Since their inception, X-Force has been the extreme sanctions team of mutants. For years, they were the outlaw team, Cable's personal army of child soldiers, before being welcomed back into the fold in the post-Age Of Apocalypse reboot of the X-Men franchise. The team has gone through so many iterations since then, from a reality show team with a high body count to Cyclops's cadre of assassins.
In the new Krakoan status quo, X-Force has become the CIA of the new mutant government. Mutants like Wolverine, Domino, Jean Grey, Colossus, and Quentin Quire make up the field team, while Forge, Sage, and team leader Beast stay home and do the command and control work. However, should Beast be in charge of the whole thing? This list is going to take a look at who would be better suited for the job and who shouldn't even be considered.
10 Shouldn't Lead: Beast
Yeah, let's just call a spade a spade- Beast should not lead X-Force. There are a lot of reasons for this. To begin with, black ops go against everything Beast has been trained for. He's a scientist and a superhero. He used to be an Avenger. There's nothing sneaky about him. While he has the right never say die attitude, he also has ethical lines he won't cross.
Plus, every time he found out about X-Force being used as an assassination team, first on Utopia when Cyclops was giving the orders and again when he found out that Wolverine had started the team back up at the Jean Grey School, he got really mad. This isn't the guy you want giving orders to a group of assassins.
9 Should Lead: Psylocke
Psylocke is very complicated right now. She's no longer Elizabeth Braddock, but the body is the same and inhabited again by its original holder, Kwannon. See, complicated. Anyway, Kwannon was trained as a ninja assassin by the Hand.
She's a telepathic ninja. She has no qualms with killing and she knows how to plan attacks against targets. She's even got some leadership experience, as seen in the vastly underrated Fallen Angels. Plus, the last Psylocke has a legacy with X-Force.
8 Shouldn't Lead: Young Cable
Cable was the founder of the X-Force back in the day, convincing the core members of the New Mutants to leave Xavier's school and join him on his mission to eliminate evil mutants. However, that man is dead, killed by a younger version of himself. Yes, the X-Men comics are complicated. Why do you ask?
All jokes aside, young Cable doesn't really need to be anywhere near the new X-Force. Sure, he's still a well-trained soldier, but let's be real- even as a vastly more experienced man, Cable's X-Force team was not very effective at all. Young Cable, with a lot less know-how than his older self, would do terribly as a leader for the team.
7 Should Lead: Sage
Right now, Sage does all the intel work for the team. She monitors threats around the world and lets the team know where they need to go and who they need to take out. Her ability to analyze data and present the most pertinent points would make her the perfect leader.
A black-ops commander's job isn't to plan the missions, but to prioritize threats, find the best people for the job, and let them figure out how to take care of their missions. Sage is perfect for this and she has no qualms with how bloody the team's mission can get.
6 Shouldn't Lead: Mystique
One the surface, Mystique seems like she would be the perfect leader of X-Force. She has years and years of experience in black-ops. She has no problem getting her hands dirty and no problem with ordering others to kill.
However, right now, she's very much a loose cannon on Krakoa. Obsessed with getting her wife brought back to life and angry that no one is doing it, she'd be able to do more damage to Krakoa when she inevitably goes ballistic.
5 Should Lead: Forge
Forge is doing tech work for the team and it's what he's best at. His mutant power is the ability to create any technology that he can imagine, which is quite useful, but beyond that, Forge is a very experienced soldier.
Forge understands what needs to get done and he understands that sometimes, one has to break many eggs to make an omelet. He would be fine with the high body counts the team accrues in their missions and wouldn't have too much of a problem ordering others to do the dirty work.
4 Shouldn't Lead: Magneto
Magneto is one of the top leaders on Krakoa. He's also a man known for being ready to do anything to ensure the safety of mutantkind. He's never had a problem ordering others to do terrible things to safeguard the future of the mutant species, either. On paper, he seems like the perfect leader.
However, Magneto is much too flashy for black-ops work, which makes a lot of sense when you consider his power set. Magneto has never needed to sneak into anywhere- he just tears places open. He has no problem with killing, but he's just too showy for the whole black-ops thing.
3 Should Lead: Wolverine
Wolverine has more experience with black ops than anyone on Krakoa. Throughout his long life, he's worked for all kinds of intelligence agencies. He knows how to sneak into places undetected and do what needs to be done. He knows how to put together the right team for the right missions.
He has also led two different iterations of X-Force and it's sort of weird that he's not running this one, as well. There are few other mutants on the island who know the kind of dangers that lurk out there in the world as he does. He's uniquely suited to this kind of work.
2 Shouldn't Lead: Mister Sinister
On paper, Mister Sinister seems like the perfect kind of person to lead a black ops team. He's been working behind the scenes for years and has proven he has no problems running teams of killers- he was the power behind the Marauders back in the day, after all. Being a geneticist means he has a great eye for detail and understands how little things can become big things.
However, as intelligent and ruthless as Sinister as is, he's a little too focused on his one passion, genetics, to really do the job right. He cares about mutants, but only so far as they are useful to him as fodder for his ongoing experiments. He wants to protect them, but the minutiae of the whole thing would escape him and he'd miss details because he was busy thinking of something else.
1 Should Lead: Domino
Much like Wolverine, Domino has both a long history in black ops and with X-Force. Even before her time with Cable's team, she was going on missions and doing the dirty work. Cable made her his second in command and she excelled in this role. As the years have gone on, she's only gained more experience.
Domino knows what needs to be done and she knows how to do it. She knows the best skills to use in different types of missions. She would be perfect to lead X-Force and she deserves the promotion. She's recently been battling a case of PTSD and this has only made her more focused. She wants to make sure no one else suffers like she has and this makes her the best leader for the team.