X-Force #5 Review / Spoilers

[Askani's Flame]

I figured I enjoyed the issue enough to make a thread for it.

So moving from the last of the preview pages:

The Clan chosen members (Nate, Tetherblood, Flintshard, Bava, Spheeris, Aliya, and Kore) are fighting off the New Canaanite army to get back to base camp. They split into 2 groups: 1) Nate, Aliya, and Kore; 2) Tetherblood, Spheeris, Flintshard, and Bava. Kore gets mortally wounded in trying to draw fire away from group 2, so he throws himself on a group of New Canaanites and sets off his explosives. Group 2 hears the explosion and thinks about turning around to help, when Flintshard and Bava get enveloped in blue light and start being ripped apart. Tetherblood calls to Spheeris to help but she's also been ripped apart and replaced by an unknown Clan Chosen woman.

Back at base camp, Nate and Aliya arrive back and find Tetherblood and "Dorna" (who is in chains) who claims to be comrades with them. After relaying what happens, Nate scans her mind and finds out that somehow she does know them for years and she is who she says. That night Blaquesmith visits Nate and explains that the world is unraveling and time is crumbling because of an event in the past. He brings Nate to one of of Cable's safe houses and explains that he (Cable) built these 2,000 yrs ago. Blaquesmith and the AI show that the critical incursion happens when Beast brings the O5 to the future. He explains that before they go back young Bobby is killed and it prevents the timeline from fixing itself by them going back. It sets off a cataclysmic chain of events which is affecting their timeline. Nate, of course, focuses on two familiar faces and Blaquesmith reveals their names and that they were his parents (Slym and Redd). He places a temporal core in his forearm to allow him to timeslide and be connected to established safe houses. Blaquesmith stresses that Nate must not alter the past, but set it right where his adult self failed.He returns to camp and begins to explain to Aliya, Tetherblood, and Dorna what must be done, when the temporal storm hits camp ripping all three apart. Nate then bodyslides to the moment at the start of Extermination in front of the destroyed Xavier Institute.

Meanwhile, back in the future, Strfye's psychic Krangs (I mean they look like Krang from TMNT) are hooked up and creating a psychic shield to stave off the storm for the New Canaanites. But it's failing. Then they register a temporal breach from this timeline. They have a close proximity to the location of the breach and the proposed destination date. Which then Stryfe enters on the last page with his crew (including the former Askani android Zero) stating that they will go to the site and track down the time-traveler who is attempting to fix time. And given the timing of when this happens to Nate, it's also essentially confirmed this is a teenage Stryfe.



So overall a decent issue. I loved seeing some old favorites back: Blaquesmith, Tetherblood, Aliya, Zero. I liked how it was revealed, and other than some basics around saving Iceman to start, he's kind of on his own to resolve this. The art was much better for me this issue. Overall a great nod to previous issues around Nate's future timeline and past.

I do feel like minus the last section around Stryfe, this would have been a more compelling second chapter or section of Extermination than 5 issues into this run. Having this background, in my opinion, would have made Wi-Fi's sudden appearance more palatable to many Cable fans and other readers.

[Del torro]

Zounds, I loved this so much. Favorite Xbook of the week

[Askani's Flame]

Zounds, I loved this so much. Favorite Xbook of the week

Oath, Me too. It was unexpected that I loved this so much!

[Weather]

I liked this one too, although I'm not that invested on Kid Cable to love it. I liked Stryfe's place and Cable's safe house ambientations. Impressive how Couceiro's art was similar to Burnett's in here.

I hope that in the near future X-Force starts to focus more on the older characters, the big reason I'm reading this. At least I'm very excited Rachel is coming back.

[FluffyCyclopsRLZ]

Most unnecessarily issue ever, lol. Nice to see Blaquesmith, but goodness, you could've replaced the entire issue with Kid Stryfe showing up out of the blue and saying "Did you really think we'd let you screw us out of winning, a-hole?"

[RachelGrey]

I liked this one too, although I'm not that invested on Kid Cable to love it. I liked Stryfe's place and Cable's safe house ambientations. Impressive how Couceiro's art was similar to Burnett's in here.

I hope that in the near future X-Force starts to focus more on the older characters, the big reason I'm reading this. At least I'm very excited Rachel is coming back.

I liked that Rachel's impact on Cable and his allies was present like a ghost, it's obvious that the Askani religion is intact, one of the characters even says "By the Bright Lady" which is Mother Askani. Young Cable didn't find out that Slym and Red were his actual parents till just before he jumped backwards, I wonder if he accesses his older self's computers and finds out everything about Scott, Jean, and Rachel from his own older self's computers. I am looking forward to finding out how he learned that Rachel was/is Mother Askani from when she was timelost previously.

[phoenixzero23]

I loved this!
i'm curious about how much cable knows about rachel, he thinks of her as his sister or just some distant sacred figure

[Harpsikord]

Important to note: Cable is 616 Cable while also not being the same Cable that we know somehow. His history path has changed slightly but he's still the baby Nathan Christopher Summers that got sent into the future from our universe.

[Askani's Flame]

I loved this!
i'm curious about how much cable knows about rachel, he thinks of her as his sister or just some distant sacred figure

At this point he hasn't referred to her as his sister. While in the recap on page 1 mentions she is his sister, he has yet to. I believe that at this point, Wi-Fi has accessed OGCable's computers to learn that Rachel was Mother Askani. Therefore he feels a particular way for her both for guiding him (and saving his life), where any sibling feelings aren't there or at least not mentioned. At this point Rachel hasn't interacted with him at all yet (like Hope).

Important to note: Cable is 616 Cable while also not being the same Cable that we know somehow. His history path has changed slightly but he's still the baby Nathan Christopher Summers that got sent into the future from our universe.

Yes, so he still owes his life to Rachel's intervention.

[phoenixzero23]

sadly i don't think we will see kid Cable interact with Hope. She should be rightfully pissed at him for killing Cable and marvel doesn't want to deal with the amazing interactions that come with time travel and family (i mean they avoided Jeen and Tyke interacting with Cable as much as they could)

[Uncanny X-Man]

Very good issue, I'd say the best of the series so far.

It seems to me that Ed Brisson had a lot of love for X-continuity and always makes a nice effort to reference past events and characters, which I really appreciate. Regarding Kid Cable, I know everyone loves a good mystery but we aren't in the 90s anymore and books only get a half-chance to succeed in the current marketplace - I think Kid Cable's mission and motivations should have been established in the first issue of the new X-Force, because frankly he's been pretty insufferable and unrelatable since his introduction, and it's been really hard to care. After this issue I'm definitely more invested in him.

[Askani's Flame]

sadly i don't think we will see kid Cable interact with Hope. She should be rightfully pissed at him for killing Cable and marvel doesn't want to deal with the amazing interactions that come with time travel and family (i mean they avoided Jeen and Tyke interacting with Cable as much as they could)

Yeah I don't see Wi-Fi meeting Hope unfortunately. And how sad/ridiculous was it that Cable only interacted with Jeen in an Avengers book?
Also they couched rachel interacting with them as much as possible as well, unless it couldn't be explained by her being off "superheroing" as Bendis put it.

[phoenixzero23]

And how sad/ridiculous was it that Cable only interacted with Jeen in an Avengers book?

Very sad.
though if i remember correctly Jeen was only mentioned on that isse of uncanny avengers, so not even that

[Askani's Flame]

Very sad.
though if i remember correctly Jeen was only mentioned on that isse of uncanny avengers, so not even that

It was baloney that Cable was never once allowed to interact with Tyke, never mind Jeen. It was baloney they kept the whole family separate the entirety of the start of Hope's return til now.

[RachelGrey]

At this point he hasn't referred to her as his sister. While in the recap on page 1 mentions she is his sister, he has yet to. I believe that at this point, Wi-Fi has accessed OGCable's computers to learn that Rachel was Mother Askani. Therefore he feels a particular way for her both for guiding him (and saving his life), where any sibling feelings aren't there or at least not mentioned. At this point Rachel hasn't interacted with him at all yet (like Hope).



Yes, so he still owes his life to Rachel's intervention.

He did mention her by name in the previous issue and said that she was his "guiding light". If he only goes by his actual real knowledge he would have only known her as Mother Askani, because older Cable didn't even find out that Rachel and Mother Askani were the same until he talked to Jean and Scott about being Slym and Red. I think since WiFi knows that Rachel Grey-Summers is Mother Askani he obviously knows she is his sister.

Regardless, WiFi believes that Rachel is very important. I am curious from the previous issue how important she is. The aftermath of Extermination was the o5 going back, Scott resurrected, and Rachel converted and taken. When Ahab laughed at WiFi because the probabilities of the time line were still messed up. So was it about Scott's resurrection, or was it about Rachel being converted to a hound, or was it both. I will be curious how this plays out and whether it is one of the items that goes into HoX/PoX. Since Rachel and Cable are both present in HoX/PoX it could be that WiFi's changes have timeline repercussions that lead out of X-Force into the event.

Possibly with the hound programming impact on Rachel's mind, maybe she doesn't simply become Phoenix when her mind is restored, maybe she is very close to becoming Dark Phoenix.