In the previous issue we saw that Hope was getting ready to travel back into time and save her father.
Hope from the Future and Blaquesmith end up sending our Hope back to the present. Only she is still armed from last issue and Future Hope rips off her cape in order to add in futuristic jet packs. (They quickly explain why they have to send her back to the same location if not the same time that she was taken.)
When she does show up to save Cable, the Uncanny Avengers and Cable’s X-Force are going at it in spectacular fashion. Even though X-Force is clearly outmatched, they are putting up a hell of a fight. The best part? Doctor Nemesis is dropping ‘Dune’ references left and right as he is using a giant sandworm for battle and making fun of people who don’t know them. (For the record ‘Dune’ is one of my favorite novels of all time and even if the rest of the issue was horrible, I would probably give it a near perfect score just for these few priceless moments.)
Hope runs past everyone and bursts into a room with Havok on the floor trapped in a psychic blowout from Cable’s damaged brain. Hope is able to save him just in time by jamming her giant ax (Psimitar) into Cable’s forehead.
Yes, right into her father’s forehead.
Apparently this is exactly what needed to happen as it was able to focus his powers and correct the changes to his mind that Future Hope and Blaquesmith had made. Once in the clear, Havok made a judgement call and has The Avengers stand down. As they are a group of powerful mutant terrorists, they could, of course, find a way to escape in the mess and Havok encourages them to do so as he’s seen some of the mess that’s coming.
Honestly, the way Havok let’s Cable go is some of their best interaction with the series. Havok has been conflicted what to do the entire time and this issue has really hit it out of the ballpark on his responses. (Hope’s comments at the end of the issue are hilarious as well.)
The payoff from what’s been happening went down far too quickly. While obviously it’s not all out there yet – it just felt too fast.
So there we go. Cable and company are once again on the loose saving the day from future menaces. While this issue apparently stabilized Cable we still have quite a few questions. Are his visions gone? If they are how many are left for them to save the world from? How has this changed Cable’s powers? Will we see Stryfette (Future Hope) again? Was she actually good and doing this for everyone’s benefit? Has Hope just become a more direct series regular?
There’s a lot of questions and some of them better be getting answered soon as I feel this story arc has gone on 2 issues too long so far.
Usually I don’t comment on the art in issues. I know it’s something I need to do more but unless it stands out as amazing or bad I let it blend in with how the story is told. This is one of those issues it falls into the bad category. The detail felt lacking as if it was rushed ,which is the first time that’s happened this much for the series and hope it’s not a trend that continues.
‘CABLE AND X-FORCE’ #14
Writer: Dennis Hopeless
Artist: Salvador Larroca
