X-Force has been around in one incarnation or another since 1991. Brought together by the mutant Cable from the ashes of the New Mutants, the team was known as the mutants who would do whatever it took to protect mutantkind, even if that meant killing. It was a smash hit for a while but the concept petered out in the early '00s, being replaced by X-Statix, a remarkably different kind of mutant book.
The concept would have a second coming during the X-Men's Utopia era, as Cyclops would charge Wolverine with putting together a team of mutants to eliminate threats to mutantkind in their most desperate time. The team lives on in the Krakoa era, acting as a mutant CIA for the nascent nation. This list is going to look at which version is the more efficient black ops group- Wolverine's incarnation or Cable's.
10 Cable's X-Force: More Powerful
When it comes right down to it, Cable's X-Force team has the more powerful members. Cable himself is a very powerful telepath and telekinetic and he picked the rest of his team to be able to fill a wide variety of roles. He knew that sometimes, the best way to take down a threat was with overwhelming strength.
Characters like Boom Boom, Cannonball, Sunspot, Rictor, and Warpath brought a lot of power to the team, each one able to do a lot of damage. When fighting superpowered threats and and mutant hunting technology, sometimes the team with the biggest guns wins.
9 Wolverine X-Force: Tailor Made For It
Wolverine is a man with years of black ops experience. He spent a portion of his pre-superhero life working for various Western governments as a spy during the Cold War, so he knows what it takes to build an efficient black ops team.
He filled his teams with Weapon X and Plus alums- X-23, Deadpool, and Fanotmex- while also bringing in people with skills that complimented them- people like Psylocke and Domino. Finally, he would make sure to throw in some heavy hitters, like Warpath, Archangel, and Deathlok, in case things got too hairy for the team.
8 Cable's X-Force: A Better Second In Command
Domino has been a part of X-Force since the beginning. She had worked with Cable before he started the team and her mutant luck powers are tailor made for the kind of work that X-Force does. However, in later incarnations of the group, she was merely a member of the team. In Cable's team, she was his second in command.
This is a much better place for her. While it's a stretch to say that Wolverine wasted Domino's skills during her time with his first team, Cable knew her better and put her skills to better use as his second.
7 Wolverine's X-Force: More Focused
Cable's team spent a lot of time as outlaws, running from base to base and trying to keep ahead of their enemies, the authorities, and the X-Men themselves. This made it hard for the team to really concentrate on doing any one thing and it made them less effective as a black ops team.
Wolverine's X-Force is a much more focused team. A threat would be identified, they would move in, and then they would take it out. This made them a much more efficient team, better suited to the task of protecting the interests of mutantkind.
6 Cable's X-Force: A Larger Team
Cable knew that sometimes, the best way to win was to be able to outlast an opponent and that the best way to outlast an opponent was to have more soldiers than them. Cable's X-Force team had a rather large roster most of the time.
More members meant if anyone was taken out, there would be someone to take their place and he made sure to have redundancies around, as well- Shatterstar was the team's savage blades guy, but if he went down, Feral could take his place. Cannonball was an invulnerable wrecking ball, but if he went down, Warpath could handle his job.
5 Wolverine's X-Force: Killer Instinct
Most of Cable's team were younger mutants who grown up learning that it was wrong to kill. This would be a problem in some of the situations they found themselves in. However, Wolverine's team never really had this problem, because he recruited differently than Cable.
Wolverine chose members for his team that were not only good at killing, but wouldn't have a problem with it either. People like Deadpool, X-23, Fantomex, and Domino had all done their fair share of killing and had few qualms about it.
4 Cable's X-Force: Variety Is The Spice Of Death
It's been established that Cable's team was more powerful but they also had a wider variety powers, meaning they could tackle a wider variety of missions. As good as Wolverine's team is at killing, they have some definite drawbacks in other areas.
Let's say an enemy base needed to blown up? Boom Boom can handle that on her own. What if a convoy of Sentinel parts had to be stopped? Rictor can use his seismic powers to take it out and it would seem like it was a natural disaster. Cable's team could handle a wide variety of mission because of the variety f powers the team had.
3 Wolverine's X-Force: Quiet
One of the problems with Cable's team is that they were showy. They wore colorful costumes and many of them had powers that made a lot of commotion. Cable himself carried a lot of big, loud ordinance. This hurt them as black ops team- they were the opposite of stealthy.
Wolverine's team was completely different. They wore costumes in subdued shades of black and grey. Their powers and abilities were less showy and most of them were very good at sneaking into places. They could get in, do their job, get out, and none would be the wiser.
2 Cable's X-Force: A War Footing
Wolverine's team is tailor made for wet work- they can shed blood with the best of them, but that's not all black ops are. Cable put together his team of powerful mutants with a variety of power because he was embracing a different black ops ethos than Wolverine. Cable and his team were fighting a war.
Black ops in war aren't always quiet, efficient affairs. Sometimes, things have to be loud so the enemy knows that if they try that again, the same thing will happen and it will hurt more next time. Black ops isn't always about efficient elimination of a target and Cable knew that and planned accordingly.
1 Wolverine's X-Force: Actually Successful
When it comes right down to it, Cable's team actually didn't accomplish very much. They went to war with Stryfe and his Mutant Liberation Front, but it would take a concerted effort from all of the mutant teams to take them down. Cable's personal mission was to take down Apocalypse and his X-Force team didn't really help him do that at all. They would eventually abandon their old ways and rejoin the X-Men, becoming more of a traditional superhero team.
Wolverine's team actually got things done and even when they screwed up- like when Archangel became the new Apocalypse- they broke their backs to clean up their mess. Every mission they went on, they eliminated the threat they set out to. That's not something that Cable's team can say.