Inglorious X-Force #3: Scientific Progress Goes BOOM BOOM

Cable’s plan to discover future Kamala Khan’s would be assassin continues. Seeley shifts the lens onto Tabitha Smith and the results are explosive, literally. Boom Boom has always been fun, outgoing, rough around the edges, with a mouth and attitude to match her mutant ability. Seeley makes sure all of those elements are there and if he stopped there, it would be still be a good issue but he doesn’t. Instead, alongside the X-Force chicanery including a pretty wild bait and switch espionage moment using Boom Boom as the distraction and Warren Worthington as the stealth operative, Seeley and the rest of the team elevate the issue by looking deep into the heart of Tabitha Smith, stripping away the veneer and seeing who she is underneath, how self aware she is of her actual destructive capability as well as how deeply she cares for Cable.

Not only do we get this excellent examination of Boom Boom but Seeley once again shows of his knowledge chops by taking us down memory lane and revisiting Tabitha’s NEXTWAVE days in a clever nod to how she was used back then by the Beyond Corporation. Even a broccoli body reincarnated Dirk Anger, whose mom it turns out isn’t actually Andrea Dworkin (IYKYK) who’s attempting to use clones of BOOM BOOM as living explosive weapons in order to get H.A.T.E back in the Beyond corporation’s good graces. Of course that can’t be allowed to happen and Seeley gets to show off Archangel’s almost forgotten about Death Seed abilities in a incredible display of power foiling broccoli Dirk’s plans and proving that things can come up roses even for X-Force sometimes. Kamala slots in with the crew easily now and there’s fantastic dialogue and action from her. In fact the character interaction between the cast is probably one of the best things about this book and series. It’s snappy organic and equal parts irreverent and heartfelt.

Michael Sta Maria continues to be superb on art. There’s plenty of action, explosions galore , weird creatures and moms for the art team to have fun with. But what really sells this issue for me is the facial expressions which run the gamut of comically hilarious for example Kamala’s face as they race up the side of a building on Daken’s hellbike to catch Tabitha mid air to deeply introspective like Tabitha’s face when NEXTWAVE comes up. It’s a really interesting issue because the art team has to navigate the scripts dance between deathly serious and the comedic weirdness (which I’m sure is Seeley’s real nod to NEXTWAVE as a series) of the combat situation they find themselves in. Sta Maria is more than up to the task on this, With Romulo Fajardo Jr. letting a little more brighter color bleed into this issue versus the last issue. There’s a fantastic panel which is just action sound effects in multiple colors against a black background as X-FORCE faces off against the Unusual Weapons Of Mass Destruction which I assume I can credit VC”s Joe Caramagna for. It’s really well-executed stuff every page down to the cliffhanger ending on the last page.