Cable and X-Force #1
Cable and X-Force is kind of a Mad Max meets Ocean’s 11. Nathan Summers has assembled a team of reject X-Men and is using them for…well really whatever he sees fit. Domino, Colossus, Dr. Nemesis, Forge, and a few more make up the team. As he proved with Avengers Arena, Dennis Hopeless makes all of these characters work together. What’s really great about this team is how similar and different they are. New readers may not take to the cast, but fans of the characters will love where this is going, even if they all don’t get great moments in the debut issue.
Salvador Larroca is the series artist and it’s due to him that the tone of this book is so easily discernible. This comic isn’t a shiny new version of Cable or X-Force. The characters are in nasty situations and live in nasty conditions and Larroca really emphasizes how ‘dirty’ it can be. Even when a certain newly-formed superteam has a cameo, they don’t have the typical glitz that is expected of them. With Cable and Forge both in the series a lot of shiny new technology can be expected and it takes a special artist to make that kind of tech look cool and not overdone and silly which Larroca has.
Cable and X-Force is a unique comic because it has the heroes becoming the ‘bad guys.’ New readers shouldn’t worry about not being able to understand it, because it’s fitted perfectly for newcomers though they may not fully appreciate the characters if they don’t know their histories. Hopeless has a great team in this series in both the characters and his artist. This comic is interesting because it doesn’t sound or look like anything else Marvel is doing. If you’re looking for comics with superheroes that don’t exactly feel like superhero comics you can do better, but there’s a charm this one has that you won’t find anywhere else.
Rating: 7 / 10
