I have long raised a questioning eyebrow to Marvel Comics’ plan over the past year to publish two separate X-Force titles: Uncanny X-Force and Cable and X-Force. Both are about a team of renegade X-Men fighting evil on the fringes of superherodom, and both feature a random assortment of characters, many of whom didn’t necessarily have anything to do with X-Force. It seemed that Marvel was only concerned with wringing as much money out of the brand name as they could.

Well now it seems that grand experiment is coming to an end. Marvel is cancelling both titles and combining only some of the characters into a new adjectiveless X-Force, launching in February. 

What went wrong? Who can say. Were the titles selling well? Did Marvel wise up and realize the world doesn’t need two separate X-Force titles? Was nobody enjoying Puck?

These are questions that only those in the know can properly answer, and Marvel isn’t returning my calls. I tried reading both comics but gave up after an issue or two because I just didn’t see the point. On the one hand, they were both made well enough. But I didn’t care about the characters or the plots. That’s on me, not on them.

Well Marvel and USA Today are all manner of excited to tell you about the new series, which will be written by new writer Simon Spurrier, with art by Rock He-Kim. Based on the interview, Spurrier is going to take X-Force back to basics so that they’re simply a black-ops mutant team doing black-ops type things.

“What I’ve taken from those early X-Force episodes is a take-no-prisoners attitude towards action,” Spurrier says. “But I like to think I’ve injected a little post-millennial sophistication, too. “This isn’t a steroidal macho-fest: It’s a slick, nasty, oh-so-grim beast that’ll cut your throat and blow up your headquarters before you even know it’s there.”

Of the more than a dozen characters in Uncanny X-Force and Cable and X-Force, only three are going to make this new team: Cable, Psylocke and Fantomex. Though Spurrier does suggest that other characters will probably pop in from time to time.

Of special note is a new member: Marrow! And since I once proclaimed Marrow my second favorite X-Woman of all time, you better believe I’m going to pick up this book just for her.

On Marrow, Spurrier compared her to Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica, and said:

“She’s a fighter too damaged by own experiences to ever really fit in,” Spurrier says. “She’s one of those brilliant characters which the X-books handle so well who can’t rightly be described as a hero or a villain: a product of her own tragedy.”

So because of Marrow, I’ll definitely be buying this book. What does everybody else think?