This week’s Uncanny X-Force #35 is Rick Remender’s final issue and the final issue for this team. The storytelling was ambitous, violent, senses-shattering. Uncanny X-Force may have not been the “flagship” but look how it influenced the entire X-Men line and Marvel Universe. Angel and Evan’s stories became part of Wolverine and the X-Men. I think no writer since Claremont has evolved Psylocke they way Remender has. Betsy will be team leader of the Uncanny X-Force relaunch in 2013. Remender is now writing the Marvel Now flagship Uncanny Avengers.
Earlier Remender told Comic Book Resources he’s leaving the series:
“There were a lot of different factors involved. It was a very tough decision to make and it came down to a conversation I had about it with Kieron Gillen about how long I would stay past this. He said, “Know when to get off the stage.” That’s something that we maybe overlook.
I’m now doing “Uncanny Avengers” and “Captain America” and I realized that in order for me to do those and not want to blow my brains out, I might have to walk away from “Venom,” “Secret Avengers” and “Uncanny X-Force.” That was a bummer because I put so much into building them and getting the trains out of the station. I love all the characters, but that’s just the reality. With “X-Force,” I feel like this final story, which I’m very excited and have been building towards for a while now, pretty much wraps up everything we’ve been doing. It says everything I wanted to say about a kill squad while also really digging into the X-Universe that I loved so much as a kid growing up. So it really did come down to the fact that it was time to get off the stage.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to stick a nice landing with “Final Execution” and people will really enjoy it, so the series will never have that part where it tapered and stopped being as good. That’s the upshot. You do your best work — and we all have — and then you wrap things up and walk away from it.”
Uncanny X-Force was always violent but not just for shock effect. Each act led to incredible character development and an exploration of consequences and reflections. Fantomex made a deadly decision in The Apocalypse Solution, Betsy was forced to kill the man she once loved in The Dark Angel Saga, Wolverine shared a bloody resolution with his son in The Final Execution.
Every member has been punished for their actions during this run. After so many shocks how will Remender end it?
By Editor