SuperSearnold - Comic Book Reviews

Greetings from your friendly neighborhood Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld]. Welcome to my comic book review blog - thanks for tuning in. Today is Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008.

Today’s Issue:
Cable #1 - #5. This is the current series - not the older one - newly ongoing from Marvel, written by Duane Swierczynski (Immortal Iron Fist, Moon Knight Annual) with art by Ariel Olivetti (X-Man, Space Ghost). These first five issues comprise the first arc, War Baby.

Premise:
[Spoiler Warning - the very premise of this book gives away a bit of what transpired during Messiah Complex. Such is the consequence of reviewing modern books - they will always give away something about the older books that preceded it.]
Cable is the mutant son of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor (a clone of Jean Grey). He was raised in a post apocalyptic future and has returned to modern times an old warrior. Many of his adventures involve time travel. He is probably best known for taking the original New Mutants and turning them into his personal strike team, X-Force.
In this arc, Cable has taken the first baby born since M-Day into the future in an attempt to save her from those who would destroy her or use her for their own needs. And Bishop has followed them - intent on killing the baby - convinced that she is responsible for the terrible future in which he was raised.

The Awesome Parts:
The juxtaposition of this hard-ass warrior having to care for a baby is done very well. There’s a whole lot of action. And I always enjoy semi-post-apocalyptic futures. There are also some pretty deep philosophical issues raised in this arc that wouldn’t really come up in day-to-day life, but are actually applicable to the abortion debate. Basically, Bishop has no problems killing people in the future because he’s convinced that once he saves the day none of them will have ever existed. I like that even though Cable is the title character we get just as much of Bishop and understand the adventure from his perspective, too. It’s always more interesting when BOTH conflicting parties are sympathetic protagonists. Who do you root for? Well… I guess you’re supposed to root for the guy trying to SAVE the baby, not the one trying to KILL it - that’s why Cable is the title character. But I certainly understand where Bishop is coming from.

The Not-So-Awesome Parts:
Why do all futures have to be such terrible places? Does humanity have no hope? For once I’d like to see someone travel to a possible future where people are happy. I suppose that doesn’t make for such an interesting story - but it sure would be uplifting. I’m also skeptical about the way time travel was handled in this arc. I LOVE time travel stories. I’m as obsessed with them as I am with continuity (which is odd since they pose such MAJOR complications to continuity…) But I’m not sure I like the way they handle the time-travelling element. Namely, Swierczynski shows that Bishop and Cable both have devices that can take them to any point in time - but they don’t use them very much. If you were trying to escape to an isolated place, wouldn’t you use your time traveling abilities ALL THE TIME? And wouldn’t you try to find a time and/or possible future that wasn’t such a bleak place? It just felt weird to me.
I also have some SERIOUS issues with Bishop’s motivation. Again - given the capacity for time travel - what could POSSIBLY be lost by sitting down and having a little chat in an attempt to come to some sort of compromise about our differences? This goes back to Messiah Complex where Bishop first starting acting in ways that are (in my opinion) COMPLETELY out of character. Do I buy the motivation IN GENERAL - kill this child to save millions? Sure - I think that’s great. But the extent to which Bishop has become a mindless murderous VILLAIN just feels out of character - despite his motivation.

My Recommendation:
This is a toss up. If you like Cable, then I think you’ll enjoy this series. Putting him in such a different situation than he’s ever been in has been enjoyable for me. If you like Bishop, I think you’ll enjoy this book because he’s written well. He gets a chance to use his detective skills and be a bad-ass. But boy - I sure bet you’re pissed off about the way he’s acting right now. If you aren’t familiar with either of these characters I’m gonna have to say pass on this book. The BASIC struggle between these two characters is simple enough - one’s trying to protect the baby, the other’s trying to kill it. But if you don’t ALREADY care about these two characters and their conflicts, I didn’t feel like there was anything in this arc that would MAKE you care. Despite the post apocalyptic future and hard-core action scenes, this is a CHARACTER driven book, and I don’t think the action scenes cut it in terms of selling the book to someone unfamiliar with Cable and/or Bishop.

That’s all for today. As always - thanks for reading - see you next time.
-Searnold

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