X-FORCE I: Page 2 of 5

Team Appearances: New Mutants (1st series) #98-100, New Mutants Annual (1st series) #7, New Warriors Annual (1st series) #1, Uncanny X-Men Annual (1st series) #15, X-Factor Annual (1st series) #6, X-Force (1st series) #1-3, Spider-Man (1st series) #16, X-Force (1st series) #4-10, Captain America (1st series) #406-407, X-Force Annual (1st series) #1, Warheads #4-5, X-Force (1st series) #11-15, Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #294, X-Factor (1st series) #84, X-Men (2nd series) #14, X-Force (1st series) #16, Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #295, X-Factor (1st series) #85, X-Men (2nd series) #15, X-Force (1st series) #17, Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #296, X-Factor (1st series) #86, X-Men (2nd series) #16, X-Force (1st series) #18, X-Men (2nd series) #17, New Warriors (1st series) #31, X-Force (1st series) #19-25, Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #304, X-Force (1st series) #26, X-Force Annual (1st series) #2, X-Force (1st series) #27-28, Cable (1st series) #5, X-Force (1st series) #29-30, Cable (1st series) #6-8, X-Force (1st series) #31-32, New Warriors (1st series) #45, X-Force (1st series) #33, New Warriors (1st series) #46, X-Force (1st series) #34, X-Men (2nd series) #30, X-Force (1st series) #35-37, Cable (1st series) #15, X-Factor (1st series) #106, X-Force (1st series) #38, Excalibur (1st series) #82, X-Force (1st series) #39, Cable (1st series) #17-19, X-Force (1st series) #40-42, X-Men (2nd series) #40, Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #321, Cable (1st series) #20, X-Men (2nd series) #41, X-Force (1st series) # 43

 

 

Before

• The New Mutants were left leaderless after they rejected their headmaster, Magneto. [New Mutants (1st series) #75]
• After a trip to the Norse realm of Asgard, Moonstar remained behind to serve as a Valkyrie. [New Mutants (1st series) #86]
• Rusty and Skids were arrested by Freedom Force then rescued by the Mutant Liberation Front (MLF), a terrorist organization. They remained with the MLF and served under its leader, Stryfe. [New Mutants (1st series) #87-89]
• A mysterious man named Cable assumed leadership of the New Mutants. Their ranks at the time included Boom-Boom, Cannonball, Rictor, Sunspot, Warlock and Wolfsbane. [New Mutants (1st series) #87-90]
• After being kidnapped and taken to Genosha, Warlock died and Wolfsbane was forced to undergo the transformative and irreversible mutate-bonding process. She remained on Genosha after the X-Men liberated the island. [X-Tinction Agenda]
• An assassin named Deadpool working for the mysterious arms dealer Tolliver tried to murder Cable, but the timely arrival of Cable’s associate, Domino, thwarted his attempt. [New Mutants (1st series) #98]
• Rictor, believing Cable to be the man who murdered his father, quit the New Mutants and set out to help Wolfsbane. [New Mutants (1st series) #98]
• Sunspot learned from a family friend named Gideon that his father, Emmanual da Costa, had died of a heart attack. Sunspot left with Gideon to assume his role as CEO of his father’s expansive international company. [New Mutants (1st series) #98-99]
• Stryfe, the leader of the MLF, revealed that he looked exactly like Cable in addition to bearing many of his same idiosyncratic mannerisms. [New Mutants (1st series) #100]

Chronology
 

Cable and his estranged friend Domino plotted how to rebuild the dwindling ranks of the New Mutants. After realizing most of the team’s former members were no longer viable candidates, Cable met with James Proudstar, formerly of the Hellions, and asked him to consider joining the team. James, content with his life on his Camp Verde reservation, declined the invitation. When James discovered that Camp Verde had been razed and his people massacred, however, he changed his mind and accepted Cable’s offer in order to get revenge on the suspected culprits, the Hellfire Club. Meanwhile, a feline mutant woman named Feral fled from the Morlocks and headed to Westchester, while at the same time, a time-displaced mutant from the Mojoverse named Shatterstar teleported into the Danger Room. After a brief confrontation with the New Mutants, Shatterstar revealed that he traveled through time and space in order to enlist the help of the X-Men in overthrowing the Mojoverse’s tyrannical rulers. Meanwhile, Feral informed the other New Mutants that the Morlock Masque was amassing a new gang to terrorize the surface-dwellers -- and that Cable and his team were first on their list of targets. At that point, Masque and two Morlocks arrived to reclaim Feral. Cable and the New Mutants swiftly defeated them. Cable then welcomed Warpath, Feral and Shatterstar to the team. He also announced they had to switch headquarters, as their current base was compromised. Together, Cable, Cannonball, Boom-Boom, Domino, Warpath, Feral and Shatterstar – now known as X-Force – left Westchester and settled in an abandoned Sentinel factory in the Adirondack Mountains. [New Mutants (1st series) #98-100]

For their first official mission together as a team, X-Force responded to a cry for help from Artie, Leech and Wiz Kid, mutant students and former allies who attended St. Simons Academy. Upon learning that the Alliance of Evil was responsible for the attack, X-Force counterattacked and, in doing so, uncovered a vast conspiracy which led them first into conflict with the New Warriors, and later to Muir Island to prevent the resurrection of the reality-manipulating mutant Proteus. They teamed up with the New Warriors, X-Factor, Moira MacTaggert and the mutants living on Muir Island – including Legion, Siryn, Multiple Man and Polaris – to stop Proteus, which they ultimately achieved by convincing him to kill himself. [Kings of Pain crossover]

On their next mission, X-Force raided the Mutant Liberation Front’s base in Antarctica. Although they crippled the terrorist squad, most of the MLF escaped with Stryfe. [X-Force (1st series) #1]

Meanwhile, at a corporate takeover meeting at the World Trade Center, Gideon and former New Mutants Sunspot were taken hostage by Black Tom Cassidy, who was collaborating with another wealthy corporate executive in order to use her resources to retrieve his friend Juggernaut from another dimension. X-Force decided to intervene and free the hostages, and they arrived at about the same time as Black Tom’s niece, Siryn, who also wanted to stop her nefarious uncle. After Black Tom retrieved the Juggernaut from his isolation in space, half of X-Force dealt with Juggernaut while the other half went after Black Tom. Unfortunately, the confrontation with Black Tom resulted in the detonation of a bomb at the top of the World Trade Center, obliterating the upper floors. X-Force, Sunspot and Gideon all survived the blast, and Cable proceeded to defeat Black Tom before attempting to kill him. Meanwhile, outside the building, the rest of X-Force teamed up with Spider-Man to thwart the Juggernaut. After X-Force defeated their two foes, the mercenary Deadpool grabbed them both and teleported them to his boss, Tolliver. Cable invited Siryn to join X-Force – an offer she accepted. [X-Force (1st series) #1-3, Spider-Man #16, X-Force (1st series) #4-5]

Not too long after that, Feral felt compelled by forces she didn’t understand to travel to the town of Starkesboro, Massachusetts in the middle of the night. Luckily for her, Shatterstar notified Cable she was missing. Cable tracked her down using the homing transmitter embedded in her X-Force uniform. He tranquilized her before she could reach her ominous destination. Cable then decided to investigate the source himself and discovered that Dredmund the Druid and Doctor Nightshade were not only luring canine and feline superheroes to the town, but had transformed the people of the town, along with Captain America, into werewolves. Cable was rendered helpless by Dredmund when the magician used his arcane powers to ascend into a cosmic creature called Starwolf. However, an assist from Wolverine freed Cable, and they teamed up with “Capwolf” to defeat Dredmund by destroying the source of his power. Cable sneaked away in the aftermath, retrieved Feral and returned home.
[Captain America (1st series) #406-407]

X-Force was ambushed at their headquarters in the Adirondacks by an alliance of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the Morlocks, including Toad, Blob, Pyro, Sauron, Phantazia, Masque and Thornn, Feral’s sister. Although X-Force succeeded in repelling the assailants, Sauron stabbed Cannonball through the chest during the battle, killing him. The rest of the team got revenge by killing Masque and Sauron. Revenge, however, turned out to be unnecessary: miraculously, Cannonball returned to life, much to the everyone’s astonishment. Cable, however, was not surprised at all: he seemed to believe Cannonball was an immortal “External,” whose true life would begin after his death. Meanwhile, Sunspot’s mentor Gideon, himself an External, began plotting with his fellow Externals how to retrieve Cannonball and induct him into their ranks. [X-Force (1st series) #6-10]

Before they could deal with the fallout of the Brotherhood’s attack, Shatterstar tumbled into a wormhole that happened to open in the Adirondack base. The rest of X-Force followed to recover their lost teammate. They arrived in an unfamiliar wasteland and, because of a misunderstanding, began fighting with the Warheads, another superhero team who had arrived in the wasteland by way of a different wormhole. The sorceress Aeish, whose wormholes had ensnared both parties, captured the Warheads and left X-Force to fight her giant feline minions. Aeish then transfixed the captured male Warheads into attacking X-Force. However, her spell over them broke when she became distracted, providing X-Force with the opportunity to escape back through the wormhole and return home. [Warheads #4-5]

While X-Force was busy returning the bodies of Masque and Sauron to the Morlocks, Tolliver’s assassin Deadpool broke into the Adirondack compound and, after neutralizing Shatterstar and Siryn, confronted Tolliver’s mole who had gone AWOL: Domino! With her cover blown, Domino confessed to Cable, who decided to use this information to his advantage by tricking Tolliver. He made Domino deceive Tolliver by telling him she planned to blow up the Adirondack base and kill X-Force. Then, with Tolliver’s defenses down, Cable and X-Force would ambush him and put an end to his menace.

Unbeknownst to Cable, his best laid plans had one serious flaw: his former Six Pack allies, Kane and G.W. Bridge, had assembled a strike force called Weapon P.R.I.M.E., dedicated to taking him down as they mistakenly believed he was also the leader of the Mutant Liberation Front. Comprised of people who felt wronged by Cable, Weapon P.R.I.M.E. even included the former New Mutant Rictor. They ambushed X-Force just as Cable was preparing to destroy their base to fool Tolliver. During the fracas, Cable teleported all of his unused technology to safety, then armed the explosives. However, the meddling Tolliver detonated the charges prematurely, with both Weapon P.R.I.M.E. and X-Force still inside the facility. Cable and Domino barely survived the explosion and presumed both X-Force and Weapon P.R.I.M.E. were dead.

Enraged, Cable used Domino’s information to locate Tolliver at one of his safehouses in Italy. Taking “Domino” along as both his informer and hostage, Cable stumbled upon real Domino, whom Tolliver had held in captivity for over a year. Instantly, Cable realized the Domino with whom he was traveling was actually the shape-shifter Copycat – who, in her defense, had believed the real Domino to be dead. After fighting off Tolliver’s lackey Deadpool once again, Cable pursued Tolliver, this time with the true Domino to help him. However, he separated from her in order to detonate Tolliver’s helicopter as it was taking off – a gambit that appeared to kill Tolliver and the other two men on board. Immediately after the explosion, Cable had to teleport home to Graymalkin to recuperate, leaving Domino uncertain as to his fate. [X-Force (1st series) #11-15]

Meanwhile, the rest of X-Force, who had not actually died in the Adirondacks explosion, emerged from the rubble with Rictor, Kane and G.W. Bridge. After commandeering the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier that arrived for backup, X-Force – having added Rictor as a member – escaped. While in flight, the External known as Crule attacked their ship in an attempt to kidnap Cannonball. During this encounter, they learned that Crule’s associate Gideon no longer had any use for Sunspot and was callously torturing him in the name of science. Shortly after expelling Crule from their ship, Gideon contacted X-Force and promised to tell them where they could find Sunspot in exchange for Cannonball’s word that he would never interfere in the affairs of the Externals. Cannonball agreed, and Gideon upheld his end of the bargain. X-Force ambushed the facility holding Sunspot and freed him. With his powers enhanced, Sunspot joined X-Force and the team traveled to their new home: the vacant Apache reservation in Camp Verde, Arizona, which Warpath once called home. [X-Force (1st series) #11-15]

Shortly after X-Force settled, they witnessed on TV as Professor X was shot at a Lila Cheney concert by a man who appeared to be Cable. Cannonball led a team consisting of Shatterstar, Feral, Rictor and Boom-Boom to travel to New York to investigate. While there, they fought with the government-sponsored X-Factor, who tried to arrest them, and escaped in their damaged IPAC. Unfortunately, the deteriorating IPAC crashed over Texas and, although the rest of X-Force arrived to aid them, the entire team suffered defeat and arrest at the hands of X-Men and X-Factor for suspicion of colluding with Cable. They were imprisoned in the X-Men’s headquarters in Westchester. However, Cannonball and Boom-Boom received permission to work with the X-Men in taking down the true culprit, Stryfe, and his MLF. During one such raid, the two of them helped neutralize their former teammates, Rusty and Skids, both of whom had been brainwashed by Stryfe. Skids broke Boom-Boom’s jaw in the process. While Boom-Boom recovered in the infirmary, Cannonball aided in the final assault on Stryfe. Cannonball bore witness as Cable seemingly sacrificed himself to destroy his own wicked twin. [X-Cutioner’s Song crossover]

The X-Men held X-Force in captivity for three weeks after Cable’s demise. During this time, they learned that their former rivals, the Hellions, had all been murdered by Trevor Fitzroy. Cannonball and Warpath, both of whom knew the Hellions quite well, received permission to visit Magma and Empath, both surviving Hellions, to break the bad news. [X-Men (2nd series) #17, New Warriors (1st series) #31] Also during their detention at Xavier’s, the team made new costumes for themselves using the mansion’s Shi’ar technology. Siryn and Warpath, meanwhile, pirated a copy of all the X-Men’s files and databases, which they intended to use in the future to thwart villains. Although Professor X eventually succeeded in preventing the authorities from charging X-Force with any crimes, he was reticent to release them. Cannonball convinced him that, even though he disapproved of their methods, he could neither argue that their way was any better or worse than his own, nor present any valid reason to keep them captive. With that, Xavier consented to their release. Lila Cheney transported the entire team back to their home in Camp Verde. [X-Force (1st series) #19]

The team soon installed a communications array Lila procured for them. Once they turned it on, they saw a news report about a floating space station that appeared in Earth’s orbit – which they immediately identified as Cable’s old base, Graymalkin. Lila teleported a strike squad up to the ship to retrieve it, but they came into conflict not only with G.W. Bridge and Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D., but also with War Machine, whose company, Stark Industries, had salvage rights to the space station. While X-Force fought with their opponents, Cannonball and Sunspot tried to prevent Graymalkin from exploding by accessing its control systems and memory banks. In the process, they learned that Cable considered them his successors and that Sam even had override access for the station’s controls. Using their newfound access, they jettisoned as much of the station’s cargo as they could toward Camp Verde and then abandoned ship in an escape pod. They landed safely in Camp Verde, with the cargo bay and weapons depot in tow. After assessing their new hardware, Lila Cheney left the team. [X-Force (1st series) #20-22]

Unfortunately, while the salvage squad was away, Boom-Boom, Siryn and Warpath were ambushed at Camp Verde by the Externals and taken hostage. It seemed the Externals were suddenly fearful for their lives because of a mysterious illness affecting their members, and hoped to use their hostages to lure in the recently unveiled External Cannonball. X-Force learned about this upon their return from Graymalkin. By drawing the location of the Externals out of the hospitalized Crule – whom they later dumped into the ocean – X-Force formed a plan of attack to ambush their tormentors at their coastal hideout in Oregon. Though Cannonball remained true to his word and stayed out of the attack, the others, however, did not. They surprised Gideon and Saul with a heavy assault. After freeing their teammates, Sunspot rubbed the victory in his treacherous former mentor’s face. [X-Force (1st series) #21-23]

X-Force had little time to rest before they received their next mission: rescuing their former allies Rusty and Skids from the anti-mutant terrorist group Friends of Humanity. They immediately swarmed the terrorists’ headquarters and retrieved their brainwashed friends, who incessantly spouted Stryfe’s vitriolic pro-mutant rhetoric at their rescuers. [X-Force (1st series) #24]

Upon returning from this rescue mission, X-Force discovered that someone had entered their bunker while they were gone – and hadn’t left. The team separated to scour the compound, but most of them were defeated by the assailant. Cannonball, however, struck down the intruder and revealed his identity: Cable! It seemed Cable, having recently returned from his adventure in the timestream, wanted to rejoin X-Force – but first wanted to assess their abilities. He settled the grudge Rictor held for him by explaining that it was actually his twin, Stryfe, who had killed Rictor’s father. He also informed Sunspot that his father had been murdered by Gideon. Shortly after this reunion, Magneto’s acolyte Exodus arrived and summoned Cannonball and Sunspot to meet with Magneto on the space station Avalon, which Magneto had composed from the remains of Graymalkin. Cannonball and Sunspot agreed, but only on the condition that their fellow New Mutants – Rusty, Skids, Rictor and Boomer – accompany them. Once on Avalon, Magneto erased the brainwashing done to Rusty and Skids. Magneto then extended an invitation to all his visitors to remain with him on Avalon. Although Rusty and Skids accepted, both Cannonball and Sunspot refused Magneto’s offer. Shortly thereafter, Cable and the rest of X-Force arrived, as Sam had asked them to do. Cable, however, intended to destroy Avalon, despite Cannonball’s objections that this violated the sovereign rights of its residents. Cable disregarded them and shunted X-Force into the escape ship. Then, he retrieved the computer program Professor from the databanks and tried to destroy the base. Magneto stopped him and, in retaliation, ripped the metal from his body, leaving him nearly dead. Cable had barely enough life left in him to body-slide into the escape ship. Although he failed to destroy the base, he succeeded in recovering its artificial intelligence. Cable then ceded leadership of X-Force to Cannonball because of his wisdom, strategy and principled outlook. [X-Force (1st series) #25]

While Cable was in critical condition, several other members of X-Force attended the funeral of Illyana Rasputin, the former New Mutant who had succumbed to the Legacy Virus. During the funeral, they once again encountered Magneto, who interrupted the procession to invite the X-Men to join him on Avalon. Again, X-Force rejected his offer. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #304] Shortly after the funeral, Cannonball and Sunspot went to Madripoor to inform their old teammate Karma of Illyana’s death. [X-Force (1st series) #26]

Cable was soon in good health and became interested in a company called Foundations, which he suspected of performing medical experiments on mutant prisoners. He ordered Feral, Siryn and Cannonball to infiltrate the facility as scientists and subjects, while he and the rest of the team attempted to prevent the Foundations bounty hunter, an enigmatic alien mutant named Adam-X, from capturing more mutants. When X-Force learned Adam-X was working for Foundations in order to learn more about his own past, they teamed up to destroy the company together. This conflict eventually led X-Force to the Foundations CEO, Martin Henry Strong, a self-loathing mutant attempting to create a cure for the X-gene. However, they learned that Strong had been playing them all along and had intentionally used Adam-X and his other agents to lure them into a trap and defeat them before they could destroy his work. X-Force and Adam-X prevailed, though, and revealed Strong’s sickly condition. In the end, they decided to let him keep his facility, as they realized that mutants who voluntarily opted to have their powers removed had that right – although they warned Strong against kidnapping mutants and experimenting on them against their will. With the conflict settled, X-Force offered Adam-X a position on X-Force. He declined the offer and continued with his quest to learn more about his origin. [X-Force Annual (1st series) #2]

X-Force later learned that government agent Henry Peter Gyrich, the director of Project: Wideawake and a financial backer of Foundations, had been kidnapped by a new incarnation of the MLF. Because neither the X-Men nor X-Factor could intervene at the time, it fell on X-Force to rescue a man they hated. X-Force tracked the MLF to its hideout on Bermuda Island and ambushed the team, whose ranks consisted of Tempo, Forearm, Reaper, Wildside, the time-traveling Locus and the new leader, Reignfire. They also discovered, much to their shock, that their old teammate Dani Moonstar was also working with the MLF. X-Force managed to break Gyrich out of captivity but, during their retreat, Feral defected to the MLF and tried to kill Gyrich. Tempo intervened and saved him, breaking ranks with the MLF in the process. Reignfire, considering the mission a failure, decided to flee with the soldiers still faithful to him. Just before Locus teleported them away, however, Reignfire dropped Gyrich and instructed Moonstar and Locus to execute him. Sunspot valiantly placed himself of the way of their attacks and inadvertently activated a feedback loop between Locus’s powers and his own. He and Locus both disappeared in the ensuing confluence of energy. X-Force returned home, having lost two members in the process of saving Gyrich. [X-Force (1st series) #27-28]

During the weeks that followed Sunspot’s disappearance, the team took a much-needed break. Cable took the time to finally connect Camp Verde’s computer network to Professor, granting the rest of X-Force access to Professor’s vast database of intelligence. [Cable (1st series) #5] Cannonball and Boomer took a vacation in Kentucky to visit Sam’s family. Tempo, meanwhile, decided not to stay with X-Force, instead opting to pursue a normal life for a woman her age. Meanwhile, during a supply run in town, Shatterstar was taken captive by Arcade, who was acting as per a contract he received from his client, Major Domo of the Mojoverse. Once inside Arcade’s funhouse known as Murderworld, Shatterstar was forced to fight a live opponent – Adam-X, the X-Treme. After sparring a bit, the two decided to reject Arcade’s premise that they had to fight each other, and teamed up to defeat him. They escaped intact and parted ways, this time so Adam-X could hunt down the man who had hired Arcade to kill him. Around this time, Cable, noticing the team’s dwindling numbers, contacted Domino – the real one this time – for help. [X-Force (1st series) #29-30]

Shortly after contacting Domino, Cable ventured into Westchester to visit the grave of his mother, Madelyne Pryor. Domino joined him. While there, Mr. Sinister attacked them and unleashed the repressed mind of Stryfe, whose consciousness had been buried within Cable’s mind since their disappearance into the timestream. With Domino incapacitated, Stryfe traveled back to Camp Verde and infiltrated it while posing as Cable. He knocked Siryn unconscious with a telepathic bolt when she grew suspicious, and followed up on this attack by gunning down Rictor. The X-Men learned of the attack and arrived at Camp Verde shortly after Stryfe fled to help Rictor and Siryn recover. Eventually, Cable was set free from Stryfe’s control, thanks to the help of Professor X, Cyclops, Jean Grey and an Askani woman from Cable’s native timeline. [Cable (1st series) #6-8]

Not long after her attack in Camp Verde, Siryn took a trip to her home of Cassidy Keep in Ireland, and brought along Warpath for company. While there, she confronted her past and made amends with the man who raised her: her uncle, Black Tom Cassidy. Siryn and Warpath managed to diffuse the situation without resorting to violence, and Siryn decided to quit her destructive drinking. [X-Force (1st series) #31]

Several members of X-Force soon found themselves targeted by a group of power-hungry villains called the Upstarts, who were playing a mutant-hunting game they called “the Younghunt.” The targets of the Upstarts were all former members of the New Mutants and the Hellions. While vacationing in Cumberland County, Cannonball and Boomer were ambushed by the Upstart Siena Blaze and taken captive. Cannonball’s sister, the budding mutant Paige Guthrie, reported the attack to X-Force, who arrived to investigate. While there, another Upstart, Trevor Fitzroy, ambushed them with the intent to capture and kill Rictor and Warpath. By using Fitzroy’s own powers against him, Cable murdered the assailant and backtracked to the Upstart leader’s hideout in Switzerland. There, they teamed up with the New Warriors, who were also trying to save the life of their teammate, and former Hellion, Firestar. However, their ultimate foe, the omnipath Gamesmaster, would not be defeated so easily, and used the fallen mutants in his captivity – including Cannonball, Boomer, Moonstar, Karma, Empath, Firestar, Justice and Siena Blaze – to fight back against the superhero teams. He easily secured a victory using these pawns, but the courageous Paige Guthrie, who had followed X-Force in secret, confronted Gamesmaster and struck a deal that saved all of their lives. With the Younghunt over, X-Force said goodbye to the New Warriors and returned home with Paige, Karma, Moonstar, Magma and Empath. [Child’s Play crossover]

Moonstar’s former teammates wasted no time in confronting her about her recent actions. They asked why she worked for the MLF. She refused to answer, instead chiding them for their hypocrisy, and then left – but asked them to trust her. Magma and Empath split up and went their separate ways as well, while Paige returned home after vowing to study someday under Professor X. Cannonball and Boomer returned with her to Kentucky, where they resumed their vacation.

Meanwhile, Rictor learned that his uncle, a gun-runner in Mexico, had been shot during a confrontation with the police, and that his cousin, Omar, was implicated in the shooting as well. He traveled to Mexico with Cable and Domino to talk to his cousin and confront his family. There, he denounced them for their continuing involvement with gun-running, despite it costing his father his life. [X-Force (1st series) #34]

In between the dangerous missions and personal conflict, X-Force took the time to attend the wedding of Cyclops and Jean Grey. [X-Men (2nd series) #30] Their reprieve was short-lived. After learning of the U.S. government’s development of some alarmingly advanced artificial intelligence, X-Force deduced that the Sentinel unit code-named Nimrod was being developed in their timeline – 60 years prematurely. They raided Camp Hayden to halt its production and were horrified to witness it develop self-awareness and activate itself. The Nimrod unit proved just as unstoppable as its reputation foretold and it defeated the team, one member at a time. In a desperate gamble, Cable psi-linked himself with two of the scientists working on the project and confronted Nimrod on the Astral Plane, where they learned how it came into existence so early and explained to it that its presence this early in the timeline would kill more humans than it would save. Once aware of this paradox, the Nimrod unit voluntarily shut itself down. X-Force confiscated its neural network for safekeeping. [X-Force (1st series) #35-36]

Meanwhile, Cannonball and Boomer, still on vacation in Kentucky, were shocked when the Externals arrived at the Guthries’ door and asked to see Sam. Because the Legacy Virus was targeting the Externals, those who remained sought Sam for consolation, as they believed he held the key to stopping the disease. He explained he had no idea how to stop the virus, and instead told them to make the most of the time they had left by using their amazing gifts for good, for once in their lives. Embracing his wisdom, they left to start anew, and Sam and Tabitha decided it was time to return to X-Force. [X-Force (1st series) #37]

Meanwhile, another pair of the team’s of lovers, Cable and Domino, made an attempt at normalcy by going on a date to a restaurant in New York City’s Central Park. However, the Morlock Thornn interrupted their dinner and asked for help in performing the Ceremony of Light. She explained that the Morlocks had not actually died in the catastrophic flood that swept through the sewers and were awaiting the signal that it was safe to return home. To do this, they needed to perform the Ceremony of Light. A Morlock child named Sarah responded to the Ceremony and informed them the Morlocks were alive in another dimension, but were not yet ready to return. [Cable (1st series) #15]

In response to an attack by the Techno-Organic collective known as the Phalanx, X-Force traveled to Mont Saint Francis in France to meet up with X-Factor, Excalibur and Professor X. While learning of the threat the Phalanx posed to the entire planet, Excalibur’s Douglock, himself a Techno-Organic entity, whisked away Cannonball, Wolfsbane and Forge to the core of the Phalanx. Those who remained crafted a plan to stop the Phalanx threat. Rictor, Siryn and Cannonball joined a stealth attack squad with several members of X-Force and Excalibur to infiltrate the Phalanx hive, while the rest remained behind to as back-up. Eventually, Douglock’s gambit succeeded as he and his kidnapped peers dismantled the Phalanx’s beacon for assimilating the planet, while the other squad successfully destroyed a dormant crop of Phalanx seeds. [X-Factor (1st series) #106, X-Force (1st series) #38, Excalibur (1st series) #82]

Cable, meanwhile, was dispatched on a different mission: working with Wolverine to find and rescue the X-Men who were captured by the Phalanx. After joining Cyclops and Jean Grey, the four of them traveled to the Phalanx outpost in Tibet, which they infiltrated. With the help of some treacherous entities within the Phalanx who still retained a semblance of identity, they managed to free all the captured X-Men and destroy the final Phalanx outpost. [Wolverine (2nd series) #85, Cable (1st series) #16]

When X-Force returned from their ordeal with the Phalanx, they discovered that their compound’s artificial intelligence, affectionately dubbed Professor, had developed a personified, corporal form, thanks to its own encounter with the Techno-Organic aliens. Now calling itself Prosh, this artificial intelligence began to experience life for the first time. X-Force instantly befriended him. Unfortunately, Prosh’s newfound sense of life had a side-effect: it was inadvertently broadcasting energy at a strange frequency that was causing cancerous growths to sprout from certain mechanical systems – including Cable’s body. Rather than choose between Cable’s life and Prosh’s, X-Force gave Prosh permission to leave and take with him the hardware embedded in the bunker, which he needed to sustain his life. Fashioning himself into a spaceship, Prosh bid adieu to X-Force and took to the stars, taking with him most all of X-Force’s home. The team, using intelligence Domino had gathered while scouting for new bases, prepared to move to their next headquarters: Arcade’s Murderworld. [X-Force (1st series) #39]

Shortly after relocating to Murderworld, Cable and Domino visited the X-Men in Westchester, where they informed Storm, formerly the leader of the Morlocks, that the Morlocks had in fact survived the deluge in their home and were in hiding. Storm demanded they investigate immediately. Upon venturing into the sewers, they were ambushed by Apocalypse’s Dark Riders, whom they defeated. The Dark Riders fled. Accompanied by Storm and the former Morlock Caliban, Cable and Domino tracked the Dark Riders to Egypt, where they faced the leader of the Dark Riders: none other than Cable’s son Tyler, now called Genesis. Cable confronted his wayward son and tried to convince him to change his ways, to no avail. After Genesis fled, he and Domino returned home. [Cable (1st series) #17-19]

Meanwhile, Feral’s sister Thornn, who had been arrested and charged with the murder of her family as a child, contacted Cable for legal help. X-Force became involved and brought the true murderer of the Callasantos family to justice: Feral. After apprehending Feral, Thornn was cleared of all charges and X-Force managed to blame all the legal misdeeds they committed on the MLF. Only after the ordeal ended did Cable reveal that the MLF’s Moonstar had provided the information needed to prove Feral’s guilt. [X-Force (1st series) #40-41]

The team then took a trip to Emma Frost’s School for Gifted Youngsters to visit Paige Guthrie, Jubilee and Banshee, all of whom now belonged to the newly formed mutant team Generation X. While there, Warpath met with Ms. Frost, his former headmaster at the Massachusetts Academy, and discussed what happened to the Camp Verde reservation, to the Hellions and why he was part of with X-Force. Emma proved to him the Hellfire Club had nothing to do with the Camp Verde massacre and, upon questioning him about X-Force, challenged him to think about what he intended to do with his life in the future. [X-Force (1st series) #42]

A crisis of cosmic proportions soon erupted that required Cable’s attention. He and Domino traveled to Israel to assist the X-Men in preventing Professor Xavier’s nigh-omnipotent son David, known as Legion, from traveling back in time and killing Magneto. Ultimately, Legion was prevented from killing Magneto – but his actions instead led to the premature death of the young Professor Xavier. What resulted was a reality-warping wave that began erasing all of existence to make way for a much more apocalyptic version of reality in which Professor X never formed the X-Men. [Legion Quest crossover]

While this world-destroying crystalline wave proceeded toward Earth, the rest of X-Force continued about their lives, oblivious to their impending doom. Cannonball continued his search for Sunspot, which he had been conducting since Roberto’s abrupt disappearance. With Cable and Domino gone, he decided to give an idea a try that had earlier been vetoed by his leader: combining Cerebro with Cable’s dormant time-displacement core to perform a search for Roberto through both time and space. It worked and Cannonball pinpointed Sunspot’s location on Ani-Mutate Island – the headquarters of the MLF. Immediately after running the search, however, the former MLF-member Locus, whose powers had caused Sunspot’s disappearance in the first place, reappeared and offered to help X-Force find Sunspot. After collecting the rest of X-Force from their night out downtown, they traveled to Ani-Mutate Island just in time to save Moonstar from certain slaughter by Reignfire, who had inexplicably grown tired of the MLF. X-Force confronted Reignfire, at which point he removed his mask and revealed that he was – and claimed to have always had been – Roberto da Costa. Just after making this revelation, however, the crystallization wave struck them and obliterated their reality, paving the way for the Age of Apocalypse. [X-Force (1st series) #43]

Afterwards

• The crystallization wave replaced reality with a version in which Apocalypse had risen to power in the void left by Charles Xavier’s death. The X-Men of this nightmarish timeline, which was dubbed the Age of Apocalypse, learned their reality was an aberration and tried to prevent it from coming to pass by sending another time-traveler to the past to prevent Legion from killing Xavier. They succeeded, thus restoring reality to its default state. [Age of Apocalypse crossover]
• After reality returned to normal, X-Force apprehended Sunspot, who still believed he was Reignfire. Cable telepathically purged the influence of Reignfire from Sunspot’s psyche. However, because Sunspot believed Reignfire was an alternate personality of his, he feared it could possibly resurface. [X-Men Prime, X-Force (1st series) #44]
• After being revealed as a shapeshifter, Copycat escaped and went into hiding at the house of her best friend, Tina. She masqueraded as Tina’s twin, which unfortunately led to Tina’s death at Deadpool’s hands. She then went into hiding with former Six Pack member Garrison Kane in San Francisco. [X-Force (1st series) #19-24, Deadpool: The Circle Chase #2-4, Wolverine (2nd series) #88]
• Cable’s defiant son, Tyler, later christened himself the true heir of Apocalypse and attempted to transform Wolverine into his Horseman of Death. His plan backfired, though, and Wolverine murdered him in a berserker rage. [Wolverine (2nd series) #95-100]
• The young Morlock girl Sarah, whom Cable and Domino had met, continued growing up in the hostile alternate dimension inhabited by the Morlocks. As an adult, she adopted the codename Marrow. Upon returning to her native dimension, she worked with the anti-human terrorist organization Gene Nation. She was responsible for the deaths of several innocent humans before she was forced to join the ranks of the X-Men. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #374, X-Men Prime, Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #322, Generation X #5-6, X-Men (2nd series) #75]
• Empath laid low after the Younghunt, but eventually resurfaced in the employ of Roberto da Costa as a member of X-Corporation, an international organization that fought for mutant rights. [X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #34-35]
• Fitzroy was not dead for long: Selene somehow resurrected him and employed him as part of her Hellfire Club. [X-Man #17]
• The Upstarts disbanded shortly after the Younghunt, although the Gamesmaster was not finished pestering X-Force.
• Adam-X’s search for his origin brought him into contact with Philip Summers, the grandfather of the X-Man Cyclops. Jean Grey thanked Adam-X for saving Philip’s life. After that, he traveled to space and learned of his connection to the Shi’ar race. [X-Men (2nd series) #38-39, 41, Captain Marvel (2nd series) #2-3]
• Lila Cheney never returned to assist X-Force, but stayed in contact with the X-Men and X-Factor, mainly through her friendship with Strong Guy. [X-Factor (1st series) #110-111, Strong Guy #1]