writing a story in a fantasy setting I really found that it was a lot of fun," Remender said. "Plus, I want to challenge myself and my readers as well as do things that are different. We've seen a lot of different tones in X-Force so far. We've see a sci-fi mission on the moon to assassinate a god-child. We've seen futuristic Deathlok cyborgs traveling through time and dimensions. Plus we've had the epic, grand sci-fi of the 'Dark Angel Saga.'

"So 'Otherworld' grew out of two things. One is that I thought the aesthetic would be prefect for Greg Tocchini and the other was that we often don't get a lot of time to examine where these characters come from and their histories and their families," Remender continued. "Those are interesting stories, though. For example, in Frank Miller's 'Born Again' Matt Murdock's mother plays a vitally important role. So I was thinking in terms of Psylocke whose family has a rich history in the Marvel Universe. Why not explore that and force her to choose between her old identity and her new one as a member of X-Force? I wanted to make that decision very difficult and to see the reaction of her family."

That connection to Psylocke's family gave Remender a way to properly introduce a new villain named the Skinless Man, who was imprisoned in Otherworld by the Captain Britain Corps. In "Uncanny X-Force" #22 readers learned the Skinless Man was a product of the Weapon Plus Program that created Wolverine and his former partner and now arch-enemy, Fantomex.

"The Skinless Man is Weapon III. I touch upon his history with Fantomex, but just enough. I don't want to give too much exposition. So we flashed back and saw some of their history together in issue #22 and then later on in my run we'll get a deeper look at their rivalry and see what their hatred for one another is built upon," Remender said. "The Skinless Man is basically Fantomex's Sabretooth. I've got a lot of fun ideas for him like the fact that his skin is part of the sentient bullets Fantomex has been using for all these years."

The Skinless Man and the demonic invaders of Otherworld are proving to be formidable enemies. Fortunately X-Force and Captain Britain have some allies. In "Uncanny X-Force" #21, Nightcrawler met up with the mutant Meggan and the robotic Widget, who along with Captain Britain and the deceased Marvel Universe Nightcrawler starred in Marvel's "Excalibur" title which originally ran from the late '80s to the late '90s.

"I was such a die hard fan of Excalibur. I believe I was first exposed to their book as a teenager. I really remember loving it because it was science fiction with all these big, crazy ideas and wild characters," Remender explained. "I later discovered that those characters were created by Chris Claremont, Alan Davis, and Alan Moore in earlier Captain Britain comics that I hunted down. It really felt unique with its big science fiction ideas.

"That team felt like a family for a long, long time and they haven't really been back together. There's so many different pieces that have come back and come and gone, but I always thought there was a bond between those characters and that they felt right there," Remender continued. "I really enjoyed bringing Widget back and adding Meggan into the mix. There's some fun scenes in issue #23 between Meggan and this Nightcrawler. Obviously they're going to have an emotional reaction to seeing this Nightcrawler who's not their friend. That's something we'll hit on a little bit."

The "Otherworld" arc of "Uncanny X-Force" concludes on March 28th with #23. "It features some shocking revelations about what you've been reading the whole time," Remender said. "I don't believe anyone has figured them out yet, so it will be fun to see people's reactions to them."

April's "Uncanny X-Force" #24 is a one-off issue featuring art by "X-23" artist Phil Noto that focuses on the AoA Nightcrawler as he enlists Wolverine and Deadpool to kill his reality's sinister version of Iceman. "Nightcrawler has decided to stay in this reality to hunt and kill a number of the Age of Apocalypse characters that are stumbling around this world. Iceman is at the top of his list because his betrayal led to the death of several of Nightcrawler's friends. So this is the reason that Nightcrawler has been helping out X-Force," Remender explained. "He went off to Otherworld and did his best to aid Wolverine and his teammates, and when they get back he's got a list and says, 'All right. Now we're going to go do one of my things.' So they go to Madripoor where Iceman is high, drunk, and enjoying prostitution. Then things get ugly. That issue and #25 will be nice pay off issues for elements that we've had bubbling in the B-story of the book."

May's "Uncanny X-Force" #25 is a milestone issue, and what's especially impressive is that Remender and his collaborators have reached the issue in less than two years time. "The accelerated shipping schedule is great if we can keep the book good. It's been hard, but I think we've maintained the quality of the book because we've been fortunate to have a lot of A-List talent work on it," Remender remarked. "We were very lucky to have Esad Ribic stick around for 18 issues and lend things some consistency. And Jerome Opena's going to be doing the covers from issue #25 on. Plus, I don't think there's a way to properly express my appreciation for colorist Dean White who puts in four times more effort and love on every page than he has any earthly reason to do so. He's a passionate guy and he goes through and digitally paints under and on top of the line art. He adds such an amazing depth and tonal consistency to the series."

Helping Remender and White celebrate "X-Force" #25 is artist Mike McKone. "Mike is a professional and storytelling always come first in everything you see him do. Plus he's always got strong, clean, dynamic figures," Remender said. "And Dean White has been doing a fantastic job digitally painting his work. I've seen some samples of what those guys can do together and it's crazy good."

McKone will bring the first three issues of the "Final Execution" arc to life, which the writer promises will turn the book upside down. That status quo change will come about because an X-Men villain, who has not yet appeared in "Uncanny X-Force," discovers the team's existence.

"This is a natural character to make this discovery and they do so because of another character we have seen in this book. It was one one of those things that was born out of working on 'The Dark Angel Saga.' I thought, 'This person fits right in here.' So I called Nick Lowe and asked, 'What if this person was told by that person and he did this and this?' Then the next thing I know we were beating out the 'Final Execution' story," Remender explained. "So we've got the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. The members of that group that we have revealed are three new characters that collectively make up the Omega Clan. They are Omega Red, Omega White, and Omega Black. They're all built from the remains of the original Omega Red who was killed by Wolverine a few years ago."

The Omega Clan are creations of a clandestine weapons manufacturing group called the White Sky. "Final Execution" opens with Deadpool investigating the organization's chief base of operations.

"The White Sky operate out of a giant cumulous cloud that floats around the world and can't be tracked. Inside of it is this giant, beautiful show room where you can get an assassin made to order," Remender said. "Their clients are mostly corporate, but anybody who has the money can get in touch with them and special order custom made and specific assassins. It's kind of a giant Toys 'R Us/Mercedes Benz dealership where you can get all types of assassins made to order: robots, ninjas, sexy secretaries, you name it."

Dusting off and reviving the concepts of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and Omega Red were easy for Remender because their presence in "Final Execution" grew out of the story the writer wanted to tell. "That's always the best place because you don't have to dance around to come up with character motives and who they are," Remender remarked. "In this case the X-Villain who has reformed the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants has a very clear reason for doing so and it ties into what we've seen in the first 20 issues of "X-Force." Then when you see who the members of the Brotherhood are you'll see that each one of them have a perfect motive. They're not just perfect members of the Brotherhood. They're also perfect foils for X-Force. These guys are aware of X-Force. They know they're out there and they have a plan. The Omegas are part of that plan and we'll see it in the first three issues."

The Brotherhood's plan will devastate X-Force and have a major impact on the book's status quo. "After issue #27 there will be a death in the team. There will be a new member and there will almost be a complete reset. A ball-peen hammer is going to come down around issue #27 in a pretty huge and crazy way. If you've been a fan of the series so far you're not going to want to miss this," Remender said. "This was something that I didn't think would get approved, to be honest. Nick Lowe and I worked on it quite a bit and made sure that it was natural, unpredictable, and was much bigger than 'The Dark Angel Saga.' That was a huge challenge too because I went pretty big in that story. I wanted to make sure that if we were going to do another big epic that this thing was an escalation and we definitely have that. I think people will see that by issue #27."

"Uncanny X-Force" #23 is on sale March 28.

Uncanny X-Men #8 Art

Uncanny X-Men #8 Spoilers

Spoilers: Good Apex explains that since Tabula Rasa grew with no light at all, the Sun will cause every living being inside it to have "cancer." Meanwhile, Namor seeks a private audience with the Queen of the River. Namor and the Queen apparently have sex and become allies. Elsewhere, Colossus finally finds Magik and defeats her attackers. Illyana makes Colossus understand that despite the Cytoorak, he's still him. Psylocke tells the relatives of those who died for Tabula Rasa to grow that there's no chances of survivors and that she's sorrier than they could ever know. The solution to Tabula Rasa's problem is to build a sphere that isolates it from the outside Earth in a joint operation between S.W.O.R.D., S.H.I.E.L.D. and the X-Men. Back in Utopia, Emma Frost gets her arm reattached while Good Apex says goodbye to the X-Men. Magneto tells Psylocke that he brought down the murals revealing X-Force's involvement with Tabula Rasa because he owned them. Eriks assures Betsy they're on the same side. She asks which side is that, to which he replies that she shows. Psylocke wishes she didn't.