Justin Partridge: So I suppose I should just start with the most obvious question (as I vaguely know your origins as an X-Force Person), but WHY Metallica? What is it about the Third Greatest Metal Band of All Time that drew you to their music? And by extension, this hysterical and brilliant idea for a piece?
Charlie Davis: Thatâs kind of a hard question to answer, but also an easy one. I love Metallicaâs music for the same reason I love AEW wrestler Jon Moxley. Basic, straightforward, hard-edged noise on the surface, but a tremendous amount of depth underneath. Their music is loud, but pointedly so. James Hetfieldâs voice is a sneer bubbling with power underneath. The guitars, especially on older tracks, have this incredible ability to sound almost icy on the surface. Once I backtracked past Metallica, I was hooked.
Music is an interesting thing for me. I donât wanna say Iâm stuck in a rut, but the number of new bands Iâve listened to since 2010 is … small. For me, music is a feel-good device just like comics; something I can return to time and time again. Metallica, as a band, kind of exists in this space where you canât deny their pushing noisy thrash to the forefront changed metal, but a lot of people wouldnât even classify them as you have. It reminded me a lot of how people feel about â90s comics and, by extension, X-Force. Also, Iâm pretty sure Shatterstar would absolutely be a Metallica guy.
JP: I am honestly the EXACT same way when it comes to music. Usually I will find stuff I like (usually by virtue of an old Best Show episode with a killer opening set or a new post on Instagram from Kurt Vile) and then rarely try to venture or experiment with stuff outside of said highly curated bubble.
But Metallica was always one of those bands that was just AROUND in my life in one way or another. Somewhat starting from my immensely square and basic parents, who were obviously into very by-the-numbers music. Steve Miller Band (who I hate) and Bad Company (who I hate even more) and that sort of stuff. But Metallica was a band that just seemed more immense than other acts of that time, which really interested me on top of their slightly scarring music videos and heavy-ass riffs. This sort of thing happens when your albums sell just an embarrassing amount of units and youâve already built up this legendary reputation as a touring act.
I, too, started pretty much with Metallica (aka The Black Album) and then went back and forward from there, appreciating each album as a single piece of music at first and then as an entry into their overall canon (something I also tend to get obsessed about once I lock onto a band or artist). I also had a friend in middle into high school who was VERY into them and had a more extensive record collection than I did at the time, so I kinda glommed onto him to experience things like Live Shit and Garage, Inc.
But you absolutely nailed it! Both Metallica and X-Force overlap QUITE a bit in terms of tone and timbre. They also both very much represent their respective âmomentsâ in time both musically and with regard to what the larger comic reading populace is responding to at the time of their releases, so that, of course, led us to start talking, which then, naturally, led to us SURE CREATING SOME CONTENT. Youâre gonna love it. No WAY Shatterstar hasnât tried to get laid to âAstronomy.â
So how do you want to tackle this? Should we alternate our choices and just talk from there? Should we start chronologically from Kill âEm All on? I am on the Charlie Davis Diet here, so I am gonna dance to whatever track you wanna play regardless.
CD: Well, my first thought was to go about this like a listicle. But then, I realized I hate listicles, so I donât want to do that. I think we should start by showcasing some favorites, and honestly, I wouldnât say I was surprised with exactly how much of our thoughts about this subject overlapped, considering we had a pretty lengthy conversation about Garage, Inc. a few weeks back, but I am so happy we ended up on nearly the same wavelength. We will use this as a chance to build a mix tape of sorts, and ever since my relisten, Iâve been dying to talk about it. So.
And Justice for All / X-Force Vol. 4
I think itâs actually pretty rad that And Justice For All could be the name on the trade dress for Si Spurrier and Kim Molinaâs X-Force. This was my immediate first choice when we started comparing and contrasting, and I swear that the neutral color palette shared between the art and the cover of the album is not why I picked it. Itâs the weird ice that runs through the veins of both of these things. Itâs not a hot take to tell you that Si Spurrier likes his weird sci-fi, and man oh man, does this volume of X-Force crank up the weird. Cable is multiple clones of himself, Hope is integrated with a being that’s basically an AI, and we have really explicit and real reckonings with and explorations of violence and what it means to be violent. If X-Force has always been about exploring these themes, and I believe it very much has been, then X-Force Vol. 4 isnât afraid to come right out and say what it means. It takes Rick Remenderâs themes of darkening worldviews and what it means to be a superhero hit squad and blends them with the undercurrent of alienation thatâs been at the heart of X-Force for ages. So how do this album and comic even begin to match up, you might ask? Well … even if we just take two of my favorite tracks from the album, âBlackenedâ and the title track âAnd Justice For All,â and do a quick glance at the lyrics … itâs impossible not to see that the album is saying some blistering things about the state of the world. X-Force, and this volume especially, explores the toll that living in darkness takes on superheroes.
JP: Big, big time, and I think both of these examples also overlap in the few comments they both make on the carceral state and the cycles of abuse and expiation a lot of ârepeatâ offenders experience throughout their lifetimes. ⌠And Justice For All obviously takes a more realistic approach to the commentary, but Spurrier ratchets up the science fiction weirdness and almost calculated emotions of this team, and their functions stand them up well together as tonally similar at the very least.
We see here a team, though locked into a very specific box by their reputations, actions and standings within the mutant community at this point, trying DESPERATELY to claw out of said boxes, just as Metallica were trying to find themselves and their evolving sound on the tail end of Master of Puppets (the album that took them from lower-key middle card talent to headliners seemingly overnight).
This is ALSO the first album recorded after the death of Cliff Burton, arguably the heart of the band up until this point. So you can also tell with their efforts here AND Spurrierâs working with the new lineup and status quo of the team that there is a certain rawness and vulnerability to the music and XF tales that we sort of take for granted. I actually REALLY like this run of X-Force and feel like it was one of the first ones that I really responded to as an entry into their âcanonâ just as ⌠And Justice For All was one of the first full Met albums I came across on my own, driven by the more iconoclastic singles of the record like âOneâ and âBlackened.â
CD: Absolutely expertly put, Justin. I picked my first track on our mixtape, so Iâm handing the iPod over to you. What do you have for us?
REload / X-Force Vol. 3
JP: So, I get like… a LOT of shit for liking both these things.
I think the album holds up a bit better than the run itself does, BUT I will always have a soft spot for the weirdly consistent Chris Yost (who was pretty obviously also the secret weapon of the Spider-Office for like a decade).
But beyond personal preference, I think both these runs from Met and the Force stand up well against one another in similarities, just like our opening choices were. Both the band and title were very much in a âback to basicsâ mode around this time. Force is coming off a kind of litigious previous volume and needed a new reorientation of why the title mattered and what the team, both creative and on the page, had to say.
Similarly, when Metallica heads into The Plantâs California studio for these sessions, with Load and REload being planned as a double album, they too are on the tail end of both success and complacent playing. They had just released an album that everybody and their fucking dogs bought (â91âs Metallica), had a massive tour supporting it where they honed those tracks within an inch of their lives, and now had to make something NEW. So they did what Kyle and Yost did. They recorded the albums THEY wanted to play and the stuff that would have responded to THEM as a music-buying entity.
The results are a BIT of a mixed bag. In the comics, we are having to deal with the ⌠shall we say, less than great characterization of X-23, while over on the album side, âFixxerâ is a goddamn awful closing track. But Iâll be kicked if that run from the opener, âFuel,â into âMemory Remainsâ and then ending with âUnforgiven IIâ isnât just a fookinâ BELTER of a front half of an album. Plus, I will always love a team with Rahne on it. I mean, she got me to buy some freaking Ed Brisson comics, so I guess I love her a LITTLE.
What do you think about these ones, boss?
CD: You know, Itâs been a while since I revisited this volume of X-Force, and I seem to somehow conflate it with an X-Force one-shot that I absolutely despise. Funny enough, I think thatâs what happens to REload when people give a think about the pantheon of Metallica albums and things that come after Metallica. It just kinda gets lost. Which is a damn shame because it laid down some important assertions about what was to come. Did every single thing that was tried here work? No. But I think we might start getting more out of comics if we looked at them like we do albums. Or at the very least, maybe people would start being less cynical about the changes from book to book if we did that.
People almost certainly expect reinvention every single time. A groundbreaking venture, something that will redefine the comic or, in Metallicaâs case, the genre, but thatâs not always what you need, nor should it be what you expect. X-Force stood on some pretty solid foundations for a long while until the ground shifted beneath them and suddenly it wasnât the â90s anymore. In my opinion, the X-Statix team should have never been labeled X-Force. In throwing the whole concept on its head, it kind of broke the idea of X-Force. That caused its own ripple effect where Kyle and Yost needed to find those foundations again. They pushed headlong into concepts they thought defined the series ⌠but maybe they didnât always think hard enough about it. When you lean into the grim and gritty, you have to lean equally hard into the found-family aspect at the core of the book as well. Itâs less about the traumatizing acts and more about how that trauma shapes you as you move forward. They missed checking those boxes off sometimes. As for REload and Metallica, I think that analysis works well, too. In an attempt to go back to basics, some of the original points get lost in the fray. You are absolutely right about your track selections, though. âFuelâ kicks so much ass, and I will hear NO words against it.
JP: ABSOLUTELY! And you run into this weird malaise or dismissive attitude that people tend to have about these middle albums and runs. As if their more âpopulistâ sounds and efforts are not âworthâ a deeper look or analysis. Also, somehow ignoring the facts that both Metallica AND X-Force are kinda ⌠wildly popular? Just on their own rights and merits? Like most people that donât even listen to metal know at least TWO Metallica songs, and even non-X-people seem to like or have been into an X-Force book at some point or another, so thatâs just dumb all over.
But I believe it is your pick, boss.
CD: I hate to do this. I really, really hate to do this, but. We came to a conclusion, and Iâm sticking to it.
St. Anger / X-Force Vol. 1: The Liefeld Year
CD: Listen. If people know one thing about me, itâs that I love â90s X-Force. Itâs largely responsible for why I’m into comics the way I am at all. So even though this seems like shade, I have to make it VERY clear that I am making a very strong and clear delineation between around the first 10 issues of the original X-Force run and the rest of the book, which soars more often than not.
We just got off to a pretty rocky start.
Itâs kind of no surprise that people take the original X-Force out of context a lot; itâs something that bothers me tremendously, but also I canât blame them for doing so. A lot of what we see in the first 10 issues of X-Force is what people would describe as peak â90s bad. Bad characters with no depth, large guns, explosions â things being loud for loudâs sake. If you picked the book up and then put it down without going any further than Liefeldâs messy art ⌠I GET IT. However, you also canât forget the fact that it helped usher in a boom period for comics that we really havenât seen since.
St. Anger on the other hand âŚ
While not being a keystone in the musical career of Metallica, it is the bandâs most lauded. Itâs loud, noisy and wanders about without much purpose. Sound familiar? The opening track, âFrantic,â is probably all of the band’s worst qualities personified. Itâs like a parody of itself. Can kinda say the same thing about the opening salvo of X-Force Vol. 1.
JP: Iâm actually somewhat angry with you for how perfect of a comparison this really is.
Because you are absolutely right. Both of these examples are both the band and title just Doing The Most. While also confabulating Doing The Most with being good. Both of which are decidedly not. Good, that is.
Both of them are also incredibly loud and overbearing and working under the assumption that you, as a consumer of them, are into that. Even when you are actively blanching against it.
I also find, weirdly, just thinking about it now, both St. Anger and X-Force Vol. 1 operate with a grand level of hubris behind the work. With Liefeld, who has been, whether Comics Twitter wants to admit it or not, dining out on the experience of making these issues and being a part of this franchise for decades, you get the sense that HE doesnât know they kinda suck and arenât really THAT emblematic of what the larger comic reading populace (as well as you and I personally, for the most part) thinks of when they think of X-Force as a whole.
On the music side, Metallica took this album SO deadly serious, both as a piece of music AND as the next step in their evolution as a band, that they attached all sorts of erroneous bells and whistles (a FEATURE documentary, a highly publicized search for a new bassist, overblown live performances at San Quentin Prison, and secrecy that would give George Lucas an erection for days) to a ⌠largely mediocre album. They just ⌠like itâs almost unfair how eerily similar they are with one another. I think I have a good pick for the next one, but I feel like we have a bit more to say on these first, at the risk of being self-indulgent (like the Rob and the Met were).
CD: You know, itâs a shame really. I think there are things of value in both of these pieces of art. The Rob has a legacy, itâs just really that someone was able to take the raw ideas that he had and shape them into something much better. X-Force at the start feels like itâs almost being pulled in two different directions. Nicieza clearly had his own idea that he wasnât able to fully execute. I feel like Lars and James were also largely butting heads as the production of St. Anger went on. Unfortunately or maybe not? All of this is documented in the aforementioned Some Kind of Monster documentary. The comparison gets more and more apt as I continue to think about it. Can you imagine a similar documentary with all the original Image guys?
Alright, actually ⌠please donât imagine that.
All that said, I am so glad that both of these things, X-Force and Metallica, have moved past this moment in time. Itâs your pick next, Justin!
JP: God, I would GENUINELY kill for a comprehensive Image Exodus documentary. BUT I also think I have a controversial next pick that I am very excited to get into.
S&M / X-Force Vol. 6 (Dawn of X)
JP: So when we first started to talk about this whole thing, there were two albums especially that we talked about connecting with and over. The next one is still incoming, but S&M, to me, was and is absolutely one of the highlights of Metallicaâs discography, but I struggled with where it was really slotted within the overall conceit of this piece.
But then âX of Swordsâ started happening. And the X-Force of THIS era finally opened itself up to me. Now, just a bit about this new Force, I LIKE it, but I donât LOVE it. I certainly love the lineup a LOT. Having Black âDraculaâ Tom as a lead is enough to get me in the door, but beyond a thrilling arc centered on Domino and the consistently ⌠truly gnarly artwork from Joshua Cassara, it never really grabbed me as much as it seemed to grab my peers and friends.
But in the lead-up to âX of Swordsâ and on the tail end of their truly gross and morally kinda fucked Krakoan-plant-zombie arc, it really started to grow on me. Then Charlie and Iâs Met discussions just provided the catalyst in my head. The Dawn of X X-Force is the one that takes all the bone-crunching coolness and violence and moral ambiguity of the team (given a fun flashpoint around everyoneâs least favorite mutant, Hank McCoy) and pitches it in front of the lyrical, neatly ordered balletics of Krakoa.
Precisely like S&M did for Metallica, backdropping their own ordered madness with the keen strings, horns and direction of Michael Kamen and the San Francisco Symphony, all of whom provide tightly rehearsed and methodical symphonic additions to tracks like âThe Memory Remains,â âMaster of Puppetsâ and many, many more. Embarrassingly enough, this might be the album Iâve listened to the MOST from them and just overall ever (The Mountain Goatsâ Beat the Champ or the best of Kylie Minogue might be very close seconds). But I feel like, even more so with the set dressing of the bigger XoS framework around it, X-Force has just improved its intentionality with each issue.
But you get that, right? Like itâs all the âclassicâ X-Force âmutant black opsâ craziness but scaffolded by something else bigger than the sum of its parts and intentioned toward expansion of the brand (or maybe âsoundâ of them rather). What do you think?
CD: You told me you had a controversial pick for this one, Justin, but like most things weâve discussed, I couldnât agree more with this. Dawn of X has been about a lot of things, but one thing that is constant in the spaces that are being played in is that itâs about moving out of your comfort zone. Music and comics both have a unique tether considering a section of fans of both tend to stick in the camp of âjust keep doing what youâre good at.â They are, at the worst of times, adverse to change. There has been a chorus of people who have spoken out about Dawn of X somehow tarnishing the good name of the X-Men, how the themes being played with now donât fit in the tried and true methodology of comics. I, not so respectfully, disagree.
Art is about evolution and pushing past preconceived notions. Hell, I wouldnât even say X-Force Vol. 6 pushes boundaries as much as it tries to work within the framework of an existing concept to make something new. Itâs the same for S&M. We donât get anything new musically here, not from Metallica at least, but we have introduced some new elements from outside the standard framework to spice things up a bit. The San Francisco Symphony provides some absolutely beautiful backings to these songs, and in particular, the opening arrangement of âCall of Cthulhuâ is one that sticks out in my mind the most. The strings enrich the technicality that is already there; it makes you think of the music in a different way or at least recognize different pieces of it that you might not have before. This new X-Force works in the same way. How does X-Force work when they have the well-being of a nation at stake? When the objective is the same, but the method canât be. Great stuff.
JP: ABSOLUTELY. And you said it, this volume really isnât anything NEW from the title. Nor is S&M providing new material from Metallica outside of a cover of an Enio Morricone arrangement from the symphony that leads into âCall.â
But at the same time, it doesnât break the bedrock of either and even, also like you said, enhances the base elements of both for their troubles. Itâs both an album I have spent a lot of time with and a volume that I have now spent a lot of time with, and it just keeps appreciating in value.
I also feel like both rosters of the band and team at this point really sing. With X-Forceâs roster, we have a nice balance of the strength and soul of the X-Men with Jean and Black Tom and Forge filling out the sort of âleadership casteâ of the team while Logan, Quentin Quire, Domino, Beast and various other guest stars fill out the trenches, bloodying their knuckles for the sake of Krakoa and its people.
On the music side, this is the final album with this âmodernâ incarnation of Metallica, marking the last time bassist Jason Newsted toured and recorded with the band, kicking off the highly documented search for a replacement. It adds a novel feeling of finality and drive to the playing. You feel like THEY even know itâs the last time they will all play together like this, and the staging and efforts from the band respond in kind. It is a powerful piece of musicality that I donât think gets the focus it deserves.
I dunno, maybe thatâs just me.
CD: Iâve got so much more to say, and weâve roughly got like four more incarnations of the team and four more albums to talk about, but just like the CDs of old, I think we are quickly running out of space on the disc.
JP: You are absolutely right, boss. We havenât even talked about Ricky Remembersâ run yet! But you are damn sure gonna hear about it soon! We are just getting started here, and that should scare the hell out of you.
Charlie Davis is the worldâs premier Shatterstarologist, writer and co-host of The Match Club.
