In the first issue of ‘X-Force’ Spurrier spun us a tale of Cable creating a group to cover the military interests of the fractured mutant nation. Clearly with Hope in a coma, he has his own personal desire for revenge that he is not over sharing with the rest of the world. In this issue we find out more on what Cable has planned, who he’s keeping updated, how Marrow has her powers back, and what Cable is willing to do to get the information he wants. We already pretty much knew that to Cable “sometimes the ends justify the means” and this entire story seems based off of that concept.

While last month’s issue focused on following Marrow’s inner voice, this issue we are walking in the shoes of the big man himself. Cable’s thoughts are pretty solid on what he has planned and he doesn’t pull any punches getting there. Though, he does have a few surprises up his sleeve which shouldn’t be too surprising in itself. While I hope long term not every story is told through a primarily first person view I think it can absolutely do justice to the plot to do one issue in the voice of each character. Of course, Spurrier had me happily surprised with how he handled his run on ‘Legacy‘ so I am absolutely willing to give whatever route he chooses the benefit of the doubt.

So what is Cable up to this issue? While surrounding himself with a team of just the kind of mutants he needs to get the job done, he’s always been somewhat of a solo artist and for the most part he does that here. While he’s updating Cyclops, Havok, Wolverine, Polaris, Magneto, and Mystique of what he’s doing, his team is breaking into a highly guarded master of secrets for a human spy organization. After they break in, Cable bodyslides and they work out a deal. Both of these sequences are running at the same time and work pretty great where we have Magneto taunting Cable about his love for “excessively large guns’ and some great one liners by Doctor Nemsis berating everyone that he can. During this we also find out that while Marrow has her powers back, she isn’t quite the mutant that she used to be.

The man will give Cable the information he wants on who is responsible for the actions they are investigating and in return, they will kill someone for him. Someone who should be unkillable. Another mission goes through and we get some great shots of Cable in action as well as more insight on Meme.

Needless to say it all plays out quite well for Cable though we do get a hint that he’s not letting his team in on everything going on with his life. Of course, it’s a team built on secrets so that shouldn’t be too surprising that we’ll be finding out even more about these characters go on. In the end they did find their target and it was someone I didn’t recognize but he’s apparently very rich and will probably be knee deep in unscrupulous deals and behavior.

There is a lot of details going on and with. I think we’re going to take some building to truly have this series catch its stride but it’s enjoyable to see it all come together.

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X-FORCE #2
Writer: Simon Spurrier
Artist: Rock-He Kim