Cable #7 – Review

By Duane Swierczynski (Writer) and Ariel Olivetti (Artist)

Let’s talk about padding.

That’s right, padding. You know, when you stretch things out with lots of stuff that doesn’t really have any substance? Let’s fiiiiiiiiiilllll things in with a little padding.

Padding.

Cable #7 is full of it. Padding, that is. I know that comics no longer proceed at the same break-neck pace they used to, and when this story is collected in the inevitable TPB maybe it will seem like the calm before the storm, but as a stand-alone, this issue is all talk and no action. Cable is still on the run, carrying the mutant girl who is either the last hope of mutantkind or the harbinger of the end of the world. He and the child, who is now a young girl (a redhead, hmmm…), are hiding out in an extremely boring valley somewhere in the future– a future that looks exactly like the present as far as I can tell. Part of the problem is Olivetti’s art, which is nice but static, with flat compositions and unimaginative backgrounds.

Meanwhile, back in the present, the X-Men have finally captured Bishop, and a large part of the issue is spent on his interrogation and argument over the significance of the child. The discussion might be 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.

It’s not a bad book by any means, but it’s not exciting either. Hopefully things will pick up next issue. (Grade: C+)

– Andrew C. Murphy