HARDAWAY versus MUTANT LIBERATION FRONT

Liberation Through Subjugation (Marvel)
Where: X-Force #27 When: October 1993
Why: Fabian Nicieza How: Matt Broome

The Story So Far...
Sprung from the Roanoke Maximum Security Federal Penitentiary -- The Mutant Liberation Front has returned to serve the whims of a mysterious new revolutionary called Reignfire!

The first mission under their new leader is a demonstration of power and intent! The United States government has begun development of a new anti-mutant elimination program dubbed Project: Wideawake. The MLF will strike at its heart by kidnapping and assassinating program director Henry Peter Gyrich -- they just need to get to him first!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Forearm 5 (Super-Human)
Intelligence: Draw 2 (Average)
Speed: Tempo 5 (Super-Human)
Stamina: Forearm 4 (Athlete)
Agility: Hardaway 4 (Gymnast)
Fighting: Moonstar 4 (Trained)
Energy: Locus 5 (Lasers)
Total: Moonstar 20 (Champion)

Basketball fans of the era might remember Golden State's Tim Hardaway for his killer crossover -- but this Hardaway is a golden killer of a very different kind!

He's basically the answer to what if the T-1000 came from the early nineties instead of the future? A prototype cyborg working for Henry Peter Gyrich; he was intended to be the first in a series of mutant-slaying "biosentries" that never eventuated.

Hardaway is fast and agile, despite a bulky torso encumbered by metal housing, and tubes that supply various cybernetic enhancements. He can evade sensory attacks with automated scanners, while shape-shifting liquid metal limbs offer him diverse offensive options including various blades and bludgeoning configurations.

The Mutant Liberation Front are: Wildside, Tempo, Reaper, Forearm, Moonstar, and Locus.

Although he is still human, Hardaway's cybernetics should negate the psychic weapons used primarily by Wildside and Moonstar. Their telepathically induced visions are easily seen through by circuits and electronic sensors.

Forearm might be able to outmuscle Hardaway's enhanced strength, while a well placed swing of Reaper's scythe could potentially cut through very prominent tubing extending from Hardaway's helmet and arms. That could presumably interrupt some of his cybernetic functions.

The real aces in this deck seem to be Tempo and Locus.

Flight and energy blasts give them equal maneuverability and ranged potential, but its their unique mutant powers that are the most compelling.

Tempo's ability to manipulate time in a focused area was usually used for speed and could severely slow Hardaway's processors. If that doesn't work: Locus could simply teleport him somewhere perilous -- or parts of him!

The Tape: Mutant Liberation Front Ranking: Moonstar (#609)

What Went Down...

Wildside mocks the lifeless flesh & bone of the freshly killed security guard he's holding in his hands. Even his own teammates Tempo and Forearm react with scorn, but Reaper would rather his bloodlust be sated by someone other than him.

Forearm is settled by the relief of only finding human security guards standing in their path. He doesn't notice the shadowy figure watching from the treetop above.

Observing from his own vantage point in a surveillance room: Henry Peter Gyrich orders the activation of his prototype killer -- a cyborg called Hardaway!

Hardaway bares his long talon-like claws and leaps into action -- slicing through Forearm's exposed back just as the so-called liberator is remarking on expecting better security.

Reaper is the first to react, but he doesn't even see who hit him!

Hardaway announces himself as the first of an army of biosentries who will end mutant life. His metallic cyborg limbs shift and twist, reshaping themselves into a giant fist and long scythe! Reaper drops, narrowly avoiding the blade's swing!

Tempo activates her temporal flux in an effort to slow the cyborg down, and orders Wildside to attack his senses. Psionic assaults Hardaway can adapt to by switching to machine-controlled cybernetic systems!

His bearings restored: Hardaway extends a liquid-metal arm high into the sky and snares the airborne Tempo with a massive hand! It proves a temporary measure.

The cyborg's metallic skull erupts with energy as a neural arrow suddenly pierces his mind! An attack that signals the arrival of Moonstar and Locus!

The perfect timing saves Tempo from being crushed by the cyborg's discomforting grip.

Hardaway drops face-down on the ground, wracked with the horrifying agony of reliving his wife and son's deaths. The torturous living nightmare of Moonstar's neural weapons!

Locus steps in to end the suffering in the most violent way imaginable.

Hardaway screams a bloodcurdling duet only possible of a being who is both part man and machine, his body and cybernetics sliced in twain as Locus teleports part of him to another location!

The Hammer...
If it seemed like Hardaway might be an exciting new find you'd never heard of -- I'm afraid I have some bad news...

By teleporting the lower half of his body someplace else: Locus ended the "biosentry" program before it ever really started. A textbook one hit wonder who made his first & last appearance in X-Force #27.

I didn't really expect to find myself talking about the Mutant Liberation Front, but Marvel's recently announced X-Men Vote got me enthusiastically rummaging through back issues for something a little bit different.

The fan survey will decide the final member of a new Krakoan Age X-Men team based on the most popular choice from: Banshee, Forge, Polaris, Cannonball, Sunspot, Boom Boom, Marrow, Strong Guy, Armor, and Tempo.

There are a few characters there we haven't featured at the time of this writing, but of all the options on the poll: Tempo ranks as the most unusual.

The image they used is what I presume to be a more recent design. It kinda looks like one of Moonstone's old castoffs - a tight gold helmet with fin. A pale shadow of the joyously absurd buckethead from her original appearances!

My clearest memories of Tempo have always revolved around that helmet. I didn't even fully realise the nature of her powers. It almost seemed to be she could fly and move fast. Like a human bullet. I didn't realise she was manipulating time.

The bullet-like helmet reminds me slightly of the ridiculousness of Juggernaut, but its flat base gives it even more clunky charm.

For a while it seemed like it existed purely to be crumpled. As if every artist was keen to render a human head inside geometrically dented metal. That kind of thing seemed to reoccur in X-Force a lot, but maybe I'm exaggerating.

I wasn't a faithful reader, so it might be coincidence that every time I found an issue accidentally in my possession, it involved one of the MLF -- usually Reaper -- losing a body part. A Liefeldian trope presumably held over from the boyhood trauma of seeing Luke Skywalker's hand severed in The Empire Strikes Back.

By 1993 Rob Liefeld had long since departed for the co-founding of Image Comics, but the first page credits of X-Force #27 promise "AN X-F 911 IYF JAM" that feels very indebted to him.

Even a new creation, like Hardaway, seems like it would be right at home in any Extreme Studios Rob Liefeld series. It kinda smacks of something you might see in Silvestri's CyberForce too, though.

Locus is one of the only other characters in X-Force #27 that hasn't been directly touched by Liefeld. She's another new creation, making her first appearance not only in this issue, but in the fight featured in today's article.

She isn't given any special introductory consideration. She just shows up with Moonstar as if an already established character. That might imply a frivolity to the action and a general indifference to storytelling, but it also speaks to the wild and fast-moving times of the early nineties. It's kind of a nice way to do it. Pair the newbie up with established characters and sort out the detail later.

Locus might not feel particularly Liefeldian as a design or concept, but her abrupt introduction does. The original MLF kinda showed up out of nowhere, too. A late afterthought to an out-of-place Vulture appearance in New Mutants #86.

I kinda like Locus. She's an upgrade from the MLF's previous teleporting transport character - the blank-faced Zero. She also provides a distinguishing flourish for a new era of the MLF: re-formed under the directive of new mastermind Reignfire.

I like the general idea of a "Mutant Liberation Front", but in any of their incarnations they seem to largely function as a stock-standard troupe of sadistic super-villains. The idealism seems lost beneath the carnage and eviscerating, even when their target is a notorious mutant-hater like Gyrich.

At some point in the future we'll return to look more closely at the MLF and their extreme brand of mutant mayhem. With introductions out of the way, we can see how they perform against X-Force themselves!

This unlikely spotlight has brought us racing to the major milestone of ranking our 1000th character! You can see where all of today's players finished a little further down. You can also see more from last year's Countdown to 1000 by becoming a supporter on Patreon!

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Winners: Locus & Moonstar
#207 (new) Locus [+1 kill]
#358 (+251) Moonstar
#602 (new) Wildside [+1 assist]
#603 (new) Reaper [+1 assist]
#604 (new) Tempo [+1 assist]
#605 (new) Forearm [+1 assist]
#947 (new) Hardaway

QUICKFIX: ARCHANGEL vs X-FORCE
Angels & Demons: Part 5 of 6 (Marvel)
Where: X-Force #5 When: September 2008
Why: Craig Kyle/Christopher Yost How: Clayton Crain

The Tape...
Strength: Warpath 5 (Superhuman)
Intelligence: Wolverine 4 (Tactician)
Speed: Warpath 3 (Athlete)
Stamina: Wolverine 6 (Generator)
Agility: X-23 3 (Acrobat)
Fighting: Wolverine 6 (Warrior)
Energy: Elixir 4 (Arsenal)

Math: X-Force Ranking: Wolverine (#6)

The Fix...
Murphy's law says; when I actually have a bit of spare cash for a comic, chances are it's going to be in a situation where nothing available is actually something I would want. Such was the example that struck me a few times this month, but not always with negative results...

She-Hulk #30 gave us the overdue chance to salute Hercules' 2008 presence, but it proved only to be an average-grade distraction from an X-theme that had infiltrated the Infinite Wars in August. It began after we boldly declared X-Men 2: Clone Wars the greatest comic book video game adaptation of-all-time.
Our interests persisted with reviews of Onslaught: X-Men and Uncanny X-Men #295, which each took us into the mouth of the early nineties X-beast.

It was probably this recent history that convinced me metal wings were a good enough reason to ignore all human instinct to flee from danger, and actually pay money for an issue of X-Force. Who could've guessed it would pay off?

The latest functional deconstruction of the X-brand saw a brand new X-Force jump into action in the aftermath of Messiah Complex. In what could effectively be called the third incarnation of the team; Cyclops, (or, depending on your levels of distain, Kyle and Yost), draft the eviscerating team of Wolverine, Warpath, Wolfsbane, and X-23, into a lethal covert spin-off of Xavier's original dream.

As if to fulfil cynical expectations, the need for this gathering is brought about by an anti-mutant plot that ultimately cobbles together a cast of names familiar to fans of cartoons and cinema. A reconstructed Bastion throws in with anti-mutant zealots that include; Graydon Creed, Cameron Hodge, Boliver Trask, and eventually, William Stryker, all of whom are, thankfully, not as they seem.

Actually, everything about this comic is a bit of a fake-out!

Hidden behind the gaudy black, red, and yellows of the team's 'stealth' outfits is a comic that somehow transcends the tragic nostalgia it represents, exceeding the sum of it's parts to be something strangely admirable.

Like everything else about this book, 'painted artwork' as an emotionless description rings like another tacky sales pitch to an audience probably already obsessively committed, but it isn't so!

Clayton Crain's painted finish rounds out pencils that seem to harbor manga inspirations beneath the motley blotches of blacks, and colour. Characters bare an almost Madureira styling in their features, but unfortunately, the painted render, presumably digital, struggles to be nearly as animated.

If any assumed criticism remains intact it is the snapshot stiffness of the action, which, granted, might be considered a positive by fans appreciative of the moment-in-time quality of pseudo-realistic comics. I'd be interested to see what's been covered up. The underwire of any pencil work might have been nice to see more clearly, but then, that would detract from the design of the series.

Kyle & Yost deserve credit for shining up the proverabial turd.

By arranging pieces of the X-Men's past from various mediums, they somehow manage to build a machine that makes efficient use of them. This is by no means a series I would call 'new reader friendly,' and yet, most fans from the last few mainstream generations will find something familiar to behold.

The previously reversed transformation into Archangel experienced by Warren Worthington is further complicated, but relatively well explained, by the continued presence of Apocalypse's techno-organic influence.
When the Purifiers attempt to make good on their anti-mutant prophecy they managed to unlock the dormant alter-ego hidden within Angel's DNA. The discovery comes none-too-soon as Bastion, the megalomaniacal super-Sentinel, begins a seperatist revolt inspired by puppeteering the corpse of William Stryker.

Though perhaps not quite as artful as Grant Morrison's U-Men, who were also bigots grafting powers stolen from the enemy; the Purifiers use Apocalypse's technology to refashion themselves in Archangel's image, assuming the winged role they already believe they represent. This dramatic overture provides a crescendo toward an epic battle of gore, and razor-wing decapitation, the result of internal dissention feuelled by Bastion's genocidal corruption.

With Bastion's goals tying in to X-history with the Technarchy and the Phalanx, it's incidental that this series coincides with the cosmic Annihilation: Conquest, which tells of the latest Phalanx threat to the universe. While obviously unfeasible, it's almost a shame this couldn't have made some kind of connection, but bringing the Phalanx to Earth in an official capacity probably demands more.

It was the evidence of these over-arcing concepts in X-Force that both defied my expectations, and actually had me really enjoy the issue. That said, the details are laid out in a successive fashion, which offers up meaty variety, including that which is relevant to us -- a mindless fight scene!

Seemingly wingless after his mutant appendages were ripped from his body by a mind-controlled Wolfsbane; Warren Worthington undergoes a transformation that respawns the metallic wings granted to him by Apocalypse, and returns his skin to the sickly blue tint associated with the Archangel transformation.

Gripped by madness, Archangel attacks his fellows, launching an assault that rips the flesh from Wolverine's abdomen, and sprays sparks from his metalic skeleton!

Taking to the air under the power of his newly spawn wings, Archangel fires metallic shards that narrowly miss Elixir, and pin X-23 to the wall. Any other would surely perish from the wounds, but as with the subject she was cloned from [Wolverine], X-23 posseses an advanced healing ability.

Warpath ambushes the Archangel, mounting his back with a knife to the insane hero's throat, but it is a moot tactic against one naturally nimble in the air. Angel ploughs Warpath's super-strong frame through the thick wooden beams of his chalet, before swatting his floored opponent with a stiff right hand.

Still healing his gaping wound, Wolverine steps up to confront his former ally, but for naught. Wolverine is toppled once more as, in a state of panic and rage, the Angel does what comes naturally -- he flies.

Though ultimately inconsequential to the issue, fans of the comics will recognise the weight of history on these scenes with Archangel, recalling the first time he lost his wings at the hands of Cameron Hodge (circa Mutant Massacre). For that matter, those dedicated to the nineties cartoon, will also appreciate at least some of the context that frames Archangel's rebirth and freakout.

Despite hitting our top five rankings in April 2007, Angel's been a bit of a joke on the site. Let's face it -- the mutant power to fly around with giant, handsome wings, isn't exactly conducive to a solid performer on a superhero fight blog.
This issue brings back the joyous memory of just how lethal Angel could be under the right circumstances. No matter how silly, I can't help but welcome the on-off potential offered up by the redefinition of Angel's initial transformation.

That said; however awkward they may have been - I would loathe a situation that strips Angel of the healing properties established by a secondary mutation.
If there were to be any explanation for the mechanic of these abilities that tied in to this new version of the Angel mythos, I might even like it to be that the necessary transfer of his blood actually carried an unsustainable infection of the techno-organic virus responsible for the Archangel persona. Either way, I hope Kyle and Yost can tread carefully as they trek through the tapestry of history.

Surprisingly competent and packed with ideas, I look forward to seeing what the team can come up with in subsequent storylines. Archangel looks set to become a regular staple of the series, showing us just how plot-driven recruitment works.

The Fight: 3.5 The Issue: 5
Winner: Archangel

"Angels & Demons", the first X-Force arc, is available in collected trade format, along with the X-Classic, "Mutant Massacre." You'll find titles like these, as well as many others, in our Amazonian Gift Shoppe. By using Amazon purchase links on the site, you help sponsor entries of future past. For more X-reviews, check out the C2C and the Secret Archives!