Customer Reviews

Askani'Son (X-Men) (Marvel Comics)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Scott Lobdell had the unenviable task of trying to sort out the Summers family tree in the time-traveling series The Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix (X-men and Cable), but he, along with artist Gene Ha, pulled it off with flying colors. The series was successful enough (and the Cable character still popular enough) that they went back to the well for a sequel, entitled Askani'son. This 4-issue limited series picks up right where ACP left off, finding Nathan Dayspring/Summers (a.k.a. the kid who would become Cable) moping around without a purpose after killing Apocalypse. Unfortunately, that's about all he does for the entire series, which, aside from "introducing" characters like Blaquesmith and the Professor, really doesn't seem at all noteworthy.

The story - or lack thereof - is what really kills Askani'son. Where there was a critically important series of events in the Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, it feels like Scott Lobdell and Jeph Loeb are just treading water here. The key events in this series would barely have qualified as footnotes in ACP, and the whole 4-issue series could have been condensed into a single one-off issue of the regular Cable series (an annual, perhaps).

The artwork, on the other hand, is absolutely spectacular, and is the book's only saving grace. Gene Ha has such a unique, detail-oriented style, and it's his penciling more than anything else that makes this grim future world so believable.

I'd give Askani'son 1 star for the story and 4 for the artwork, which leaves an overall rating of 2.5 stars. I'm going to round this down just because it was such a disappointing follow up to the first limited series. I'd only recommend Askani'son to the most obsessive Cable/X-Men fan, and even then you could skip it without missing anything critical to the X-Men continuity.

The further adventures of Nathan Summers as he grows up to become the man known as Cable. Scott Summers is his father and Jean Grey is his mother (sort of), all other details you can find out as you read this story. To say it gets a bit confussing would be an understatement.