Avengers: X-Sanction #1
Written by Jeph Loeb
Art by Ed McGuinness, Dexter Vines, and Morry Hollowell
The short of it:
Cable isn’t dead, but he has twenty-four hours to live. His apparent death sent him into the future where everything is gone save for his mentor Blaquesmith. Cable has a new mission, and it won’t be pretty. His techno virus taking over, he returns to the past to stop the Avengers before they can bring about the future he saw. This leads to the preview that Marvel has been running lately, and an awesome fight with Captain America.
What I liked:
- I don’t think I could imagine a better creative team for this book. Jeph Loeb brings a very 90’s approach to the story telling, getting the basic plot established without skimping on the action. Ed McGuinness brings his a game, and it is much appreciated.
- Blaquesmith is back and I am happy about it. I missed Cable’s mentor, and I missed people calling him Askani’son.
- I love the X tattoo on Cable’s flesh arm. It just screams “90’s” in all the right ways.
- Cable versus Captain America made for a pretty awesome fight, and despite having seen the covers and previews, I didn’t really think they’d pull it off to start things.
- I probably shouldn’t have liked this, but I found an odd sense of joy out of seeing Falcon job out so hard.
What I didn’t like:
- The dialog is a little…painful at times. “Good job, Redwing!” Cap yells at the bird. Really? Spider-Man’s attempts at humor were also lacking. Really, Cable has arguably the best dialog in the issue (followed by Cap during the fight), and it’s still pretty stiff.
- While I do think it’s firmly in character for Cable to be doing what he’s doing to save his daughter, I can’t help but say what I always think when I’ve read Loeb’s work over the last few years…I understand that he lost his son to cancer, but do all of his books have to be about parents fighting to not lose their children in one way or another? I knew going in that this would all be about Cable protecting Hope just because that’s what Loeb writes.
- Is it just me or is Cable blatantly being played?
Final thoughts:
A lot of people credit Long Halloween, Dark Victory, or even Hush as the story that turned them on to Jeph Loeb. Well, a lot of people I talk to, take that as you will. Occasionally I’ll hear Spider-Man Blue, or Daredevil Yellow, a few people are new and say Superman/Batman or Hulk. The point is that most people started buzzing about him with his Batman work and everything to come after. Not me. My first experiences with Jeph Loeb as a writer were X-Force, Cable, X-Man, and his Heroes Reborn work. I remember him writing at Marvel, and I remember it all pretty fondly. My first ever issue of Cable was written by Jeph Loeb, and I’ve never forgotten that. So for me, seeing him back on Cable is a heavy dose of nostalgia that I was wary of because, to be honest, I haven’t been a fan of him since…I want to say the third arc of Superman/Batman. So the fact that I loved this issue only speaks that much more about the energy he brought to this book, he managed to erase all of my doubts before the issue was even half through.
This book takes me back to the 90’s, and while I know some people still treat that like a dirty word…well, they didn’t grow up in them. Extreme is awesome! Big muscles, big guns, hero versus hero action for potentially misguided reasons, and best of all? No decompression. It’s not compressed, but it’s not decompressed, it’s the nice happy medium of awesome. You get the plot out of the way in the first issue so that the rest can be spent with action and twists.
So the point of the mini is that Cable has to kill the Avengers, but Avengers vs. X-Men seems to start right as X-Sanction ends, so it seems obvious that he fails. Obvious incoming twist? Honestly, I don’t mind, the book is fun enough that I can get past the obviously implausible outcome of the Avengers getting killed.
Overall: 8.5/10
