By: Duane Swierczynski (writer), Gabriel Guzman (artist), Thomas Mason (colors), Axel Alonso (editor)
The Story: Homecoming, Part 2: This issue is part of the build-up to the X-Men: Second Coming event. Seventeen-year-old Hope has decided it is time to join to X-Men in the present. Cable’s time gizmo isn’t very precise. It keeps landing on the past or the future, but gets closer and closer (the opposite of what the time traveler did in Wells’ Time Machine). The problem is Bishop keeps getting dragged along with them.
What’s Good: Swierczynski is writing a pursuit plot, which can be a lot of fun. The secret to the chase plot is never letting the quarry get too far from the hunter, and Swierczynski certainly did that here. Even when they manage to make some major gain, Hope and Cable can’t get any real distance between themselves and Bishop. Also, some of the traps and attacks that Cable and Hope devised were pretty fun to watch. Ever thought you’d see Cable shooting muskets? It is cool, and the camera angle that Guzman chose was a good one.
What’s Not So Good: Despite a plot designed to have us on the edge of our seats, I never got worried. I doubt Marvel is ready to kill off Cable or Bishop any time soon (or that Alonso will let Swierczynski put a bullet in Hope’s head), so a sense of something being at stake wasn’t there for me. But other things could have happened despite the limitation that neither quarry nor prey will ever kill each other. Characters can grow as people and learn from experience. They can change their relative power positions. Nothing happened here, though: Bishop is still chasing Hope and Cable. I’d love to see creativity Swierczynski brought to Immortal Iron Fist let loose on Cable and Hope.
Guzman had some moments in this issue, but there’s a stylized feel to his art that makes everything look a bit plastic, even the grass (check out page 1). This extends to the faces, which seem inflexible and uncommunicative (look at Bishop’s face in the first time shift, or Cable and Hope’s faces when Cable tackles her). The same stiffness applies to the action sequences. The actions are clear, but there’s an element of dynamism and life that is missing. Incidentally, I’d like to short-list this cover for the “Cover bears no relation to the story” Award.
Conclusion: Cable #22 is very skipable because nothing really changes. I don’t know whether Marvel has their writers on short leashes or whether they are overworking them, but the editors need to up the ante on those times when characters are obviously in a holding pattern for the next big event.
Grade: C-
-DS Arsenault
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Conclusion