CABLE #57 - August 1998

Momentary Lapse

Credits: Joe Casey (writer), Ryan Benjamin (penciler), Scott Hanna w/Banning & Holdredge (inks), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters), Gloria Vasquez (colors)

Summary: Cable responds to Blaquesmith’s telepathic cries, eventually tracing him to Egypt. He discovers Blaquesmith is the captive of Rama-Tut, who needs his knowledge of time travel to escape this era. While battling Rama-Tut, a disturbance in the Astral Plane robs Cable of his telepathic powers. He knocks Rama-Tut unconscious with one of Tut’s weapons and escapes with Blaquesmith. The chronal distortion wave that followed Tut collapses on itself, launching him back into the timestream.

Continuity Notes: The disturbance in the Astral Plane comes from X-Men’s “Psi-War” storyline, circa X-Men #77. Cable notes that he’s lost his telepathy, while his telekinesis is just “severely curtailed,” which is apparently a quickie explanation for why his techno-organic virus isn’t freaking out again. Rama-Tut’s appearance fits in chronologically right after his debut in Fantastic Four #19. He claims a “time storm” has prevented him from returning to the thirtieth century and left him in this period.

Review: Well, I don’t think anyone saw Rama-Tut coming. One advantage Joe Casey has over many of this era’s X-writers is his eagerness to bring in the more “mainstream” Marvel Universe, which adds an element of unpredictability to the book. Connecting Rama-Tut’s time travelling gimmick with Blaquesmith’s even makes a decent amount of sense, so the story doesn’t feel totally out of place in Cable. Once you get past the novelty of using Tut, however, there isn’t much to the story. Casey’s aware of this, so he spruces the plot up by skipping backward and forward in time, a gimmick Christopher Priest was using in Quantum & Woody at this time and would soon bring over to Black Panther. He also gives each segment Frasier-style titles, presented as white text on black backgrounds. That’s another idea that will show up in Priest’s Black Panther, oddly enough.

While Casey was probably hoping to have Ladronn pencil a classic Fantastic Four villain, unfortunately the editors have selected Ryan Benjamin for another fill-in. It’s a pretty ugly job, one that doesn’t even match his mediocre work in the previous issue. I recall Benjamin as an okay Jim Lee clone from the early days of Wildstorm, but his work here is unrecognizable. I can only assume this was a rush job, because I don’t recall any of the early Wildstorm books looking so shoddy.

CABLE #55-#56, June-July 1998

Wiser Times

Credits: Joe Casey (writer), Ladronn (penciler), Juan Vlasco w/Keith Aiken (inks), Comicraft (letters), Gloria Vasquez (colors)

Summary: A captive Blaquesmith tries in vain to contact Cable, while an assassin is hired to kill Domino. Cable explores his new neighborhood in Hell’s Kitchen and befriends a waitress named Stacey. Irene tracks him to the diner and berates him for his actions in Switzerland. When she mentions the image of Blaquesmith she saw at his home earlier, Cable races back to his headquarters. There, he encounters Domino, who resents their growing distance. She leaves and is ambushed by the assassin.

Continuity Note: This is the first appearance of another potential love interest for Cable, Stacey Kramer. All that’s revealed about her this issue is her first name and her aspiration to become a nurse, but she’ll become a more important character in future issues.

Miscellaneous Note: The title of this issue might be a reference to a Black Crowes song.

Review: I’m under the impression Casey had no real interest in using characters like Blaquesmith and Domino, but they are a part of Cable’s supporting cast and it would seem odd if he went out of his way to ignore them. Well, ignoring Domino for long would’ve been unfair, but Blaquesmith didn’t even seem able to maintain the interest of his own creator. He’s been missing since issue #32, a story that hinted he might be dead, and Cable hasn’t exactly been too broken up about it. Even though this occurred around the time Cable had to take a crossover break, Jeph Loeb still had more than enough open issues to address his disappearance before leaving the book. Instead, the readers were treated to more issues of Cable dealing with his techno-organic virus, followed by a lengthy arc in the Mircoverse that ended with the power of love defeating a Fantastic Four villain.

Casey is getting around to dealing with Blaquesmith’s dangling subplot, while also getting Domino out of the way so that Cable’s free to pursue either Irene or Stacey. The rest of the issue is mostly dedicated to Cable exploring his new neighborhood, a version of Hell’s Kitchen that apparently didn’t undergo an economic recovery in the ‘90s (it’s my understanding that Hell’s Kitchen is one of the nicer Manhattan neighborhoods these days). Casey lays this on a bit thick (at one point Cable declares that he likes the diner because it reminds him of “hope,” which Stacey reminds him is free), but I get what he’s aiming at.

Bloodrite

Credits: Joe Casey (writer), Ryan Benjamin (penciler), Matt Banning w/Hanna, Aiken, & Holdredge (inks), Comicraft’s Saida Temofonte (letters), Gloria Vasquez (colors)

Summary: Blockade targets Domino, who can’t withstand his attack. Meanwhile, Cable receives a vision of Blaquesmith, but abandons him when he telepathically senses Domino’s pain. He finds her abandoned body and takes her to the hospital. Leaving Irene to watch over her, Cable finds Blockade in a bar. He extracts vengeance by forcing Blockade to view his subconscious, which leaves him comatose. Later, SHIELD agents arrive, suspicious Cable was involved.

Continuity Notes: The assassin from the previous issue is named Blockade here. The recap page identifies his real name as Dexter Parrish, and lists his power as “a bizarre affliction that has transformed his skin into a thick, craggy hide.” Whoever hired him to kill Domino isn’t revealed.

Review: It’s quite obvious that Casey is trying to write this book to suit Ladronn’s sensibilities, which is how we ended up with a Silver Age throwback villain like Blockade in the first place. He’s a non-mutant contract killer, formerly associated with the Sinister Syndicate (via retcon), who hangs out in bars with other non-mutant villains, like Stilt-Man. He has no ties to the Summers family, time travel, Mr. Sinister, anti-mutant groups, Stryfe, or anything else associated with ‘90s X-comics. Ladronn designed him as, of course, a lost Kirby villain in the previous issue, and did quite a job. However, Ladronn isn’t available for this issue, so former Jim Lee clone Ryan Benjamin is brought in as artist. Oh, the irony. Benjamin isn’t as bad as some of the Image-style artists that showed up in the titles, but it’s obvious this story wasn’t intended for him. As for the story, this is a fairly simple revenge plot, although Casey seems aware of how thin an idea it is. He adds some meat to the idea by focusing on the concept of revenge, as Irene ponders the hypocrisy of Cable, who’s allegedly in touch with a deep philosophy from the future, but still gives in to base human instincts when someone he personally knows is hurt. Trying to reconcile the original “eye for an eye” Cable with the wimpier New Age Cable of the late ‘90s isn’t a bad direction to explore, and it makes good use of Irene’s character.

UXM #359 & X-MEN #79 – September 1998

Uncanny X-Men #359

Power Play

Credits: Joe Kelly & Steve Seagle (writers), Chris Bachalo & Ryan Benjamin (pencilers), Tim Towsend/Scott Hanna/Jon Holdredge (inkers), Shannon Blanchard (colors), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters)

Summary: Government agent Henry Gyrich watches on with Senator Brickman as Rogue begins Dr. Agee’s cure for mutancy. Mystique, who disguised herself as Brickman’s wife, swaps places with Agee’s nurse and opens fire on him. Rogue saves his life, and takes Mystique away to talk. Mystique argues with Rogue against removing her powers, which leads to Rogue touching Mystique and absorbing her consciousness. Rogue tracks Dr. Agee to the Mutopia building, where Mystique’s presence in her mind forces her to fight the government agents. Rogue absorbs Dr. Agee’s memories and learns that the first mutant he tested the equipment on died, and that his sister was only briefly cured. Knowing that the government would eventually use it on mutants against their will, Rogue destroys Agee’s equipment.

Continuity Note: Phoenix reveals to Cyclops that she has lost her mental powers, and the couple decides to stay in Alaska as she recuperates. This is a reference to the “Psi-War” storyline in X-Men, which I think was supposed to remove every telepath’s power. This is likely an indication that “Psi-War” was supposed to be a larger event, because I definitely don’t remember any character (outside of Psylocke) losing their powers for long. And we now have Cyclops and Phoenix deciding to stay in Alaska, one issue after they abruptly decided to move. I have no idea what the point of this back and forth was supposed to be (I would assume some last minute editorial decisions have happened in-between issues).

Production Note: When Mystique reveals that Dr. Agee’s research is based on the power inhibitor Forge built for the government, the editorial caption reads, “Whatever you want to say – Mark”. I’m sure it was supposed to point us towards the back issues of UXM where this actually happened. There are also a couple of word balloons in this issue that are so poorly printed they’re hard to read. Plus, Dr. Agee’s word balloons are incorrectly pointing towards Mystique during the issue’s climax.

Review: With a questionable plot, rotating artists, and numerous production mistakes, this one feels like a rush job. It might’ve been more tolerable if Bachalo drew the entire issue, or if a more compatible artist had been paired with him. Dan Norton, the cartoony fill-in artist from a few issues ago would’ve been a nice fit, but instead Bachalo’s paired with Wildstorm artist Ryan Benjamin. His early Image look is so hopelessly out of place next to Bachalo’s art, you’ve got to wonder what they were thinking when they made this choice.

We’re starting to enter the editorially driven era of the Seagle/Kelly run, so the Rogue storyline that Seagle’s been toying with for months is quickly resolved so that another brave new direction for the X-Men can begin. Having Mystique appear and talk Rogue out of the procedure is a decent idea, but the delivery here is botched by horrid dialogue and nonsensical plotting. Instead of a believable mother/daughter conversation between Mystique and Rogue, we’re saddled with lines like “Come with me…or perish,” “Don’t try to divert me from my rage, Rogue,” and “Has the momentary promise of your forbidden fruit freed you of your faculties?” A cameo by Alpha Flight’s Shaman (as the doctor examining Phoenix) also brings us this gem, “I no longer use the medicine magic of my people to serve Canada as the hero Shaman, but it was Alpha Flight that brought me to Anchorage.” Both Seagle and Kelly are credited with writing this issue, but I don’t recall such stilted dialogue from either writer in the past.

The actual plotting of the story is as shaky as the dialogue. For some reason, Rogue decides to touch Mystique during their conversation (I guess to validate her claims that the government is behind Agee’s research, although that’s not made clear), which leads to Mystique taking command of Rogue’s body a few pages later. This goes beyond a simple continuity mistake, it’s an outright misunderstanding of how her powers work. Making matters worse, Mystique soon reappears, claiming that Rogue didn’t absorb “enough” of her. So she has enough of Mystique’s consciousness that it overtakes her mind, but not enough to knock Mystique out for more than a few seconds? The story also can’t seem to decide if Dr. Agee’s sister is alive or dead. Agee claims that he “owed the machine’s perfection to her memory” right after Rogue absorbs his memories. This is odd enough, since she isn’t the character that died during his flashback. Two pages later, Rogue tells Agee to leave and take care of his sister. So, I guess she isn’t dead. The sister line is used to justify why Agee won’t rebuild his machine, which assumes that the reader buys into the idea that he’ll be so preoccupied with his sister he’ll lose all interest in his research. It’s a copout ending, and it also makes Rogue pretty callous for not seeking justice for the mutant who died when Agee first tried his treatment. (This reminds me that two skeletons are shown in the flashback to this character’s death. Why?) This is really a mess all around, and a clear sign that something odd was happening behind the scenes.

X-Men #79

Little Morlock Lost

Credits: Joe Kelly (writer), German Garcia (penciler), Holdredge/Mendoza/Alquiza (inkers), Liquid! (colors), Comicraft (letters)

Summary: Callisto enters the X-Men’s mansion, telling Marrow that she needs to stay with the team. Soon, Marrow overhears Cannonball’s plans to go back home, which pushes her over the edge. She races into the city, terrorizing the humans she comes across. Storm, Callisto, and Cannonball track her to Battery Park. Marrow encounters two police officers she put in the hospital months earlier. When they tell their story, Marrow realizes that she has behaved like a monster and apologizes. Storm makes peace with Marrow, as a shadowy figure watches on.

Continuity Notes: The shadowy figure is the same one who’s been looking over Callisto (for ominous reasons) in the previous issues. He claims that he has plans for Marrow, and at the story’s end, says that leaving the X-Men as her only family was his plan all along. It’s widely believed that the mystery figure was supposed to be the Dark Beast, although I don’t know if Kelly ever confirmed it, or if his specific plan was ever revealed.

The stage is being set for next issue’s overhaul of the team. Beast suggests Maggott join the Generation X team (which never happened), and Cannonball receives word that his mother is sick and needs his help.

The two policemen in this issue are supposed to be the ones Marrow knocked out in the opening pages of X-Men #68. These weren’t Prime Sentinels, as it’s emphasized in this issue that they were normal cops doing their jobs.

Review: It’s been widely accepted over the years that the September issues were the last “real” ones of the Seagle/Kelly era. Beginning next month, Excalibur is cancelled and Shadowcat, Colossus, and Nightcrawler join the team. The amount of internal logic in the stories takes a nosedive, as it becomes increasingly obvious that events are happening because the editors just want them to happen. Marrow is the only new member allowed to stay, which might explain why this is an entire issue dedicated to reassuring her place on the team. Marvel is still taking an odd approach to her past continuity, as the two cops she knocked out in a brief scene during the “Zero Tolerance” crossover are brought back to inspire some guilt and repentance. Marrow committed much larger sins than this during her early appearances, but these have been mostly ignored since she was forced on to the team. If you’re willing to go along with the whitewashing of her past, this is an acceptable story about Marrow finally embracing her role as an X-Man. I never bought the selective use of her backstory, though, and still feel as if Maggott or Reyes would’ve been more suitable members.