X-Force -- specifically, the role X-Force played in contrast to the mainline X groups, especially the New Mutants and Gen X -- is ultimately a treatise on the morality of raising children as soldiers. it provides one set of answers to the questions, what do we do when we have decided the world is against us? what do we do with children our enemies have traumatized, and with children who are not yet traumatized but are still on our side of the divide? how do we raise children in a state of constant war? how do we find enough people to fight in our war, when most of the world doesn’t believe it’s a war? how responsible are we for the deaths of these people in battle, when it is our enemies who have killed them but we who sent them into battle? how responsible are we when these deaths are children? should children be allowed to be children if we genuinely believe that they are in danger simply for existing? to what extent do they, and we, have a choice about their future?

these are questions that the X titles have always sought to answer (and have generally failed to do so), but it was never more directly addressed than in the way Cable and Domino raised X-Force in contrast to the way Xavier and his minions raised the various groups that went through Xavier’s “school”, and in the consequences of those choices. and yet -- I still can’t figure out how much the writers at the time were actually aware that that is what they were writing. how much was a conscious choice, and how much was simply the natural consequence of writing a cool plot, or wanting to distinguish your title from similar titles so yours would sell better? I think we will never know.

and even then I stuck with X-Factor until the bitter end, so

which included the following. I have to say that the lyricism isn’t too bad, but I have zero fucking clue who this fic is supposed to be about. Cable? Scott Summers? Sean Cassidy? like, wtf. I have no idea.

anyway, fic snippet below the cut, if you want to play the “mystery early-naughties obscure marvel comics mutant character guessing game” with me