It’s about damn time Cable got the love and respect he deserves as a character.
Cable’s first headline title since 2017 reads “Speak softly and carry a big $&%A gun.” It is an intriguing story with well crafted dialogue written by Gerry Duggan, along with some incredibly beautiful art by Phil Noto. The opening pages where Cable is battling Wolverine is just absolutely stunning, and the way Phil Noto captures these characters is nothing short of brilliant.
This comic book opens with the young version of Cable sparring with Wolverine in some kind of arena. This is what the X-Men do in their free time on Krakoa – instead of the Danger Room, they line up for sparring sessions like a Pokemon battle. They call this “Combat in the Quarry” and there is a brilliant chart of past battles for the reader to enjoy, including matches such as “Nightcrawler vs. Blink” and “Magma vs. Firestar.” Instantly I wanted to read more about about this, and for Marvel to produce an associated trading card game. This is free marketing advice, Marvel. Take it!
Young Cable has not been a character who has sat well with me since he first appeared and demolished the older version of himself. He’s whiny, bratty, and lacking that charismatic rugged charm that Cable has always sported in the comic books and was further brought to life by Josh Brolin in Deadpool 2. Yet, Phil Noto writes this younger version of Cable into a believable and even an interesting character.
Paired up with other sassy teenagers, Armor and Pixie, they embark on a journey to help a younger mutant who had gone missing on “Monster Island” (Also known as “The Bad Place”). During this rescue mission, they are faced with a monster who looks like it fell out of Princess Monoke. There is some truly beautiful art demonstrating Pixie’s powers here, in which she sprinkles her fairy dust on the lost child which allows them to see a more humorous version of a gruesome monster battle happening before their eyes. Our favorite mutants win when young Cable finds a sword buried deep within the monster’s paw and pulls it out. This sword later initiates several robots in space to wake up out of their computer sleep, and gives us a nice little glimpse of the events to come in X of Swords — I am actually totally ready to see the X-Men wield swords like it is The Legend of Zelda.
In a more believable turn of events, Cyclops wanders out and reprimands young Cable for wandering off into the restricted territory. It rings very similarly to Mufasa and Simba in The Lion King. Let’s hope the fates are slightly better to Cyclops, although this is the X-Men, and everyone comes back to life – especially on Krakoa.
This is the first time we really get to see Cyclops be a father figure to Cable in this light. Young Cable swings the sword around and says things like “This is so cool!” while showing it off to his friends. He even flirts with Armor. These kinds of relationships and interactions with other characters makes Young Cable a much more believable character, and it also allows him to be a kid. I also enjoyed the heavy flirtation between Armor and Young Cable – I don’t know why, it just works.
The final page of this comic is probably the most prominent and note-worthy: the return of a long-missing member of the X-Men for whom I screamed with excitement. I’m not sorry.
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