The story is kind of silly, the Heart of Pele being stolen from a volcano and lava men wanting to use it to take over the world, but the writing is full of good characterization. A few examples are Tabitha's jelousy over Bobby and thoughts about relationships working two ways, Siryn's jelousy over 'Risque' and her thoughts on vamping the Vanisher, Roberto being the cocky kid he was originaly introduced as, Dani's suspicions of 'Risque', and Warpath's lingering feelings towards Risque. I also liked the bonus poster included with the comic at no extra charge because the art is good and the scene of X-Force scrambling into their costumes when a situation arises provides more realism to the characters.

To sum up, if you like stories that are about developing characters X-Force #81 will satisfy you. On the other hand, if you are sick of silly stories with impossible events you'll probably hate this issue('course what's realistic about super-powered heroes anyway?). To balance it out, most of you will probably consider the story and the tittle itself mediocre, but me I go for character and love the way this team has been handled recently.