Cable # 1-15, X-Force # 14-16, X-Force/Cable: Second Coming
one-shot, and Cable: King-Sized Spectacular
Cable and the baby arrive in an alternate future, and
proceeds to get dragged into a street level battle against the Turnpike
Authority of NYC. Bishop eventually
enters the picture, having stolen time travel technology from Forge and now
obsessed with chasing Cable and killing the baby. Cable holes up with a waitress named Sophie
(he had a bit of thing for waitresses) and eventually, Cannonball (the last
X-Man) arrives to help him out.
Cannonball helps save Cable and allows him to escape to
Westchester. Bishop kills Cannonball
and then proceeds to take charge of a bunch of Turnpike Authority goons. Cable eventually repairs his time machine,
but discovers he can travel into the future.
He and Bishop fight it out, and then Cable jumps into the future, trying
to out-run Bishop. Sophie, inspired and
armed by Cable, kills the leaders of the Turnpike Authority.
In the present, Cyclops leaves a time capsule for
Cable. Cable, still being chased through
the future by Bishop, creates a series of booby-traps (with help from Irene
Merryweather’s descendant). Cable is
able to evade Bishop and heads even further into the future, eventually
discovering a refuge called New Liberty.
New Liberty is supposed to be absolutely protected and undetectable from
the outside world. Here, Cable and baby
are safe. Nathan eventually settles down
marries a woman named Hope, who helps raise the baby. Of course, the peace doesn’t last and evil
humanoid cockroaches invade New Liberty.
He eventually repels the attack, but he, Hope, and the baby need to
escape. They travel across the county,
skipped through time as they do so.
Eventually, they are faced the roach-President, who explains that the
rest of the world has been destroyed, trapping Cable and his family in North
America. Cable kills the President, but
Hope is killed also. Finally, Cable and
the baby find a safehaven, and Cable decides to name the baby Hope (of course,
at this point, she’s like five).
Meanwhile, in the present, Bishop has returned and proceeded
to steal several WMDs. X-Force arrives
and intercepts him, and then drags him in to Cyclops. Cyclops and Emma interrogate him, but get
nowhere. Bishops escapes . . . and then meets up with Stryfe at a bar
called Betty Noirs.
Cable and Hope hide with a military unit, which is able to
eliminate the roaches. The pair leap
into the future, where it’s a wasteland.
Hope is able to find them some rations, causing Cable to wonder if her
Mutant powers have manifested. The two
then finally find Cyclops’ time capsule and then leap further into the future,
where Cable is horrified to discover that Stryfe has risen to power.
In the present, Beast and Cyclops have found Cable and
Bishop in the future and send X-Force to help.
Apocalypse, after being taken to the brink of death by Stryfe and
Bishop, summons Archangel. Cable and Hope
meet with X-Force . . . and then a long-buried Deadpool shows up and teams up
with them. They also discover that they
are unable to time travel from this era for some reason.
There’s a big fight and then Stryfe manages to capture Hope
and Warpath. Bishop attacks Stryfe and
goes to kill Hope once and for all . . . but Stryfe fights back and then the
others come in and there’s more fighting.
Meanwhile, Vanisher, X-23, Domino, and Deadpool discover that it’s X’s
old NYX pal, Kaden (?!) that’s causing the time lock. She forced is to kill Kaden. Stryfe is betrayed by Deadpool and then Wade dies. Apocalypse then arrives and defeats Stryfe
once and for all. Bishop’s robotic arm
is destroyed by Logan. Bishop is able to
lock his sights on Hope again – but Apocalypse steps in. Bishop escapes, but just barely. Apocalypse reveals his own plans for Hope,
but Archangel demands that she is given back to Cable as payback for reviving
him. Apocalypse agrees and goes back
into hibernation, carrying Stryfe back with him.
Cable and Hope leap further into the future, but Hope
spazzes and reaches of X-23 and Elixir.
This throws off their time jump.
Meanwhile, X-Force heads back home.
Hope drops out of the time jump a few years before Cable, causing her to
be on her own for the first time in her life.
The city she lives in is one of the two; this having used Celestial
Technology left behind by Stryfe to either save or escape the dying Earth. The other one is the Unclean City and I
assume they don’t have toilet paper. So
while Hope lives out the next few years on the streets, and being helped by a
boy named Emil. A few years later,
Cable drops out and, in the aftermath of the battle with Stryfe, his
techno-organic virus is out of control.
Bishop finds and fights him, but Cable manages to evade capture. Bishop tracks Hope down to the Celestial city
and tries to hunt her down. Cable
finally meets up with Hope and they get aboard a ship that is bound to leave
the Earth once and for all. Cable
convinces them he’s Stryfe, but a little while later, Hope slips that he’s not
and the two of them are thrown into the brig.
Bishop, Emil, and Stryfetroopers (those loyal to Stryfe’s
message) attack the ship. Not long
afterwards, though, the ships are attacked by the Brood. Bishop makes them a deal, but it costs him
his freedom. Emil manages to get Hope
and Cable into two escape pods and launches them into sleep. Bishop, bound with an Acanti, follow.
Cable and Hope, after two years in space, return to
Earth. She expresses to Cable that she’s
ready to go back to the present. Not
long after this, Bishop (with the Acanti dead) tracks them down again. He cuts Cable’s throat and goes to shoot Hope
– but she uses telekinesis to stop the bullet.
She thoroughly defeats him and Cable steals his temporal components. Cable and Hope leap back in time . . . only to
end up in 1614. Bishop, somehow tied to
the time machine, travels back with them.
They fight again. They leap
again, this time 2493. They fight
again. They leap to 1776 and fight some
more. 2220. Fight.
2224 and, hey, there’s Sophie and the Turnpike Authority! She teams up with Cable and Hope, just as
Bishop takes over some of the Authority again.
There’s a chase. Sophie dies and
Cable and Hope leap back into the past – 1933 – and proceed to fight Bishop
again. They leap again, this time to 1953. Fight. And then Cable and Hope get to relative
safety and start leaping WITHOUT fight Bishop.
2043, 1967, 2019, 1978. Oop! There’s Bishop again. They fight it out, Hope leaps in, and Cable
presets the time components and slips it onto Bishop. Bishop goes shooting into the future,
6700. The world is dying and nearly dead
due to all the destruction Bishop brought upon it. Dying and with time components broken, he
realizes that his actions helped shape Hope’s life just as much as Cable’s,
making him her father as much as Nathan.
Hope and Cable finally jump forward just a bit, to
1991. They raid Cable’s storage locker
and then prep to arrive to the present.
Wow. That took all
day to write.
I think what’s interesting about this particular title and
it’s crossover with X-Force is that it’s fairly self-contained. It’s a straight-forward liner title that
provides one big story, from beginning to end.
I really wish there were more books like this (and, to an extent,
Wolverine Origins). I’m not exactly sure I can I’m satisfied by this particular
story, but I do like it. The journey
that Cable, Hope, and Bishop make is rather harrowing and exciting. The world that is created for them is quite
twisted and grim; there were points where I just kept questioning “how bad is
this going to get?” And then it gets
worse.
One of my beefs with this remain with Bishop’s
characterization. It’s difficult to
watch him become such a villain. The
Bishop mini-series does help somewhat, but not enough to really sell that he’s
gone as far as he has. Making bargains
with Stryfe and Brood? Destroying the
whole world, just on the prescedent that “it won’t exist?” It’s a hard sell and I’m sorry to say, it
just doesn’t deliever. It also bothers
me that Bishop gets such a dark fate at the end. It makes sense, given the context of the
story, but geez!
There is an argument to made that Bishop had been slowing
separating himself from the X-Men for a while.
Since the dissolutionment of the X-Treme X-Men team, he went off and
worked in District X as a cop. After
that, there was the time he worked with ONE and then, during the Civil War,
joined Iron Man’s side against the X-Men.
Since then, there had been some tension between the two. So, it is fair to say that Bishop really
wasn’t completely on the side of angels by the time that Hope was born. On the other hand, this was a man that
worshipped the X-Men as a child and had even nearly given his life to defend
them from the traitor that was Onslaught.
Now, to have the tables turned so massively, just . . . just doesn’t
completely sit right.
As for Cable, well, this made for an interesting mission for
him. Cable has been one of those
characters that has evolved so perfectly over the years that it makes sense
that this is his next step. What’s
interesting about this is that it also forces Cable to step into the role of
being a father. In fact, the best
moments of this series are the ones of Nathan learning to be a real father to
Hope. Given his track record with Tyler
and, to a certain extent, Sam, it’s definitely more of a success this time
around.
I’m not sure if this is the popular opinion, but I’m big fan
of Hope. I love that we see her grow –
like really, literally, grow - from being a baby to being a kid to being a
preteen to being a teen. She’s showing
as a constant work in progress and the moment that she decides to go back to
the present is the defining one of this series.
Scott’s role in the series is rather peripheral, but it
works well. I liked the crap Hank gives
(and continues to give him) about X-Force.
All in all, this is decent storyline. I placed it here simply so because it’s where X-Force goes and the events revolving around Messiah War are pretty tightly written. So there we go! Hope and Cable are on their way!
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