Cable #13 or Would That Be Messiah War #2?: The Curse of Continuity

When Marvel first announced the Messiah War cross-over that would incorporate the X-Force series into the events that have been slowly unfolding in Duane Swierczynski's masterful run on Cable, I was genuinely enthused. Swierczynski's book has been so consistently satisfying over the year or so it has been running that adding another title with its attendant infusion of character and narrative development must simply mean more of a good thing. At least that was how my thinking went at the time. Upon reflection, it occurs to me that I should have realized that such thinking was naïve. Rather than raising the quality of the supplemental series, the result of wrapping another X-book into the narrative of Cable has instead subjected Swierczynski's great series to the ultimate killer of good comics: continuity.

I've said before and I am still willing to hold to the assertion that Cable is the strongest mainstream superhero series going. One of the paradoxically great things about wrapping the book into a continuity-based, multi-series event narrative is that the faults of the current issue help to crystallize precisely why the series up to now has been so good. The most obvious example of this is evidenced by the unusually high proportion of pages of the current issue devoted to exposition, which is something the series had largely avoided up to now. The problem with including large amounts of exposition in a comic--aside from the obvious exclusionary factor that comes with back-story heavy books--is that very few writers are skilled enough to seamlessly incorporate the necessary background information into the action of the book and instead you end up with page after page of relatively static panels featuring one character recounting information to another and a whole lot of text.

Consider as an example the difference between Mike Mignola's first several Hellboy story arcs, in which the first several pages often featured little more than panel after panel of Hellboy and Professor Bruttenholm sitting in an office with huge text-filled speech bubbles laying out a tome's worth of mythological minutiae and more recent Hellboy stories, such as the great one-shot In the Chapel of Moloch, in which the attendant mythological background is skillfully woven into the narrative. In the case of Cable #13, Olivetti's brilliant illustrations--ironically perhaps the best yet for this series--mitigate this problem somewhat, but in the end it's still a book in which nothing happens.

Another glaring problem becomes apparent as Bishop is giving us his internal monologue explaining how he recruited Stryfe into his Messiah-killing enterprise. It suddenly dawned on me at this point that the entire story hinges on Bishop's going to extraordinary lengths to retroactively nullify his existence. Even considering his harrowing life in the mutant concentration camps, this is a wildly problematic premise and it undermines the structure of the story. One great irony in this is that the concomitantly running The Life and Times of Lucas Bishop comes off as something of a power-of-the-human-spirit-in-the-face-of-great-adversity story, something which is belied by Bishop's apparent raison d'être in Cable.

Of course this has been the case throughout the entire run of the series, but somehow it never occurred to me or never mattered before this point. The truly ridiculous part is that Bishop lets on that he is aware that Stryfe plans to kill him as soon as he's destroyed Cable and that for this reason he plans on taking out Stryfe first. In the subsequent panel, he admits that once Cable and Hope are dead, "all of this will go away." What, then, is the point of preëmptively killing Stryfe?

I made reference above to the fact that issue #13 is a comic in which nothing happens. The strange thing about that is that Cable has pretty much always been a book in which nothing, or anyway, very little happens. But there is a difference between a comic with strange and wonderful illustrations in which little happens outside of the peregrinations of a weird, old, granite-jawed, quasi-robotic soldier and a little red-haired girl and a comic in which little happens outside of the arguments between annoying, wise-cracking mutant heroes who are ostensibly allies. As I mentioned above, Olivetti's illustrations are perhaps better than they have ever been on this series and this is almost enough to convince me to continue with the Messiah War enterprise . . . almost. One can only hope that there will be enough of the series's wonderful weirdness remaining at the conclusion of this event for it to regain something of its former glory.

Powerful Panels: Cable #11 by Jamie McKelvie and Duane Swierczynski

Ariel Olivetti's art has been such an integral part of the success of the current Cable series that the abrupt and dramatic shift to that of Jamie McKelvie that happens on page 8 of the current issue at first seems like a profound mistake. That said, like a lot of things that at first glance have seemed ill-advised or even absurd in Swierczynski's paradoxically superb series, this shift reveals itself upon reflection to fit perfectly within the larger framework of the series.

McKelvie's art stands in stark contrast to Olivetti's. What makes it work is that it appears just at the moment when Cable and Hope timeslide to a future in which they are quite likely the only living things on the planet. If one could witness the appearance of these two travelers in such a landscape without negating the conceit, the experience of such would likely be as jarring as the transition from Olivetti's hyper-realistic artificiality to McKelvie's cartoonish artificiality.

This particular panel is so critical because it underlines the many and varied sub-textual strands Swierczynski has gradually been introducing into the series. Sure, this issue is about Cable and Hope timesliding into the future to avoid the catastrophic fallout of the bioweapon employed to defeat the cockroach armies and about the difficulties presented by Cable's inability to move anywhere in time except forward. But it is also about the secondary responsibilities of Cable's role as protector of the mutant messiah--namely those associated with fatherhood. It is interesting to note in this regard that for the first time in the series, we see Cable embodying the role of father-who-plays-games with his daughter in the McKelvie illustrated pages.


There are two main threads that are developed in the panels leading up to our focus here. In the first place, we have Cable enacting the role of self-denying father--assuring that his "child" is fed, even if it means going without himself. The word Hope uses to call him on this tactic--"Baloney"--sets up the other major thematic thread, namely the issue of a father's role as preserver of innocence. As Cable asks Hope where she learned that word, we are party to Hope's thoughts in which she reflects that she had ample opportunity to learn new words and concepts from Cable's military counterparts. As we come to the final panel on the page, Hope's thoughts tell us that the things she learned from Zyker and the other soldiers include those that Cable may not yet be ready for her to know.


The composition of this panel and specifically the respective aspects of and relations between the two figures speak volumes for what is going on under the surface of this issue. As Hope's thoughts inform us that Zyker and his comrades presumably taught her words of a sexual nature, her pose suggests that what she learned may have exceeded the bounds of vocabulary. The look on her face as she brings her hand to her opened mouth is one of resigned distaste. The sexualization of this gesture of eating is relatively overt and her aspect at once indicates that this process of sexualization is something with which she is as yet uncomfortable, but which she realizes is inevitable and that her discomfort will gradually diminish; in other words, she is resigned.

Cable's posture and positioning in this panel encapsulates the forest-for-the-trees shortcoming of all over-protective parents. Cable is so focused on the horizon, looking for external threats, that he cannot see those threats that are right in front of him. This sequence presciently foreshadows the crisis at the end of the issue, in which Cable, weakened by lack of food and water, collapses after timesliding once again, leaving Hope utterly vulnerable to whatever she might encounter in this unknown future.


The sexualization of the older, yet still pre-pubescent Hope is presaged by Olivetti's brilliant, but downright creepy cover. As if the comically oversized revolver she wields were not enough, Olivetti gilds that lily with the all too knowing look in her transfixing green eyes and the all too sensual leer of her criminally sensual mouth. What is really effective about all this, however, is that it keeps in the reader's mind all the little unanswered what-the-fucks that have been peppered throughout the series: Why do Little Girl and the older Hope look so similar? Was the older Hope Little Girl's mother and if so, is Cable her father? Are the two Hopes the same and if so, does this mean that Cable has already bedded Little Girl/Hope? I get the sense that none of these questions will ever be satisfactorily answered and this is yet another reason why this series has been so satisfying.

Cable #8 by Duane Swierczynski and Ariel Olivetti

This Cable series has probably been one of the most consistently satisfying comics that I pick up on a monthly basis. It's not really an instant classic like The Depths or All Star Superman, but it's always there and always good. Like Brandon wrote in his praises of issue 7, the series has a distinct Lone Wolf and Cub feel, especially how both Cable and Bishop are shown to both be these honorable guys but on opposite sides of the conflict.

Leading up to this issue, Cable has landed a wife and pretty much settled down to a quiet life, even burying his weapons under concrete. Meanwhile, Bishop has been captured by the X-men, now lead by uber-douche Cyclops. Some of the best moments in this issue are Bishop's response to the torture or Cyclops and the White Queen. These scenes are disturbing because Olivetti shows the pain to Bishop with drool coming out of his mouth, but also because this is the X-Men doing the torture. Only Beast is there to call Cyclops out on his dubious methods and even he's sort of lost the backbone to stand against him like a true X-Man would.

To me, this is clearly a metaphor for what's been going on with the U.S. and their policies towards torture. There's actually an interesting moment in Young X-Men #1 where the new X-Men question Cyclops' methods and he responds that everything has changed since M-day. I think Cable does a good job of showing how complex the issue is. Bishop is obviously this sicko messing with the time stream, ripping out peoples hearts and arms, and even causing global-scale catastrophes, but the comic still shows him as this guy who has honor by fighting for what he believes in.

The series has evolved each issue. It's hard now to think back to issue #1 where it had more of the tone of a 70s post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie. It's not that there have been many momentous events that have taken Cable from issue #1 to #8. The whole series can be summed up with Bishop chasing Cable through time. What has changed are the characters' personalty. Over the course of the series, you can see Bishop grow increasingly more desperate and insane, while Cable grows into the wise battle-weary father he is in this latest issue. This is what makes this series special. You can get action in any comic you pick up, but rarely do comics measure out suspense and character development like Cable.

Cable #7

Duane Swierczynski's Cable series might be the weirdest comic book out there right now. It's full of more insane tone changes and shifts in time and style more than your favorite avant-garde indie. Dunno how conscious it was, but everything about the comic is directed towards being nothing like a comic book starring Cable should be. It started with the plot, which stuck an adorable baby girl in Cable's arm, making it fairly impossible for him to look cool or bad-ass, and it's just sort of spiralled out from there.

In this issue, Cable's living sometime in the future in some weird middle-of-nowhere future town, with a wife and kid. Obviously, this domestic scene's going to be interrupted, but from the minute we see Cable in the situation, it's a little absurd and it's more the place he's ended up than the place he wants to be. It follows the "Lone Wolf & Cub"/"Man With No Name" genre conventions Swierczynski's been playing with: This is the gunslinger or samurai in old-age, trying to get away from it all, but inevitably pulled back in, in part because he wants to pulled back in.

The first time we see Cable in his new setting, it's through a jarring cut away from the issue-opening scene of classic "X-Men" action where Bishop's just got his arm lopped off, to the baby (also aged a few years) racing into Cable's bedroom screaming and leaping onto the bed to wake him (and wife?!). A clever close-up by Olivetti reveals a wedding-ring on one of his metal fingers (itself a sort of absurd image) and it's followed by a woken-up-too-early and grumbling Cable.
The whole thing is sort of intended to be a surprise after the fairly conventional--although slower-paced--X-action we've seen in the series so far. Each frame reveals a small piece of information, the girl running into the room (she's much older now), Cable waking up (why isn't he protecting her closely?), Cable's wife next to him (he's got a wife), Cable grumbling like an angry dad (Cable's like a real dad at this point?). There's also a quick joke that interrupts Cable's thoughts--which are written in a kind of Hemingway hard-ass direct-ness--as he's observing the little girl he says, "I wonder how much you remember", and she's drawing a stick figure with a star on one of its eyes and a belt with a big "X" on it, a smiling little girl next to the figure, and burning buildings all around. Apparently, she remembers a lot.

At the same time of course, what's at stake in this series is very serious and dire. Cable has "the mutant messiah" and is going to great odds to protect it from Bishop who intends to kill it. There's all kinds of interesting but sorta obvious stuff about how and what this "messiah" will do when she grows up and ethical debates of what killing her "now" will and won't do, but other people can discuss that. It's awesome but normal comic book stuff, and what makes Cable so weird is that it mixes this comic book stuff with a kind of weird distance and comfort with absurdity that's somehow not mocking comics and continuity. It has neither the irony of the new Deadpool series and it isn't dead-serious like the "Messiah Complex" arch that Cable feeds into, it's awkwardly working some ground between the two, where it's all pretty serious and pretty silly too.