Sex and Violence

By Darryl Ayo

Domino and Wolverine have sex and steal millions of dollars in this three issue miniseries.

This is a quick, crime/heist/buddy/romantic action caper. Most likely, you’ve watched a bunch of movies just like this comic series and most likely you have fond memories of your experience watching them, even though they’re almost never high art. X-Force: Sex+Violence belongs in such a tradition.

Despite my general blanket condemnation of making R-rated comics out of well-established cartoon characters originally intended to entertain children, I highly enjoyed this little comic. I took it on its own terms and left my personal bias (and brain) at the door. Sex+Violence is fast-paced, smartly dumb and ecstatically gleeful in its celebration of destruction and amorality.

The protagonist is Domino who appears as a careless thrill-seeker, habitual liar and reckless daredevil. Her adventure is anchored by Wolverine who adamantly refuses to smile or enjoy himself at any point, ever. Determined to minimize Domino’s fun (ie, make sure she doesn’t die), he insists on (or is tricked into) helping Domino rip off a bunch of bad guys, start a vicious gang war and kill a bunch of nameless red shirts. Typical heist/caper stuff, if you like movies.

This comic is by the much-liked writer team of Craig Kyle and Chris Yost and is painted by fancy comic man Gabriele Dell’Otto. I read the series as it was published in 2010.

And then they became millionaires and they boned and boned and boned and boned and boned and everything was awesome forever, the end.

There really shouldn’t be anything “wrong” with this sort of comic book. It’s racy in a PG-13 sort of way, it’s violent in an R-Rated sort of way, it’s “edgy” in a way that’s age-appropriate for readers who are starting to come to terms with their own ideas about responsibility, adult relationships and sex. I reiterate that I disapprove of using Saturday morning cartoon characters as characters in such an endeavor but the result is a really good comic book story.

Take it or leave it.