CABLE #77 - March 2000

False Hoods

Credits:  Joe Pruett (writer), Bernard Chang (penciler), Andy Owens & Rod Ramos (inkers), Hi-Fi Designs (colors), Comicraft (letters)

Summary:  In Egypt, Cable leads a group of rebels against the Living Pharaoh.  He’s joined by his wife, Aliya.  After invading his sanctuary, Cable’s team is ambushed by Living Pharaoh and the amalgamation of Cyclops and Apocalypse.  The Living Pharaoh boasts that he allowed some of the mutants to live in order to serve his purposes.  Cable realizes that this reality is a fraud, and that Aliya is truly dead.  He awakens in Apocalypse’s lair, questioning if Apocalypse can ever be defeated.

Continuity Notes:  

• According to Cable, Apocalypse still maintains some of the Twelve’s combined reality-warping powers after merging with Cyclops.  He’s created this new reality in order to “recreate the Twelve circuit.”
• The alternate reality designs on cover don’t exactly match the ones inside the issue.  Sunfire’s design is entirely different, as he merely dresses like a samurai inside.

Review:  This is a good example of how badly Marvel misunderstood the initial popularity of “Age of Apocalypse.”  Overlooking that the quasi-sequel “Ages of Apocalypse” lacked the scale and issue count to truly sell the new reality, it fails because it just assumes that new realities are automatically interesting.  If that were true, What If…? would have never been cancelled.  “Age of Apocalypse” connected with readers because they had never seen dark dystopia done with such conviction in the X-titles, and because it’s actually fun to discern the new continuity.  Without Xavier to found the X-Men, how would the life of every mutant in the Marvel Universe be different?  You could play that game for hours.

This storyline doesn’t give us a firm breaking off point for the new continuity, which leads to each chapter reading like random alternate realities that the writers are killing time in this month.  Apparently, there’s nothing more exciting for Cable to do in this new reality than lead soldiers into battle, and then get captured in time for the issue to be over.  There’s some effort put into selling his feelings for his late wife, but the scenes lack any real emotion (and Jeph Loeb already did a similar bit earlier in his run.)  The only redeeming element of the issue is Bernard Chang’s art, which doesn’t present any brilliant alternate reality makeovers, but is still well-constructed and nice to look at.

CABLE #76 - February 2000

In My Eyes
Credits:  Joe Pruett (writer), Bernard Chang (penciler), Jon Holdredge (inker), Brain Miller & Hi-Fi Design (colors), Comicraft’s Saida Temofonte (letters)

Summary:  Cable wakes to discover he’s being held captive with the rest of the Twelve.  A strange energy signature appears, and suddenly Cyclops and Cable are in Cable’s future.  The two discuss their relationship, and Cyclops reassures Cable that he is the son he’s always wanted.  Suddenly, Cable finds himself in the snow, alone.  He enters a cabin and discovers Madelyne Pryor is inside, holding Cyclops captive.  Madelyne offers to live with Cable in peace within the Psionic Plane forever, but he refuses.  He demands she release Cyclops and allow them to face Apocalypse.  Madelyne agrees and says goodbye.

Continuity Notes: 

• This story is continued in X-Men #97.
• Cable grows progressively younger while talking to Cyclops in the Psionic Plane.  He’s a teenager (virtually identical to X-Man, of course) holding his wife’s body while flashing back through his life.  I don’t think the implication is that Cable actually was a teenager when Aliya died, he just happens to mention her while stuck in this age.  Just to be clear, Cable was well into adulthood when Aliya (then using her codename “JenSkot”) was killed in Cable #1’s flashback.
• Cable declares himself an X-Man, “just like my father,” which appears to be setting up his membership during Chris Claremont’s brief return to the main titles.

Review:  Following the worst issue of the series’ entire run (and perhaps the worst X-comic of the ‘90s), there’s nowhere to go but up.  And this issue is actually Joe Pruett’s best so far, as he takes the space he’s been given to fill before the next stage of the crossover and simply uses it for a Cable/Cyclops character piece.  In retrospect, it’s obvious that the editorial staff had already decided to kill Cyclops off at this point, which explains his discussions with Cable regarding death and sacrifice.  Of course, we all know that Marvel never had any commitment to this death, so the scenes don’t have the impact Pruett probably thought that they would have, but they stand on their own fairly well.  After reuniting Cable with Cyclops, Pruett then moves on to crazy ol’ Madelyne Pryor.  Madelyne was used horrifically following her resurrection in X-Man, but there is at least a nice sentiment here.  Sensing Cable near death, she’s called him and his father together in the Psionic Plane where they can be reunited as a family.  This is as sympathetic as Madelyne gets, following “Inferno,” and it’s actually a surprisingly sentimental scene.  Cable refuses to hide from his destiny, and the story ends with everyone back in place to be bored by Apocalypse for a few more months.  Unfortunately, this is the first issue in the run to give an indication of what Pruett might be capable of, and it’s almost his last issue.

CABLE #74 - December 1999

Mind Games
Credits: Joe Pruett (writer), Bernard Chang (penciler), Jon Holdredge (inker), Gloria Vasquez (colors), Comicraft’s Saida Temofonte (letters)

Summary: Caliban attacks the team, injuring Proudstar. He abruptly leaves, following the call of Apocalypse’s new Horseman of War, Deathbird. X-Force follows, only to be ambushed by Caliban’s new psionic pestilence powers. Cable enters the Astral Plane to rescue the team, not realizing that this was a trap designed to steal Cable’s physical body while his consciousness was distracted. Cable later awakens in Apocalypse’s custody. Meanwhile, Stacey and Irene reflect on Cable’s impact on their lives.

Continuity Notes: Apocalypse has given Caliban pestilence powers that somehow don’t work physically, but instead attack the mind. For unexplained reasons, Moonstar, Domino, Meltdown, and Jesse Bedlam aren’t affected by his powers.

Review: This is Joe Pruett’s strongest issue so far, and perhaps not coincidentally, it’s also another non-Liefeld issue (the second in four issues). Pruett’s awkward prose is paired back dramatically this time, and he actually manages to write adequate exchanges between the cast. It’s not perfect, of course, as he clumsily hammers home the idea that this is a “new” compassionate Cable, but this is much easier to read than his previous issues. Pruett, or perhaps someone in editorial, has seen fit to outright state that this warmer, fuzzier Cable will be rejoining X-Force in order to look after his former charges, which is likely a hint that no one working on the books had any idea what “Counter-X” was going to be at this point.

And while it’s easy to mock Liefeld for missing half of the issues of his run so far, at least we got Bernard Chang as a fill-in. Some of his facial expressions are still bizarre, but for the most part, he’s able to do a great action issue in that “chunky” post-manga style that was emerging during this time. His scenes in the Astral Plane, which cast the action as a montage within a film strip, are particularly nice.

NEW MUTANTS #1-#3, November 1997 - January 1998

Truth or Dare Death

Credits: Ben Raab (writer), Bernard Chang (penciler), Mark Pennington (inker), Comicraft’s Liz Agraphiotis (letters), Tom Vincent (colors)

I guess enough years had passed for New Mutants nostalgia to kick in by 1997. Most of the one-shots and limited series cranked out of the X-office during this era were blatantly unnecessary, but reviving the original New Mutants feels like a credible start for a miniseries. The story has the New Mutants of the later Claremont issues (Mirage, Sunspot, Cannonball, Wolfsbane, Cypher, Warlock, Magma, and Magik) training in a Danger Room simulation of Limbo. Magik is visited by a mysterious robed figure, who offers vague hints about her future. After a game of truth or dare, Magik decides to teleport to the future to learn her fate, and the New Mutants tag along. In the present, the surviving New Mutants (and Douglock, who snuck along with Wolfsbane) return to the mansion for a reunion. They run into their teenage selves, and when Douglock stupidly blurts out that Magik should be dead, she runs away. She’s comforted by the robed figure, who reveals himself as her brother, Mikhail Rasputin.

Ben Raab did a lot of work on the peripheral X-titles in the mid-90s, some good and some bad, but what this issue has going for it is Raab’s obvious affection for the characters. Right down to which character had a crush on the other (which always seemed to be changing in the early issues, just like high school), Raab seems to know the New Mutants. He even acknowledges that Sunspot and Karma have never met Douglock, which is a moment a lot of writers would’ve ignored (I forgot that Sunspot had mysteriously vanished during Douglock’s early appearances, although it seems like he would’ve at least known about Douglock by now). Kitty Pryde’s cameo in the flashback scenes also feels like a moment from the original issues, as she tries to reassure Illyana after her first encounter with Mikhail. Using Mikhail as the villain uses continuity to the story’s advantage, as we’ve never seen Magik interact with her brother before. Of course, Mikhail suffers from indescribably powerful (and vague) abilities and motivations that usually don’t go further than “he’s crazy,” so having him as the villain might raise its own issues.

Family Matters

Credits: Ben Raab (writer), Bernard Chang (penciler), Mark Pennington (inker), Comicraft’s Liz Agraphiotis (letters), Tom Vincent (colors)

Mikhail returns with Magik, explaining that he’s developed another new use of his powers -- time travel. He contacted Magik in the past and planted the idea for her to travel to the present, where he hopes to prevent her death. The adult New Mutants are suspicious, and debate over whether or not reality should be altered to save Magik’s life. Perhaps because this is only a three-issue mini, Raab rushes through their conversation and has several members matter-of-factly state that reality shouldn’t be altered, period. I would expect the heroes to eventually come to that conclusion, but they’re reaching it rather quickly and unemotionally.

Even more ridiculous is their decision to charge into battle against Mikhail and the teenage New Mutants, all based on the assumption that Mikhail has “something to hide.” I can understand the appeal of pitting the grown team versus the teenage team, and the fight scene does have its moments, but Raab isn’t giving the characters enough motivation for these actions. If one side was going to fight the other, it seems like the impetuous teenagers would’ve been the first to strike, anyway. In the end, Karma (who’s leaning towards resurrecting Magik, unlike most of the adults) turns against her team and joins Mikhail. Karma puts the older New Mutants to sleep, as Mikhail begins the next phase of his plan; only now the teenage Wolfsbane is having doubts. Like I said, the character work is enjoyable, but it feels like a lot of space has been wasted on a hero vs. hero fight with a shoddy motivation.

Letting Go

Credits: Ben Raab (writer), Bernard Chang (penciler), Mark Pennington (inker), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters), Tom Vincent (colors)

Using advanced technology, Mikhail claims that he’s successfully removed the genes that will lead to Magik’s future Legacy Virus infection. Cypher is suspicious, and later checks Mikhail’s records for verification. Aside from learning that he’s dead in this time period, Cypher discovers that Mikhail actually infected Magik with the Legacy Virus. Simultaneously, the adult New Mutants are freed with the help of the teenage Wolfsbane. Mikhail prepares to fight them, until Cypher arrives and reveals the truth. Mikhail explains that he’s infected with the Legacy Virus, and that his plan was to infect Magik with the virus while she had her magical powers, hoping that her magic could create antibodies. His plan exposed, Mikhail teleports away, although he doesn’t know yet if his plan worked, and none of these characters are really a threat to him anyway.

Mikhail’s exit is supposed to be an emotional departure, after Magik rebukes him when he asks for her forgiveness. This isn’t a total copout, as Raab humanizes Mikhail to the point that he does seem legitimately remorseful, and his claim that he’s creating a cure to help all of mutantkind seems somewhat genuine. Of course, he’s now the man responsible for infecting his kid sister with the Legacy Virus, and his gamble that Magik could beat the disease didn’t pay off. Now that everyone’s appropriately weepy, the two teams say goodbye as Karma removes the teenagers’ memories of these events. Raab’s been hinting throughout the mini that Karma’s psychic powers are developing rapidly, granting her new abilities. I guess the new powers were always intended to erase the teen New Mutants’ memories of the events, thus explaining why none of the characters remembered meeting their future selves. Well, if the X-books would’ve stuck to the “official” rules of Marvel time travel laid out by Mark Gruenwald, Raab wouldn’t have needed to go through the trouble. Time travel is supposed to create new realities automatically, which means this story’s claim that Mikhail is responsible for Magik’s death in Uncanny X-Men #303 is dubious at best, and a new reality would’ve been created by this time travel adventure.

So, the mini has a few plot problems (and some atrocious dialogue, like “Time t’kick it old school!”, begins to crop up in the final issue), but I found myself enjoying it. Raab obviously likes the New Mutants, and he’s constructed a story that uses the characters rather effectively, so it’s hard to totally dismiss the book. I’m also happy to see Bernard Chang, a penciler severely underused during this era, show up as artist. Chang’s drawing in a slightly angular, “chunky” style that resembles a more restrained Ed McGuiness, and it looks great. The original New Mutants title had its fair share of left-of-center artists (like Kevin Nowlan, and the kids just loved him), so he’s a fitting choice for the series. I could see Chang drawing the original series in this style; although I imagine it would’ve been printed with terrible flexographic printing on a slightly yellow paper stock.

X-MEN #58 – November 1996

Testament
Credits: Scott Lobdell & Ralph Macchio (writers), Bernard Chang (penciler), Jon Holdredge (inker), Comicraft (lettering), Joe Rosas & Graphic Colorworks (colors)

Summary: Storm visits the Morlock Tunnels to honor the anniversary of the Morlock Massacre. She unexpectedly finds Gambit at the Morlock burial chamber. He claims that he read about the massacre in the X-Men’s files and wanted to pay his respects. Meanwhile, Graydon Creed appears on a talk show. Iceman’s father stands up in the audience and challenges Creed’s anti-mutant positions. At the mansion, Joseph interrupts Rogue in her sleep, telling her he’s discovered a possible solution to her inability to touch people. She tells him to leave until she gets dressed. Joseph grows tired of waiting and returns to her window to check on her. Gambit spots him and attacks, assuming the worst. The two fight until Rogue emerges and chastises them both. Elsewhere, Havok spies on J. Jonah Jameson.

Continuity Notes: This is the first issue that suggests a connection between Gambit and the Morlock Massacre. It’s not exactly subtle, as the narrative caption claims that the words “ultimately responsible” linger in Gambit’s mind and evoke thoughts he “would rather not dwell upon just now”. This comes after months of speculation in Wizard’s letters page that Gambit had some role in the massacre (after it had been confirmed that Gambit had some past with Mr. Sinister, who ordered the attack). I sometimes wonder if the creators at this time took fan theories from Wizard and actually used them (the revelation that Cable is Cyclops’ son was preceded by months of speculation in Wizard).

Bernard Chang apparently didn’t have a reference for the “feral” Wolverine, as he’s drawn normally here.

Since Uncanny X-Men #325 also took place on the anniversary of the Morlock Massacre, this means that one year of real time has passed between those issues (only thirteen months separate their publication). Or maybe we’re supposed to view the Morlock Massacre’s anniversary the same way we view Christmas in the Marvel Universe.

Review: I remember this as a dire era for this particular X-Men series. I barely recall anything about the stories; I just remember rotating fill-in artists and a never-ending series of time-killing filler plotlines. This issue doesn’t exactly prove me wrong. The strong hint that Gambit was involved in the Morlock Massacre gives the issue some significance, even though it’s another two years before an actual resolution is given. The rest of the issue consists of a pointless fight scene and a few brief setups for Uncanny X-Men’s storylines. The early Bernard Chang artwork is nice, even though he has a frustrating habit of giving his female characters the tiniest, skinniest necks I’ve ever seen (I realize this is an odd complaint, but it’s always bugged me). I didn’t care for his clean, cartoonish style when I first read this issue, but it’s aged well. It bears no resemblance to the very ‘90s looking cover, thankfully.

Ralph Macchio, who occasionally showed up as a fill-in writer on the X-books around this time, is credited as co-writer. I suspect he scripted the issue, as some of the speech patterns are off and the dialogue is much stiffer than Lobdell’s typical work. Marvel had developed a reputation over the years as a company that hired its own editors over actual freelancers as writers, which is something Bob Harras supposedly wanted to end. For some reason, Ralph Macchio (who was editing the Spider-titles at this point) would still randomly show up on the occasional issue like this for the next few years. It’s an extremely generic script, and I suspect it was written as a last minute fill-in.

The most annoying aspect of the story is the sudden conversion of Iceman’s father. After Lobdell spent years portraying him as a comically exaggerated bigot, he’s suddenly taking a public stand for mutant rights. Given his previous characterization, an internal monologue explaining his radical change of mind probably would’ve felt forced, but it would at least be better than what we get here. His characterization is drastically changed with no explanation, and there’s no insight from Iceman outside of, “Way to go, Dad!” Complaining about a minor supportive cast member’s erratic characterization might seem excessively nitpicky, but it’s representative of the sloppy storytelling that’s emerged in this era.

CABLE #36 – October 1996

The Gift
Credits: Jeph Loeb (writer), Bernard Chang (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering), Mike Thomas & Graphic Colorworks (colors)

Summary: In the aftermath of the Onslaught battle, Cable’s techno-organic virus has again consumed his body. Nathaniel Richards, the scientist father of Mr. Fantastic, tries to save his life. Cannonball, Domino, Storm, Caliban, and Franklin Richards watch anxiously as Cable’s condition deteriorates. Franklin declares that he will help Cable, and soon Cable’s astral form is reunited with his son Tyler. Tyler relieves Cable of his guilt over his death, and encourages him to pursue his destiny. After Nathaniel Richards gives Cable minutes to live, Franklin begins to cry. Cable’s spirit is then reunited with his late wife, Aliya. She encourages him to keep fighting before saying goodbye. In reality, Cable awakens and suppresses the virus, returning his body back to normal. Cable wonders if it was Franklin, or his internal resolution that saved him.

Continuity Notes: Cannonball refers to Tyler as Cable’s adopted son, which confirms what had been long implied. I assume that Tyler wasn’t made a blood relative because Marvel didn’t want such a minor character to have the all-important Summers genes. According to this issue, Cable named him Tyler, so he presumably knew him at a young age.

Review: This resolves the “Cable’s virus is out of control” storyline that had been running since the X-Man crossover. I never cared for the idea that Cable has to fight to keep the virus in check, mainly because the only drama it leads to usually involves Cable concentrating really hard and making pained faces. I understand that the virus exists in part to keep Cable’s powers at a reasonable level, but that doesn’t mean that stories about the virus itself are inherently interesting. This specific story tries to get around the “Cable tries really hard” resolution to his infection. Loeb instead goes with the inspirational dream route, as Cable is reunited with his late wife and son. Their conversations are a little cliché, but the sappiness is at least bearable. I believe this is the first time Tyler’s been presented in a sympathetic light, which is amusing since he’s already been killed off at this point.

In retrospect, it’s strange that Marvel kept pushing these retconned aspects of Cable, even as his popularity continued to dwindle. Cable was initially a mysterious mutant with scarcely any powers who had to rely on guns to survive. Now he’s potentially the most powerful mutant on Earth, who has to fight a science fiction disease while fulfilling the destiny given to him by a quasi-religious order in the future. I personally find Cable’s characterization more tolerable during this period, but he’s clearly had a lot grafted on to him, and later writers have struggled with how to deal with it.