Cable and X-Force 10, Thunderbolts 11

Cable and X-Force 10
Hopeless (w) and Larroca (a) and D'Armata (c)

Dennis Hopeless jumps back onto Cable and X-Force after a Hope-centric issue to pick up where that one left off, with Hope trying to meet up with Cable and the Uncanny Avengers trying to do the same thing, though for different reasons. Hope tracks down Blaquesmith, Cable's mentor from the future living in the present and who now owns a group of convenience stores. Hope wants to know what's happening with Cable's visions and where he is. Blaquesmith seems to know but knocks Hope unconscious instead of telling her, which is of significantly less use to her. Meanwhile, the team is at an old trailer owned by Forge to get their bearings and for Cable to figure out his new plan, and to recuperate from Forge's eye surgery to replace Cable's eye. The team is laying low and Domino goes to talk to Cable, who is panicking because he's had visions of five separate catastrophes all set to happen at once, leaving him no way to stop all five. Domino demands that he starts trusting the team with missions and, with that, they plot out their newest set of missions for the team. They finish just in time to find the Uncanny Avengers descending on the trailer and Forge unveils his line of vehicles for them, which he's dubbed "Forge Force," to the chagrin of Dr. Nemesis. However, Cable's brain starts hemorrhaging at just the wrong moment and X-Force is forced to stall the Avengers as Dr. Nemesis sorts Cable out. They manage to hold them off in a nicely done, quick fight scene and Cable revives enough to blow up the UA's ship with his new eye laser for everyone to leave. However, unbeknownst to the team, the strain forces Cable to pass out, allowing the UA to apprehend him as the team escapes.

Another really great issue for this series, which has been perfectly equal parts action and fun throughout its run. The dialogue continues to be smart and to really define the characters without needing particularly character-centric issues. Dr. Nemesis continues to be one of the all-around best characters in the Marvel Universe and I continue to not really be able to articulate why. This book is smart and fast and fun at all the right moments and I anticipate it will only get better as the stresses get to Cable and as the team starts to get a little more responsibility. There might be no better team in the Marvel Universe to watch work together than this team right now, it'll be interesting to see how they work when separated and when a little more aware of their goals (or maybe a little less, I guess we'll see).

Thunderbolts 11
Way (w) and Noto (a) and Guru eFX (c)

All of the calls that suddenly came in from everyone surrounding the team of Red Hulk, the Leader, Elektra, and Punisher are from, as it turns out, the Leader. His suspicion is that it's his various pieces of intellect, stored in aggregate chunks of data all over the world. In this case, he wanted to know where Orestez Natchios was and his intellect is trying to respond, trying to give him the answer. Though this is unsettling, they trust the location they've been given because Natchios' location is pretty public; he's giving a book tour for his book about being raised by terrorists. They go to his reading, prepared to bring him in or kill him after but quickly learn that it's a trap. Orestez explains to the crowd there how he was raised to be a killer but he's managed to break from that, unlike his poor sister Elektra who, oh hey, is right over there, sitting amongst you and waiting to kill me. Just as he makes this announcement, trying to goad them, Ross goes Red Hulk and the gamma powered suits sent to kill Orestez by those he betrayed crash into the venue. Elektra points out that this is all a trap and Orestez has set this up to make them look like terrorists and to make himself look like a martyr. She says the only way to ensure that doesn't happen is to not kill him. Red Hulk refuses that idea and orders the team to kill him anyway. He tears through the gamma suits as Punisher and Elektra try to hunt Orestez. The Leader, meanwhile, sneaks into a computer lab and jams any satellite feeds, stopping any sort of news report from going live. Deadpool and Venom show up to make sure that no army backup provides support in the area before they can get out of there and Elektra leads her brother out of the venue. When Punisher finds her, she says that Orestez is gone and shows her bloody hands. The issue ends with Leader secretly talking to Mercy and bemoaning the fact that he's learned so much but still knows so little about himself. She says he knows enough; he knows he's meant to lead.

It's an interesting wrap-up to this story as it brings the team together to, again, execute a pretty successful mission, all things considered. We're 11 issues into this story now and we've only seen the team executing missions a couple of times, which is ample for the stories that have been told but still just a little bit sad. I feel like, considering this team, we haven't had a ton of time to look into who they are nor to see them really work together. I know that we have but I think that's been a weird function of having so complicated a story running so often. They've been pretty good stories (though sometimes a little tough to weave through) but, to a point, we've had to sacrifice some amount of character to get there. There has been enough character examination to get us through, which is great because what we've gotten so far is pretty compelling, but we haven't had a ton to think over. I think it's a failing of the book so far and something I'd like to see remedied because the best part about this team is simply who's on it. I bought the first issue, without truly liking too many of the characters, because the team-up of these specific characters was so interesting to me. I'd like to see Way get into that a bit more. Still, this is kind of a minor nitpick and the book is still more than readable and enjoyable. It's a good book with good characters who could really become great characters.