X-Force: Fox’s Newest Moneymaker
With the recent success of the Deadpool movie and Hugh Jackman’s last foray into the Wolverine character, Logan, Fox has removed all doubt from skeptics, critics, and rival studios alike that they won’t be letting Marvel Studios’ grubby mitts anywhere near their X-Men franchise anytime soon. Nope, I don’t think Fox is willing to share characters the way Sony did with Spider-Man, considering the latter messed it all up when they decided to turn Peter Parker into a weepy little jerk in their recent failed trilogy. Fox, on the other hand, has experienced a breakthrough in their film license, expanding the franchise beyond only the core X-team. And with the current line-up of films they have in store, fanboys and fangirls are surely foaming at the mouth waiting for their release. And perhaps the biggest film that the studio is prepping for right now would be none other than their planned X-Force movie. Outside the main X-Men movies, this movie is the one that features the biggest names among their line, so you can bet your bottom dollar there is going to be one hell of an ad campaign in the near future for this one.
Now, the X-Force is a team that is so popular that it’s only second to Xavier’s team of child soldiers, so it is interesting to note how Fox will approach the movie, given that it has a pretty expansive history behind it. In other words, Marvel’s been milking the X-Force title for almost three decades now that it’s gone through a lot of iterations since Rob Liefeld came up with his pouch-pocked characters.
In the original version of the team, members included Domino and Cable (who will both be appearing in the next Deadpool movie); Shatterstar, Feral, Siryn and Warpath; and New Mutants graduates Cannonball and Boom Boom. By the time Liefeld left Marvel to pursue drawing his steroidal characters for his own studio and Image Comics, the X-Force experienced a few alterations to its roster. Some characters like Cable would leave the group and be replaced by others, such as Bedlam and Sunspot. Simply put, it had revolving door of characters joining and leaving the team. As for its popularity, the X-Force was one of the 90s’ biggest hits, but its fame went out the same time as Marvel went into bankruptcy after the dumbasses of the world ran out of money to spare for their 2,500-variant per issue scams.
However, by the early 2000s, the incomparable Michael Allred would give new life to the series by doing exactly the opposite of what the X-Force stood for, introducing a totally new roster and revamping the whole atmosphere of the book.
But perhaps the only truly great incarnation of the team came in 2010, when Rick Remender turned them into the Uncanny X-Force. In fact, I hope this is the iteration of the team that Fox goes for in their film. I’d even go so far as to say that I’d be okay if they simply strictly adapted one of Remender’s story arcs. Hey, a man can dream, can’t he?