Cable #6 – Review

Duane Swierczynski (Writer), Ariel Olivetti (Artist- Cable Scenes), Michael Lacombe (Artist-Cyclops Scenes), & Val Staples (Colorist-Cyclops Scenes)

For fans of the X-Men, Cable # 6 is a must read.

Finally, after five issues of drawn out plot, we get an issue that not only gives us some development, but context and character beats as well. Although Adi Granov’s beautiful cover insinuates that Cyclops and Cable meet physically, the father and son do not. Instead, we follow Cyclops in his struggle with doubt and guilt concerning Cable and the baby, the clandestine mission of X-Force, and the decision to kill a certain traitor.

Cable himself appears sparsely in this issue, but by the end, the reader is reminded how much rides on his success in keeping the messiah child from harm. Furthermore, the focus on Cyclops realigns the series and its title character with the meta-narrative of the X-books. X-Men must protect the mutant race at any cost, even if it comes to murder. As solider, Cable is familiar with those decisions, but ironically its his younger father that struggles with it.

We return to a critical moment in Divided We Stand that causes Cyclops this confluence of uncertainty and guilt. We pick up right where Cyclops sends Wolverine to kill Mystique in Wolverine # 62. As Wolverine heads out to do what he does best, Warpath and X-23 enter and report the escape of Bishop off Muir Island. As Cyclops instructs the two to find Bishop, Warpath asks, “With or without a pulse.” “Either,” he replies. His decision to kill both Mystique and Bishop was in the heat of the moment, kept to himself without query or argument.

So now that he’s had time to mull over his decisions, it eats away at him. And though he may side step the issue with Emma and the others, he cannot escape the guilt of making such decisions and the possibility that they will fail. The resolution is dramatic and touching, and gives the series a jolt of life.

Cable isn’t the same blow-it-up series of the 1990s, but an integral part of the X-Men’s future with emotion and passion. And explosions. And a baby. (Grade: A-)

-Steven M. Bari