Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force #1 of 3 –  try saying that three times fast. This Fear Itself storyline is huge, so naturally, every Marvel book has got to have a tie-in. With Rick Remender’s ­Uncanny X-Force already being in the middle of a  pretty epic story-line, it’s up to writer, Rob Williams, and artist, Simone Bianchi, to put out a three issue mini-series to put Wolverine’s X-Force into Fear Itself. Is it necessary? Maybe not, but it’s a pretty fun read that works well with this group of mutants.

The book starts off with someone from the anti-mutant terrorist group, the Purifiers, walking into an airport and blowing himself up with some innocent people for no good reason. The Purifiers have also made it clear that they have captured some no-name super hero and are planning on killing the guy during a live web-stream. Well, this isn’t something that X-Force is going to allow to happen. So, after Fantomex and Psylocke are able to gather some Intel, the team heads out to stop these murdering jerk-wads.

Despite this being a different creative team, I think Williams and Bianchi have done a really good job with keeping this in tone with the Remender series. They nailed everything from Deadpool’s quirky personality traits to the R rated action we have come to expect from an X-Force team led by Wolverine.

I really like how they found a way to bring the Purifiers into Fear Itself. While this doesn’t feel like a direct involvement with Fraction’s big event, this story goes right along with it. Everybody is freaking out and panicking, which causes more violence for the God of Fear to feed on. So, when you have a group of people who are so afraid of mutants that they’re willing to kill them all, it would be only natural for their fear to escalate as it has in this book. So, now these guys have decided that it’s not just the mutants that need to go, it’s the entire super-human community. But once again, like the best villains in X-Men books, these guys don’t think they’re in the wrong. As far as they’re concerned they’re doing God’s work.

Williams really has a handle on these characters. He’s been able to capture the serious tone of X-Force while still being able to throw in a few jokes here and there with Deadpool and Fantomex. A perfect example is how the book starts. It begins with Deadpool telling the story about the suicide bomber in the airport, which is later revealed that he’s telling this story to a couple of stuffed animals. I was really digging Bianchi’s art as well. His style doesn’t really match the artists who have done Uncanny X-Force, but it’s a really unique one that works great with action comics.

If you’re a fan of Wolverine leading a team of bad-ass mutants and kicking ass, you’ll like this book. Even if you haven’t been reading Fear Itself. I do have one question though, how does Wolverine have time to do this, while he’s fighting alongside the Avengers?

Ken Zeider
Ken@ComicImpact.com