Further clashes saw the team battling the immortal mutant Externals and the M.L.F. This brought them into conflict with S.H.I.E.L.D. With Cable presumed dead, the team reclaimed his hardware from Graymalkin, Cable's orbital space station. Ultimately it was revealed that Stryfe was responsible and X-Force were released. Meanwhile, Cable took the fight to Tolliver, defeating the mercenary Deadpool and rescuing Domino while X-Force rescued another former New Mutant teammate, Sunspot, from the External Gideon.Īfter a seeming an assassination attempt on Professor X by Cable, X-Force was targeted for capture by the combined forces of the X-Men and X-Factor. With Cable out of the picture, Rictor rejoined his old friends who absconded in a captured S.H.I.E.L.D.
After an attack by Weapon: P.R.I.M.E., Cable and X-Force were separated. Subsequently they defeated a short-lived alliance between the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and Masque's Morlocks which was followed by the revelation that Domino had been replaced by the shapeshifting mutant Copycat, that latter of whom had infiltrated the team at the behest of arms dealer Tolliver who was keeping the true Domino prisoner. X-Force next teamed up with Spider-Man and Siryn to prevent a terrorist bombing by Black Tom and the Juggernaut, after which Siryn joined the team. super-team consisting of the cyborg Kane, the savage Yeti, the battle-suited Tigerstryke, the super-strong mercenary Grizzly, and the earthquake-generating former New Mutant Rictor. To that end, the Canadian government's Department K put at Bridge's disposal the Weapon: P.R.I.M.E. Bridge, a former ally of Cable's who became determined to take X-Force down.
This brought them to the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D. Originally consisting of the rocket-propelled Cannonball, the plasma-generating Boom-Boom, the super-strong Warpath, the gladiator warrior Shatterstar, the cat-like Feral, and the mercenary Domino, X-Force initially fought the Mutant Liberation Front (M.L.F.) and their leader, the armored despot Stryfe, a clone of Cable. After the mutant soldier from the future Cable traveled to the present to seek to change his apocalyptic time, he took the New Mutants under his wing and restructured them as X-Force, a mutant strike team that would take a more proactive stance against threats to mutantkind.