By Steve Morris

CBR today reveal what the third of Marvel’s slogan teasers is all about, with the announcement that December will see Dennis Hopeless and Salvador Larroca kick off a new series called ‘Cable & X-Force’. As a side note – HURRAY!

Explaining that you don’t have to be an Avenger to be an X-Man, the book will see Cable gather some of his old friends to go on the run, after an undefined tussle over the fate of Hope Summers. As you can see, he’s going to be joined by a pretty interesting group of ruffians. Most surprising is the return of Forge, who was last seen being genocided by Beast in Warren Ellis‘ Astonishing X-Men run. Forge has been absent since getting genocided, perhaps understandably, so it’ll be interesting to see how Hopeless brings him back – and explain why he’s grown the ponytail back.

Colossus is also an interesting choice for the team, given the revelation he just got hit with in Uncanny X-Men this week. Without spoiling it, he’s going to be rather narked off with the world right now, and seems a dangerous choice for Cable’s team of heroes. Domino was always going to be on this team, of course, although her presence does mean that the adjectiveless X-Men book will almost definitely shift in focus and tone somehow, come 2013. Deadpool seems like an obvious absence, because he’s busy in Thunderbolts right now. Maybe he’ll turn up down the line somewhere.

And then we have Dr Nemesis, wearing a new mask and goggles. Nemesis seems to have done the impossible here, and become even more of a Simon Spurrier character. Apart from Cable, every male member of the team is arguably mentally unstable right now, which could well explain why they’re ‘wanted’. Cable’s never been one to explain himself, so his actions after AvX could very easily be miscontrued by those crazy Avengers.

Fans of the X-Men will be pleased to see a book which finally shows members of the team being heroic and independent and not run by the Avengers, and it’s fairly apparent that Salvador Larroca leapt at the chance to redraw Cable’s robotic arm. Yes, Cable has an eye missing, which will apparently be explained in the Point One one-shot coming out soon. The first arc will see the team assemble and go on the run from the Uncanny Avengers, which hopefully means Cable will punch Wolverine right in his smug face! Gosh, I really am massively biased aren’t I.

Issue #1 comes out this December.

17 COMMENTS

  1. I’ll give this one the benefit of the doubt, having been largely negative on the Marvel Now announcements.

    Never read anything by Hopeless, but I like Larocca. Say what you will about his photorealism and his borrowing of actor’s faces, but his characters actually show the appropriate body language and expressions for the story (which is my main problem with Land). And worth a lot in my book–how many consecutive, more-than-monthly issues of Iron Man has he done now?

    Much will depend on the characterisation of Colussus, though. He’s the only character here I have a particular affection for.

    (Steve, I’m ecstatic about having an X-book that’s not a stealth Avengers book as well, but it sure didn’t take long to bring in an Avengers team anyway, didn’t it?)

  2. “Most surprising is the return of Forge, who was last seen being genocided by Beast in Warren Ellis‘ Astonishing X-Men run. Forge has been absent since getting genocided, perhaps understandably,”

    What does that even mean?

  3. Not thrilled by the redesign of Dr. Nemesis. I liked his fashionable pulp style. Now he looks like a generic Image character from twenty years ago.

  4. Colossus has been my favorite member of the X-Men for thirty years and because of pretty much everything that’s been done to him since Utopia, I can’t say that I’m excited about him being in X-Force.

  5. Who is Dennis Hopeless? I’d never heard of him before these announcements, but he’s suddenly all over Marvels new books.

  6. His most recent high-profile work for Marvel previous to this was X-Men: Season One, which was very well received.

  7. I’m not really liking the new Marvel now stuff but I’m a give it a chance. Not gonna knock it before I read it. This universe is just going everywhere. I love DC. Simple and progressive.

  8. Cable and the X-Men

    This is no longer X-Force. They jumped the shark by putting skrullverine in it.

    The chicken has flown the coop

  9. I don’t want to pre-judge it, but I will say that the costumes are pretty cracked out looking.

  10. guess this will be the x-team that goes out and saves the world in spite of “a world that fears and hates them”, which will probably include their fellow mutants now that most of them are hanging with the big dogs (avengers) these days, which will probably lead to some mutant good guys vs. mutant good guys confrontations. might be interesting. the art is cool, but that whole washed out coloring makes the cover look kinda dull.

  11. “And worth a lot in my book–how many consecutive, more-than-monthly issues of Iron Man has he done now?”

    @Niels – yeah, definitely agree. And all w/o any ego or the like too. Just Larroca doing his thing – without fanfare. Saying that, it’s a shame Marvel rewarded his efforts with this crap.

  12. Just don’t see the appeal of Larocca’s work anymore. He just draws skeletal outlines and the colorist colors in most of the stuff. Doesn’t work for me, to say the least.

    Cable wins ‘Hand’-ily. :)

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