Writer: Duane Swierczynski
Artist: Ariel Olivetti
Cable is still on the run from Bishop, carrying the mutant girl who is either the last hope of mutantkind (according to the X-Men) or the harbinger of the end of the world (according to Bishop). He and the girl are hiding out in a hidden valley somewhere in the near future.
Meanwhile, back in the present, X-Force have captured Bishop, and the X-Men spend a large part of the issue interrogating him and arguing over the significance of the child. The discussion might have been interesting if we hadn’t already heard it several times over the past six months. We’re basically still where we were at the end of Messiah Complex. In any case, this issue gets away from the chase a bit, and that’s appreciated. This cat & mouse game between Cable and Bishop (the basic set-up of the book) is tedious and dreadful.
Duane Swierczynski is a good writer but the premise of the new Cable series is limiting him. However, with this issue, he appears ready to take the book in a new direction, and I am quite pleased with that. He is quite adept at character work. Still I am not certain if I like the idea of Bishop as a traitor, psychopath, even with the whole “Would you kill Hitler as a baby to prevent the Holocaust?” angle. I think that’s just making things way too simple, storytelling-wise.
Ariel Olivetti is a talented artist, always delivering. Just his drawing the baby so far I am not sure if it was on the point. But he’s much better with drawing toddlers, apparently, as the girl (having aged a few years since #1) looks pretty normal.
In any event, the issue was an improvement over the first five.
Rating : 6/10
