Writer Si Spurrier and artist Rock-he Kim will relaunch X-Force next month as part of All-New Marvel NOW!, recasting the team as covert super-agents -- players in a global shadow game -- operating on behalf of mutantkind. Or, as Cable puts it, "Nation of mutantkind needs a dirty tricks department. We're it."

"We're going to see them on hits," Spurrier told Comic Book Resources in November. "We're going to see them stealing intelligence, technology and weaponry from other factions. We're going to see them truffling-out emergent threats and destroying them before they can get started. It's broadly the same denominator of old -- a black ops X-Men team -- but with a lot more of an emphasis on International and inter-factional competition. The whole thing, of course, is a grand and grim metaphor for the secret black-technology race going on under our noses every day."

To prepare readers for the team's new mission, Marvel has provided ROBOT 6 with an exclusive preview of X-Force #1.

X-FORCE #1

SI SPURRIER (W) • ROCK-HE KIM (A/C)

Variant Cover by Phil Noto

Sketch Variant by Phil Noto

Animal variant by Cook

Almost every sovereign state in the Marvel Universe makes use of sanctioned superhumans to protect national interests and pursue a covert agenda. The United States has the Secret Avengers. The United Kingdom has MI13. And mutantkind has X-FORCE. In this dirty, secret, no-holds-barred, deadly game of superhuman black ops, veteran X-Man Cable and his team will spy, torture, and kill to ensure that the mutant race not only has a place in the world...but also a stake in it.

32 PGS./PARENTAL ADVISORY ...$3.99