Hello and Happy New Year to you lovely readers! I hope 2025 is kind to you, and remember: if you’re reading this on a site other than midlifegamergeek.com, it’s been stolen/plagiarised/repurposed nefariously by an idiot.

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, X-Force #60, which seems to be promising the reveal of the origin of Shatterstar on its front cover, having teased the beginning of the storyline on the cover of X-Force #59. It’s a total bait and switch though, either fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how much you want (or think we need) to know about the brooding warrior, especially as his origin was already pretty much broadly known at this point.

So, both Shatterstar and Cable have been taken prisoner by the evil, media manipulating Mojo, ruler of, yes, Mojoworld. X-Force, and Mojoworld rebel, Longshot, are doing their best to get to the terrifying dimension to rescue them, but encounter a strange (ahem) hero and other hurdles along the way. What could Mojo have in store for his two prisoners? And what does it have to do with Earth’s media?

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Jeph Loeb’s writing, and this kind of comic, which he never seemed to evolve past writing (undoubtedly doing his finest work when adapting a more minimalist approach, in his collaborations with the late, great Tim Sale, and letting the art speak for itself).

It’s stuffed to the gills with cameos and unnecessary, near constant exposition for every single character who speaks, and it makes for a rough, disjointed read that seems eventful, but barely makes any progress in terms of its plot, and certainly doesn’t do anything to solve the boring mystery of whether or not Shatterstar is actually a human named Benjamin Russell.

The saving grace, as was often the case with mid-90s comics, is the fantastic artwork; Anthony Castrillo’s stylish pencils, Bud LaRosa on inks and Marie Javins providing absolutely gorgeous colours, all working together very effectively to bring a very modern style to the comic, light years ahead of where Marvel were (particularly in terms of the colouring) just a few short years prior.

Of course, Marvel’s acquisition of Malibu Comics in 1994 gave them access to the best computer colouring technology in the business at that time (in my humble opinion), and they really took advantage of this, across their extensive range of comics, in the years that followed.

In any case, I digress. X-Force #60 is a bit of a mess, story-wise, but it’s a gorgeous comic to look at. Which sums up comic books as a whole back in 1996, and the style-over-substance approach, which led to some pretty terrible, but beautifully drawn comics, is one big reason why I’m only just checking out titles from the era for the first time now, almost 30 years on.

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