Cable and X-Force 8, Thunderbolts 9, Gambit 12

Cable and X-Force 8
Hopeless (w) and Larroca (a) and D'Armata (c)

Abigail Brand sedates Colossus before he can rush out of the Raft and do whatever it is he thinks he might be able to do to stop the alien from taking Domino and the rest of the team. Brand then finds Cable and explains to the two of them that the alien they've released is wanted by tons of alien races and that botching his transfer could result in a whole slew of war coming right to Earth's doorstep. After she's done reaming them out for letting him go, Cable shows her the image that was in his mind, which involves that very war coming to Earth. It turns out more aliens knew his location than Brand thought. By releasing the alien, Cable and his team have saved the Earth. Brand understands but can't let them go. She agrees to help Cable get his team back under the promise that they'll hand themselves in as soon as it's over. Meanwhile, on the alien ship, the alien is trying to intimidate Domino, who seems pretty unbreakable. It turns out that Forge had raised a beacon that broadcast the location of the ship to every enemy of the alien so they'd know where to find him, before wiring a time bomb to the ship's engine. The time bomb explodes as Domino explains and the alien gets really angry, threatening to eat her, even if it's the last thing he'll be able to do. At this moment, Colossus is launched through the side of the ship and throws the alien into space. Colossus has realized what is important, thanks to Domino's capture, but Domino has a nice moment too, making it clear to Colossus that this was simply a job that went bad and that she's not some girl to be rescued. Back aboard Brand's ship, they clearly don't go to SWORD holding, choosing instead to steal her ship from her and leave her adrift in a spacesuit. She contacts SWORD for a pickup and the Uncanny Avengers to bring down Cable.

It's a good resolution to the story as the plan itself and the dangers that required the plan become clear, showing the audience that this X-Force team isn't bad after all. Yes, they still got captured and stuck on the ship, but everything else went off without a problem. Earth is saved, the alien is dead or arrested and off Earth, and the team is back together. Exciting as we look forward to Cable's uncle's team coming after them. They'd already run afoul of them early in the series but there was no resolution there. Seemingly there will have to be one as we press forward. Also nice to return to Earth-based plots. Always nice to come back from space. Another good issue and this book continues to be solid and stay tight.

Thunderbolts 9
Way (w) and Noto (a) and Guru eFX (c)

The Thunderbolts find out that whoever is behind this gamma arms dealing has ties to, in the very least, Russia as they have access to the Crimson Dynamo armor plans. The Crimson Dynamos the audience saw at the end of issue seven (I believe) showed us that someone related to Russia was central to this plot, but the Thunderbolts have also now seen them, as a few of them attack the arms deal that the team broke up last issue. Red Hulk takes out a pair of them while Elektra puts down the other. All three of them end up detonating the gamma battery/bomb in their chest. Red Hulk is fine because he's a hulk and Venom saves Punisher and Elektra by throwing the symbiote over the explosion. It knocks him out and sends him into a crazy dream that makes him feel powerless and where he sees Mercy again before waking up mostly healed. Deadpool, too, has been revived by his own healing powers and with some urging from the Leader and manages to get Punisher, Elektra, and Venom out of the area before they're caught on film. He disguises them so they can take a little more time getting Flash to safety but video footage still catches a glimpse of Elektra's eyes, which have been identified by her brother, a Greek novelist. Deadpool seems not to know that it was Elektra who put him down last issue and at least plays that role well this time. Whether or not he does know is still up for debate, but we're working under the assumption he doesn't. Ross calls a briefing and they discuss the next move. He suspects Arthur Vanko, the nephew of the creator of the Crimson Dynamo. The audience knows he's not wrong (we saw him in the beginning) but we also know that there's someone else pulling the strings, which Red Hulk doesn't believe. However, the rest of the team wishes to stay on the path they're on and not just narrow it down to the one guy. The Leader interjects to ask if he should call them, as he trapped the phone number of the guy. Red Hulk is mad that he wasn't told sooner but Venom says that it was likely because the Leader doesn't, and shouldn't, trust Ross.

The book keeps up all of its strongest points while giving us an interesting enough plot to keep up on board. The team drama and the volatility of the team continues to play as large a role as anything with the distrust of Ross from pretty much everyone, the Punisher/Elektra non-romance and Deadpool's jealousy of it, and the fact that the Leader is still a member of this team. There are plenty of problems with the team that could serve to get in the way of their missions. I really like the way those dramas are presented and the team is perfect for them. So far, they haven't jeopardized a mission with their issues and that fact illustrates the team in the right light; at the end of the day, it's a team made up of stone-cold professionals. They could still crack down the road but the times that they choose to react to their problems tells an awful lot about these characters. Good book.

Gambit 12
Asmus (w) and C. Mann, Soy, Kirk, and Leisten (a) and Rosenberg (c)

Gambit and Rogue arrive at the hospital just in time to see Tombstone being thrown out a window by a not-bleeding-out Joelle. Gambit follows Tombstone, who has the Zero Compound, and Rogue goes after Joelle. Rogue and Joelle fight briefly but Joelle quickly gives up and says that she doesn't want this fight or to hurt anyone, she just wants to go after Tombstone. Meanwhile, Gambit and Tombstone wrap up a jet-pack/car chase to find themselves in an abandoned little area wherein Tombstone questions whether Joelle was telling the truth to Gambit when she called the Zero Compound a miracle cure or whether she was telling the truth to Tombstone when she called it liquid death. Some of it is released on the area and it obliterates anything it comes into contact with, to the delight of Tombstone. Joelle and Rogue show up via helicopter and knock Tombstone into the remaining compound on the ground, potentially exploding him (the art is a little tricky to decipher here, so what exactly happened to the guy is up for debate). Joelle and Gambit talk a bit and Joelle reveals that she took a strange man up on his offer to essentially give her eternal life when she was dying so that she could spend more time with her daughter. However, eternal life comes with its drawbacks as now she's had to watch her daughter die and she is powerless to die herself. The Zero Compound was both liquid death and a miracle cure for her, the only thing that could allow her to die. She takes the last drops of it and burns away. Gambit talks things over with Rogue before remembering that he hasn't even checked to see if Fence is okay. He's not. He's lying in a puddle of blood and with robotic pieces all hanging out. Suspense!

It's not a bad ending to this arc and to the Joelle storyline that has pervaded the series so far. I'll be interested to see the direction that Asmus takes the character and the book from here but I'm glad that he was able to wrap this story up pretty cleanly and with an interesting enough plot and conclusion to justify the arc. With Joelle gone, though, we've lost a character who has driven the majority of this series so far so the next few issues will tell us a lot about where Asmus wants the run to go and what he wants to focus on.