Customer Reviews

Cable, Vol. 1: Messiah War (v. 1)

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

 

 

Honestly, I wish it were possible to give this title 3.5 stars. I rounded up to be nice.
I am not a follower of the X-titles. Have not been for years. I know a bit about M-Day and the 198 and Endangered Species, but nothing all that specific. Having said that, this is an easy title to follow not knowing those things. The jumping on point is rather easy: Cable's protecting a baby mutant messiah in the future... GO!!
What brought me to the book was the art of Ariel Olivetti which, as I'm finding out, is a bit hit or miss with readers. Personally I am a huge fan, not only of his character drawings but also his ability to bring 3-d animation in for backgrounds and such. Do I believe the look is seamless and perfect? By no means. But I do respect an artist on the edge of technology trying to marry the traditional past with the possible future of how the industry may look.
The story itself goes on a pretty stock, brainless-fun sorta route, borrowing a healthy dose of both Lone Wolf and Cub and Mad Max with a pinch of Spaghetti Western. Not much happens but it does lay the framework for a possibly promising series.
Huge fan of the art, thought the story was merely passable though had its occasional moments of Sci-Fi fanboy fun.

In this book, Cable is traveling through time in order to protect the baby girl summers. Unfortunately, he is being tracked by Bishop who has made it his mission to kill the baby girl. Cable believes that this girl can save the future, while Bishop believes the girl is responsible for destroying it. You also get to see the future of one of the xmen who survived and is there to help Cable. The art in this book is top notch and the story leavs you wanting to read more!

This is a decent start to the series. The story focuses on Cable traveling through the future with first mutant born since M-Day. Cable is charged with protecting her till she is old enough to fulfill her destiny of saving mutantkind (or so it is said.)

The first two issues move pretty fast and play out a bit like an old western. Issues three and four slump a little, and try to give more of a backstory to how Cable and Bishop got to where they are. Theses two issues ultimately just ends up being repetitive and boring though, with Swierczynski trying too hard to shape the reader's view of Cable and Bishop. (We get it, Cable and Bishop are both soldiers from the future. Cable doesn't know how to be a father. Moving on.) Issue five picks up the pace though, and leaves you wanting more. So overall, pretty decent.

Ariel Olivetti's art is awesome to me. I love the way he draws people and the way his fight scenes look. The use of what looks to be computer generated vehicles and weapons in some scenes is a little disappointing, but overall the art is still really good.

Swierczynski does a good job of telling an action story, but doesn't really know what details from past issues to put in. He SOMETIMES has a tendency to explain the obvious and leave out key details. Granted, if you've read a lot of the other issues leading up to this series, that's not a problem anyway.

Somewhere between 3.5 and 4 stars for me.

In the aftermath of Messiah Complex, Cable managed to whisk himself back into the future with the mysterious mutant baby in tow and under his protection. However, as anyone remotely familiar with the X-Men universe or with Cable will tell you, there's probably no place more dangerous than the future either. Once again getting his own solo series, Messiah War finds the always interesting and often mishandled character of Cable taking on all comers in an effort to save all of time. Yeah, it's pretty much the same old story with Cable, but as Messiah War opens, it's pretty entertaining. Sadly, it doesn't take long for things to go downhill, and become convoluted and sadly boring. Like I said, it's the same old story with Cable. Duane Swierczynski's script seems to have some good ideas and at least some plans for events to come, but it just doesn't go anywhere here. Punisher: War Journal artist Ariel Olivetti is on board as well, and if you've read that title at all, then you know what kind of overblown renderings to expect in that department (and the fact that Cable doesn't look all that dissimilar to Frank Castle here). All in all, the first volume of the new ongoing Cable series is a disappointing bore, but hopefully things will manage to get better from this point forward.