Cable and X-Force 9, All-New X-Men 12

Cable and X-Force 9
Tieri (w) and Larroca (a) and D'Armata (c)

The Uncanny Avengers, after their very brief appearance in the first issue of this series, are back on the case, trying to track down Cable and his X-Force to find out what is really going on and, probably, to try to arrest them all in a big super-hero punch-up. They are diverted, though, as Hope pops up on their radar. She's ditched her SHIELD tail and is on the hunt for Cable as well. Captain America, Havok, and Rogue manage to find her dropping off her foster parents at a bus station (she's controlled them through the drive) and try to get her to understand their position. She listens as they tell her to embrace the idea of having a normal life because it's not frequent that people like her get this opportunity and she should cherish it and so on and so forth. She informs them, though, that there is no such thing as a normal life and she has no desire to have anything that resembles what people might think of as normal and she, instead, intends to help her father because there's no doubt in her mind that things look worse for Cable than they are. The three are unable to stop Hope from wanting to go and, when they start to talk about really stopping her, she uses the powers of the Purple Girl (who she visited in jail after she lost her SHIELD tail and before coming to the bus stop) to get Alex and Steve to fight but Rogue breaks them up and stops Hope, knowing it's hard to control more than two people while borrowing those powers. However, Hope also borrowed Mastermind's powers and creates an illusion of Red Skull for them to fight while she escapes. The Uncanny Avengers are having a hard time with this team thing.

This issue wasn't my favorite, for sure. I don't think it was awful and I think it's probably advancing the plot but I'm not sure an issue dedicated to Hope getting on a bus is a formula for success. Of course, it's likely going to be important that she's heading out to meet Cable and it might be important that she faced off against the UA as they're likely to pop in again at some point, but it's a tough thing to stretch to a full issue. At times, the writing felt a little punchy and there were weird panels where emotions were a little hard to read or maybe a little excessive, which is something that Larroca tends to stumble into but has largely avoided in this run. It did make me wonder if the comic was written as a script or in Marvel style, with the words added in later, because sometimes the images didn't seem to totally match up with the words. Still a better book than most but not the best one.

All-New X-Men 12
Bendis (w) and S. Immonen and W. von Grawbadger (a) and Beredo (c)

First off, I think Rain Beredo is the colorist for this issue. That's what the inside credits say, but Marte Gracia gets billed on the cover for something that's usually the colorist spot (and is a colorist). Gracia, the inside credits indicate, teamed with Immonen on the cover. Weirder still, when I tried to do a tiny bit of research to confirm Beredo, I found one place claiming that the cover was Immonen and Leinil Yu. I don't know if that was meant to say that Yu had a variant cover but he definitely didn't do the cover for this issue (seen at left). That's definitely not his style artwork. Look, I'm very confused by this. REGARDLESS, the colors are pretty great in this issue. Anyway, the Uncanny Avengers pop up here too (as if to justify my putting these two books together this week) to confront Wolverine and the all-new X-Men about the crimes being committed that seem to have their fingerprints on them. Wolverine instantly decides that it's Mystique and they all promise to investigate that more. Meanwhile, Alex and the young Scott have a touching reunion wherein they snappy back-and-forth a bit and Alex reveals more of the future to Scott and Jean Grey discovers that Scarlet Witch decimated the mutant population.  This starts a whole thing between the two teams (with the all-new X-Men already being surprised that Wanda is a member of the Avengers and not, as they know her, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants) and they kind of have to be separated. The Uncanny Avengers fly off in their jet under the assumption that the X-Men will fly home to the school to have witnesses and keep in sight while these crimes are being committed. The X-Men, of course, do no such thing after the UA leave and there's more discussion about the Scarlet Witch as they figure out what to do next.

This series is peppered with people asking why the original X-Men team hasn't yet gone home but no one doing anything about it. Alex asks it of Scott when they're together and Scott says that there's nothing there for them back home. I'm...I'm not sure what that means. Does it mean that they know this is their future so nothing that they do matters because Jean dies and Scott goes evil anyway (and however we want to describe what happened to Angel eventually happens to Angel)? Because, and I know this isn't necessarily a comforting thought to them all, the theory is that Charles will wipe these events from their memories when they get there. Problem solved for everyone. But anyway, while we're here, it feels a little like 12 issues should have been enough for people to stop coming to the old X-Men and saying "wow, you're...you're really them!" It feels like everything should be dedicated to building these characters more/differently or should be advancing the story. That's another issue I have with the snappy back-and-forth: in comics, it's never snappy. It slows down the story and delays us from where we have to go, meaning that we're now 12 issues in and I have no idea where we have to go. Not in like a "I'm so unsure of what twist will hit us next! How will they get out of this one?" kind of way, more in a "what is the story here, anyway?" kind of way. It's not a great place to be. Again though, Immonen's art is almost always great and Beredo (or whoever it is) is knocking it out of the park with the colors.