Teenage dating angst and Groucho Marx bits, that's what the kids like. Although I know I was reading the book when Liefeld was on it, I never really warmed up to the New Mutants, and that largely carried over into X-Force. The only stretch I regularly read was the Peter Milligan/Mike Allred run before X-Statix. Maybe this issue will tell if I should've been reading it: from 1996, X-Force #56, "Crazy for You" Written by Jeph Loeb, pencils by Adam Pollina, inks by Bud LaRosa and Mark Morales.
Like vampires, X-Force is living in an abandoned church; and with the rest of the team doing their own things, Shatterstar and Siryn are left to play tag and mope over their relationship problems. (With Rictor and Warpath, respectively.) A reflection in Shatterstar's sword triggers a flashback in Siryn: Deadpool, calling for help. They head to the Weisman Institute in Rutland, Vermont: Siryn had been taken there in an earlier issue, and worries she can't tell Xavier or Cable since she has to make sure they weren't in on messing with her head. Shatterstar is uneasy, since something about the institute strikes him as familiar: there had been worrying clues that he wasn't an alien, his real name was "Benjamin Russell." And Dr. Weisman confronts him with that name, backed by a creepy looking kid--and Deadpool!
Meanwhile, Warpath is out with his new girlfriend, Risqué. (Pronounced 'Risk,' I think!) She was pushing him towards more risky behavior, as it were, as well as mutant extremism. (The fact that 99 humans out of a hundred were hateful bags of dicks could do that, too.) Back at the institute, Siryn finds a seeming multitude of Deadpools, of varying degrees of homicidal lunacy. Although at first she thinks this is the work of Arcade, after finding the real Deadpool, she unmasks the real culprit: the Gamesmaster, possessing Dr. Weisman! As Deadpool goes back to work, Siryn is left wondering what the point of that was; as if Gamesmaster had wanted the game to end...Maybe not, though, as Shatterstar seems convinced the Gamesmaster had been messing with his head, and he really was Benjamin Russell.
Although I think I vaguely remember some stories with the Gamesmaster--Shinobi Shaw was working with him, wasn't he? I don't recall what the point of him was, if anyone won his game or not, or what the prize was. He kind of feels like somebody wanted to use the Grandmaster but wasn't allowed to or thought he was silly, so had to make their own. Also this issue: six pages of ads--er, "Onslaught update!" They use this "Onslaught is Coming" caution-tape a lot and are super-ugly in that 90's way. And an ad for an A&W Root Beer Spider-Man color change mug! Why the hell didn't I order four of those?
1 comment:
Weird year, and the beginning of Deadpool's face turn to anti-hero that culminates with a new series the following year.
From the various articles I've read about the Gamemaster, at the end of the day, not even the x-writers knew what the elusive prize was if you beat the Gamemaster. Nice name, terrible character and even worse action figure.
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