Iraq

Near Baghdad was a training camp for insurgents in Iraq. This particular camp had five extra occupants than normal, five mutants who possessed destructive powers. The United Nations wanted S.H.I.E.L.D. to stay out of the Iraqi conflict.

But now, a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had been dispatched to invade the camp. A simple smash and grab operation. Nothing the members of Team X shouldn’t be able to handle on their own.

The first two operatives were Katherine Pryde, called Shadowcat and the woman known as Shard. Both were dressed in uniforms that bore no insignia. It was necessary in order to avoid accusations of U.N. and S.H.I.E.L.D. involvement in the war.

Two sentries stood guard. Shard and Shadowcat were left invisible thanks to the suits projecting stealth camouflage. The feature unfortunately would not last long, but it would last long enough to get them inside.

Shard possessed the mutant ability to absorb ambient light particles and transubstantiate it into concussive energy blasts. Thanks to the hot, Middle Eastern sun, she was charged with plenty of energy. She fired off two blasts from each hand, quickly eliminating the sentries.

The two women ran forward and linked hands as they approached one of the buildings. Shadowcat utilized her own power and the molecules inside their bodies became unstable, allowing them to phase through the wall.

The camouflage flickered as the two women came into view. Shadowcat gave a few hand signals and Shard nodded, acknowledging the command. Shard went in one direction while Shadowcat phased through the ground, falling to the floors below.

Shard pressed her back up against the wall and carefully peered around the corner. The coast was clear, for now. She had memorized the floor plan before they left the Helicarrier. There was a room just down the hallway with access to an air duct. Shard moved carefully and found that room.

She pulled the grate from the duct and crawled inside. It was cramped and narrow and she was surprised she could even fit. Slowly, she crawled through the duct, her eyes lighting up with energy and guiding her path.

A T-junction was just ahead. Shard took the left path. With every vent she came across, she powered down and carefully peered out. So far, nothing of any targets. Still, she continued on her trek until she looked through one of the vents and saw a Dark Rider looking over some schematics.

The Rider in question was Amun. Formerly a student of the Exiles. He possessed the ability to absorb mutant DNA signatures. That made him a dangerous chimera, if he was given a chance.

Shard didn’t intend give him said chance.

She kicked open the vent and Amun immediately spun in his surprise. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent moved quickly, falling from the ceiling and unleashing several concussive blasts.

Amun twisted and dodged them. The two faced off against each other, Shard with her hands and eyes crackling with energy. Amun needed to make physical contact with her to fuel his abilities, and that was not something Shard was prepared to do.

The former Exile lunged forward. As he came upon her, Shard grabbed his wrists and allowed herself to go with his momentum. She used his own force against him and he flew over her head. Shard fired off several concussive blasts in repetition, each one striking and sending him crashing into the stone wall. She leaned down by him and saw that he was unconscious. Her hand went to the earpiece she wore.

"Egypt has fallen," she said, utilizing the code they had decided on before the mission.

Marvel 2000 Proudly Presents

The Return of Dino Pollard to

THE NEW DEAL
Part Three

Genosha

Randall Darby paced in the security center of the Genoshan prison. Byron Calley sat before the monitors, watching them intently.

"This is suicide, y’know that right?" said Randall.

"No, it’s a smart move," said Byron. "We discussed this already. Don’t get cold feet now."

"C’mon Byron, don’t be an idiot," said Randall. "If we get caught, Magneto will have our heads."

"We won’t get caught," said Byron. "Trust me on this."

"Who’s this contact of yours anyway?" asked Randall.

"He’s someone who can help, that’s all you need to know," said Byron.

"But Del Ruiz? Getting him out is going to pose a problem."

"I know what I’m doing," said Byron. "What’s the time?"

Randall looked at the clock on the wall. "Twelve thirty."

"Time to go to work," said Byron.

"I don’t like this."

"I don’t care if you like it or not, you agreed to it," said Byron. "Now come on."

Randall sighed. He walked up to the fuse box and opened it with a hand that resembled a lobster claw. He gripped the wires inside and his mutant ability to generate bioelectricity kicked on. The destructive energy flowed from his claws into the wires, overloading them.

All the lights in the prison went out.

Iraq

"Doors are open."

The voice was Shadowcat’s, notifying Bishop via earpiece that security was disabled. Bishop looked at Siryn and pointed towards the base. The young Irish woman nodded and opened her mouth, emitting a high-frequency sonic that lifted her into the air.

She used that frequency to propel herself forward through the air. As she approached the base, she shifted the sound she emitted. A sonic masking field enveloped the small area, preventing any sound from exiting or entering.

Bishop and Maverick followed on foot, both with weapons drawn. As soon as they approached the camp, a sandstorm erupted, the particles moving so fast that they were razor-sharp. Both men knew from the briefing that this was the work of Dust, one of the Dark Riders.

The uniforms they wore utilized special material developed by the mutant Forge, acting as a form of body armor. If not for that, the two men would have their skin cut to the bone.

Bullets sliced through the air and both Bishop and Maverick moved for cover. The Sentinel/human hybrid called Gryphon was the cause of it, utilizing her nanotech body to fire off round after round. Maverick and Bishop both returned fire, but their weapons seemed to do little damage to Gryphon.

As they returned fire, the bullets started to travel slower and slower, courtesy of Downtime. Another former Exile, she was able to affect the flow of time itself and she moved through the field, disarming both Maverick and Bishop before she could no longer sustain the effect.

Maverick and Bishop expressed shock at the sudden loss of their weapons, before they found themselves dodging the rounds from their own guns, now wielded by Downtime.

Another figure emerged from the camp, this one the largest of the Riders. He had blue skin and was covered with metallic plates of some sort. Weapons hovered around him. This was Post, the leader of the Dark Riders. His guns fired energy blasts and Bishop charged towards him, allowing the gunfire to strike his body.

Bishop fell to his knees and looked up at Post, his eyes glowing. "Big mistake."

Genosha

With the power in the prison disabled, it gave Wisdom the opportunity he needed. He had gained entrance to the prison through the sewer system. Not exactly his preferred form of travel, but it would get the job done.

Wisdom slipped out of the sewer grate and bounced up into a crouch, hugging the wall of the corridor. If his intel had been correct, then the specific cell he was looking for should be right about…

"Here’s your lunch, padre," a guard said as he passed the tray of food under the prison cell bars.

"For the last time," an older voice said from within the cell, "I’m not a padre. I’m just a spiritual leader that’s gotten in over his head."

"Yeah, yeah, whatev--HYUK!"

The guard dropped like a sack full of potatoes from the precise chop Wisdom had delivered into one of his pressure points. Hurrying, Wisdom grabbed the keys from his belt and started rifling through them to find the one that opened the prison cell. The sound of the clanging metal reverberated throughout the dank prison as he searched, the older gentleman staring on in awe.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Your guardian angel," Wisdom replied. "And you’re Mr. Del Ruiz, I presume?"

A soft click sounded as he turned the correct key in the lock. Jose Del Ruiz, father of the late Lydia Del Ruiz, stepped back as his cell door swung open. Wisdom looked him over before pulling out a pack of cigarettes, shaking it until one of the contents slipped out. Jose was stunned, completely unable to find any words to say to his supposed savior.

"We’ve got a lot to discuss, you and I," Peter said casually. "But first, let’s get you out of this hellhole."

Iraq

Shadowcat phased through the ground and lunged for Gryphon. Since the woman’s body was enhanced by nanotechnology, that made her vulnerable to Shadowcat’s abilities. As Shadowcat phased through the Rider, her powers disrupted the technology in Gryphon’s body.

The woman began to convulse as what could only be described as a seizure overcame her body. With her systems shut down like that, Gryphon fell to the ground unconscious.

Nearby, Bishop’s ability to absorb and rechannel energy was working to full effect. The power from Post’s attack had charged up Bishop’s cells. He leapt forward, the energy ready to explode from his fingertips.

Once Bishop connected his fist with Post’s jaw, energy flew out. With each strike Bishop delivered, more and more energy was expelled. He battered the leader of the Dark Riders until the former herald of Onslaught fell to the ground.

Inside the base, Shard held a small device no larger than a pen in her hand. It emitted a wide, blue light that she scanned over the documents Amun had been looking at. She had no time to look over the documents, so she would just have to settle for the intel she was gathering and deliver it to Fury.

She heard Shadowcat’s transmission that security had been disabled. And judging from the ruckus she now heard, she knew that the rest of Team X were battling the Dark Riders.

Shard’s mission was far more important however. S.H.I.E.L.D. knew that the Dark Riders were connected to something bigger, but just what that was remained a mystery for now.

After she scanned the last document, Shard replaced the small pen-like object in a pouch on her belt. It was a scanner that saved the documents as digital files S.H.I.E.L.D. could examine later. But she hadn’t intended to leave the documents lying around.

Shard gathered the documents into a pile and produced a small lighter. With it, she lit the papers on fire and watched as the flames converted the documents into ash. She smiled as she spoke into the earpiece.

"Flame on."

Genosha

Wisdom and Jose Del Ruiz exited through the sewer system he had come in from. As they made their way through the tunnels, Jose had been able to maintain his silence. They came to a series of tunnels and Wisdom led Jose down one of them, moving through the muck, walking past rats.

Once they were far enough away, Jose figured it was safe to talk. "Can you tell me who you are?"

"Pete Wisdom," he said.

"And why are you risking your life to break me out of prison?" asked Jose.

"It was a promise I made to your daughter," said Wisdom.

"Lydia? Where is she?" asked Jose.

"Not now," said Wisdom.

Jose grabbed the collar of Wisdom’s shirt. "Tell me!"

Wisdom stopped and pried the man’s fingers from his collar. "Like I said, I promised your daughter I’d get you out of prison. But let’s get a few things straight—I got you out, I never specified what condition I’d leave you in or how far out I’d take you. So you do as I say when I say it and you’ll be sipping mojitos in Cuba before you know it. But if you give me any more lip, if you ever bloody touch me again, I’ll either leave you for the magistrates or I’ll kill you myself."

Wisdom dropped his cigarette to the ground and it sizzled as it struck the sewer water. "Do we understand each other, Mr. Del Ruiz?"

"We do," said Jose.

"Good," said Wisdom. "Now keep moving. My contact isn’t far from here."

They continued through the sewer in silence. When they came out of a drainage pipe at the end, they were right by the shore. A motorboat approached on the night waters, driven by a brunette. Once Wisdom caught sight of her, he shook his head and hopped into the boat. He helped Jose in as well.

"What did I tell you about looking like her?" asked Wisdom.

Mystique changed her shape from that of Katherine Pryde to a woman with long, blonde hair. She smiled at Wisdom. "You used to like it when I got a rise out of you."

"Don’t get cheeky," said Wisdom. He lit a fresh cigarette.

"The others?" asked Mystique.

"All set up," said Wisdom.

In the prison, two other Resistants walked through the halls—Mist Mistress and Peeper. The stocky Peeper led the way, his unique mutation allowing him to see in the dark. As soon as they came to the cell they were looking for, Mist Mistress took advantage of her own powers.

She extended her hand and a chemical agent was released from her fingertips, one which created an acidic mist. This mist chewed through the lock on the cell door and it opened easily.

Mist Mistress and Peeper stepped inside the cell. But they didn’t find Jose Del Ruiz. Instead, they found one of their fellow guards, knocked unconscious.

"What?" asked Peeper.

The lights in the facility suddenly turned back on. Mist Mistress and Peeper exited the cell, only to find magistrates with weapons trained on them.

Iraq

All the Riders save for Dust had been dealt with. Shard’s transmission indicated that now they were ready to go. Siryn dropped the masking field and dove back to the battle.

Her vocal chords emitted a different frequency this time. This one was directed specifically at Dust and the harmonics employed created a hallucinatory sensation in the young Saudi.

It generated a hypnotic effect and Dust slowly coalesced into a single form and willingly entered a containment unit held by Shadowcat. The young woman shut it, trapping Dust inside.

The members of Team X gathered close together with the fallen Dark Riders. Bishop spoke into his earpiece. "HERMES transport by ten."

The transport locked onto their signal via GPS and the ten mutants vanished in a flash of light.

Indian Ocean

The boat traveled far enough from Genosha to be in international waters. As they continued to ride, Jose looked to Wisdom and Mystique.

"Are you going to tell me about my daughter yet?" he asked.

Wisdom and Mystique exchanged glances. Wisdom took a drag on his cigarette before speaking. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Lydia’s passed on."

"What?"

"She’s dead," said Mystique.

The color drained from Jose’s face. He opened his mouth to speak but silence came forth. It took him a moment to form his words. "But… how? What happened?"

"It’s a long story, most of it classified information," said Wisdom. "Needless to say, she’s gone. I’m sorry."

"So now what do I do?" asked Jose. "I’m a criminal in Genosha and the only family I had is gone."

"When we get to Port Victoria, you’ll go with a colleague of mine, Prudence Leighton," said Wisdom. "She’s good people, she’ll set you up with a new identity and a new life."

"And you’re doing this all out of the goodness of your heart?"

"Not quite," said Wisdom. "I promised Lydia I’d release you from prison, but I never said anything about setting you up with a new identity in another country. From this point on, you work for me. Mostly, you’ll just go about your daily activities. But one day, I’ll get in touch with you. And then you’ll have to do something for me. This will be your form of repayment. If you can’t deal with that, then Raven here will stop the boat and you can swim to shore."

"I can deal with that," said Jose.

"Smart boy," said Wisdom.

"So where are you setting me up?" asked Jose.

Wisdom smiled. "Remember the crack I made in the tunnels about Cuba?"

NEXT: A new X-Force rises from the ashes of the old. Who stays? Who goes? Who gets recruited? Find out soon.

FORCING THE ISSUE

First off, just one small note. The scene where Wisdom frees Jose Del Ruiz will look familiar to some, and that's because it's the scene Cory and Dave wrote in their last issue. I tried writing my own version of this escape, but it didn't do any justice, so I chose to use their scene.

Second, I made a little continuity gaff. In the last issue, I mistakenly said that Mystique was a member of Magneto's cabinet. Brent Fallen Angels Lambert was kind enough to inform me that she's not a cabinet member, more of a liason there on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. So my apologies to Brent for that mistake.

Third, I forgot to respond to the comments from issue #13. So here's the reviews from one-third of our EiC collective, Cory Wiegel:

THE GOOD: Unfortunately, X-Force has sort of lost its way in recent years. The original concept was as a team of mutant spies working for S.H.I.E.L.D., but as time went on it sort of turned a bit more into something akin to a mutant police force. I like the former better and I'm glad to see that Dino's returned to it. He's able to pick up from David Golightly and I's brief wrap-up stint quite efficiently, building off of our final story and the title's past stories but not quite being bound by it.

I admit that when I sat down to write issue #13, I had a lot of trouble getting started. Mainly because I had so many ideas running through my mind and I had no idea where to start. Thankfully, I got over that hump extremely quickly and had a blast pounding out these first three issues. The mutant police force angle is fine and dandy, but like you I've always felt there's much more to be done with the mutant spy angle. Especially since the mutant police force angle is a pretty common angle to take.

Pete Wisdom's a guarded, clever, and forward thinking spy, but you get the idea that there's a definite depth to his character that makes for interesting dissection. Daniel Craig's James Bond, anyone? The spy genre is also appropriately explored with a slow but engaging build to the action, giving us readers time to let the story and its various dynamics sink in before any explosions or gun fights go off.

Funny you should mention Craig's Bond. He's actually a big source of inspiration for my depiction of Pete Wisdom. In fact, when I was working on the proposal as well as prior to writing the first issue, I got some inspiration by watching some of the darker Bond flicks like Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Licence to Kill, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and, of course, Casino Royale as well as other espionage movies like Munich and Spy Game. Wisdom's definitely an interesting character and easily the strongest part of X-Force. That'll especially come out down the line when you see just how much of a bastard he can be.

THE BAD: I've said it before and I'll say it again: Dino's issues are just too damn short for my tastes. In the case of X-Force #13, there are enough scenes and enough story in the scenes to be sufficient for a typical issue, but the lack of exposition and prose left me feeling a little under-whelmed. I'm from the school of thought that goes, "if you can't satisfy the reader with more prose then you should satisfy them with more story." I would say that this issue needed to have about two or three more scenes of story to leave me with a "full" feeling, or in other words be about twice as long as it is.

To each his own, I guess. I've beefed up the word count a bit, so hopefully this issue will be more to your liking as far as length goes.

OVERALL: Despite the lack of prose and general shortness of the issue, I'm quite pleased with what I've read. Dino's second run on this title, continuing with the vastly different concept conceived by David Wheatley after Dino's first run, is starting off much better than his original run with Jay Corafa nearly six years ago. If Dino can beef up his writing (or his story) next issue and continue his engaging portrayal of Wisdom and the spy genre, as well as all of the elements involved in this title, I think Marvel 2000 will have another must read title in the works. Good job, Dino!

Yeah, this is definitely a completely different animal from what X-Force was when Jay and I first launched it all those years ago. And I think it's much better this way. While I had fun writing those issues with Jay, the title itself lacked direction. Now, there's much more cohesion in the concept.

Now for Cory's comments on issue #14:

This was largely a set-up issue, which isn't bad by any means, but eh... it kind of inherently has a drawback or two, especially with Dino's typical writing length. The most interesting part of this issue was the interaction between Pete Wisdom and Mystique. I think they both have a lot of chemistry and play off of each other very nicely, thanks largely to Dino's efforts, and I look forward to seeing a lot more of the two. This is the sort of stuff I want to see a lot more of in the series.

I'm glad this is the kind of stuff you want to see more of in the series, because you definitely will. Although the previous incarnations of X-Force were largely action-oriented, this one won't be. In many ways, this could just as easily be a Wisdom series because the other members of the team will be in more supporting roles whereas Wisdom will be the main focus.

Mystique especially will play a big role, if not right away. But she's one character I really wanted for this book and I'm glad I was able to get my hands on her. And her current set-up in Genosha makes for some interesting opportunities.

The least interesting part of the issue was the briefing of Team X. Part of me wonders if it was really necessary and probably would have preferred it if Dino went straight to the mission. After all, everything we were told and shown in this scene we could have found out and saw as the mission kicked off (only in a more interesting way), so it seemed like a little bit like filler. I think it's important for Dino not to waste any one scene with his issue lengths because then us readers can walk away having expected more.

I guess I can understand the logic behind that, but as you can see from this issue, the mission was a big part of it and I wanted to have the juxtaposition of Wisdom's mission with Team X's. So hopefully the pay-off was worth it.

Heh, oh, and did anyone else think that it was kind of funny to read about a gruff, ex-soldier of fortune drinking coffee and reading a book in an outside cafe? I always took Maverick as the type to be drinking a beer and watching a football or soccer game in a sports bar. Minor quibble, especially since I was happy to see Maverick and Siryn have a moment to interact outside of the line of duty. Overall, kind of a slow issue and a little uneventful in my opinion, but otherwise a solid read by Dino. I'm hoping for a lot more Wisdom/Mystique dynamics next ish and some explosive Team X action.

Because it's expected of Maverick to be drinking a beer and watching a soccer game is exactly why I chose not to do it. I didn't just want to play into a typical stereotype with him and Maverick's private life has never been explored in too much depth. So I thought it'd be more fun to play with conventions and have him relaxing at an outdoor café. Although the book he was reading shows that Mav's not exactly the type to completely leave work behind.

That's it for this one. Next issue will provide the epilogue to "The New Deal" and will firmly set up the new direction.

-Dino