In case you thought we were all done with Fear Itself, it only ramps up in Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force #1. Not to mention, it has one gorgeous cover.

Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force #1 of 3
Rob Williams (writer), Simone Bianchi (pencils, inks, cover), Simone Peruzzi (colours, cover), Joe Sabino (letters). $2.99

What can Fear Itself bring to one of the most ruthless teams in the Marvel U?

Up to now, Rick Remender has developed this covert-ops X-team into a tight family. Through his series, we’ve seen some pretty interesting things when it comes to our heroes and their emotions – especially with Deadpool. With Rob Williams’ take on the team in Fear Itself, those emotions carry over, building up into one fear-invoking story.

And what’s best is this Fear Itself story has not changed at all how the team operates with Remender’s run the book. There are a ton of moments where I worried about the team and how they would react to particular events. Since Remender wrote UXF as a family, I can only think of them as such – doing things father says and questioning the consequences later. Those types of moments are building in this story. It leads to some action-packed moments with the team, but also doesn’t answer many real questions to what X-Force is doing in Fear Itself. It’s just a lot of teasing at this point. Also, Kick-Ass anyone?

I do welcome Bianchi’s art to the book. It’s rough, brutal, and tied in with Peruzzi’s colours, it makes for a nice gritty comic – exactly what UXF is. I love Bianchi’s work on the teams faces with their surroundings. I love escarpments! As for faces, they’re great looking in detail – especially with Psylocke and Deadpool. But despite the faces, Bianchi does falter on a few places. Body parts are drastically larger or disproportionate than they should be. Psylocke’s breasts are literally all over the place, while a particular full-page spread shows Wolverine much wider than ever. What I found interesting with Peruzzi’s colours is the use of white-space during some action scenes. While battles are usually fast-paced, these single coloured or simply non-coloured backgrounds really add some effect to the action.

A dysfunctional family at best, I cannot fathom what else will come to X-Force in the next two issues ahead. But I’m very excited to see how it will look.

Grade: 7/10

But on to that cover: Look how badass everyone is. The expression Psylocke is making, an “as if” during a mushroom cloud? Love it. Archangel’s wings fraying? Awesome. Wolverine, Fantomex and Deadpool slowly exploding? Brilliant. This is probably one of the coolest UXF covers made (And they’ve all been great, thus far!)

And don’t forget to check out UncannyDerek on Facebook and Twitter!

So until next time, keep on Space Truckin’!