Cable: Reloaded #1 - spoilers!

[Jackraow21]

Damn this issue was awesome! The grizzled old soldier is back, and it feels good. The art was a bit sub par in some parts (felt rushed), but it serviced the story pretty well overall IMO. Al Ewing writes an incredible OG Cable and I am so freakin’ happy that he seems to be in control of the character for the foreseeable future in S.W.O.R.D.

Now on to the SPOILERS…

- Issue begins with the preview pages we’ve already seen, and Cable about to attempt a HAHA (High Altitude High Acceleration) drop — a play on the military HALO drop — into The Breakworld planet from the Whedon/Cassaday Astonishing X-men run.

- He’s using a special shield arm for this mission from his “arm-ory” (get it? Ha!) which essentially uses atmospheric friction upon re-entry to charge the shield arm with thermal energy, creating a force field around him that will see him slam into the planet with an impact that would “atomize most of Rhode Island.” My dude likes to make an entrance… that is, if the arm can withstand the amount of energy and doesn’t burn out!

- As he’s falling into orbit, Nathan remembers the beginning of the mission and the planning; and we go back to him talking with Brand aboard Station One aka the Peak, and he says it’s his first briefing as S.W.O.R.D. security chief “since he came back”.

- This implies that he’s still in charge of security for S.W.O.R.D. despite being aged back up, and he even says that Kid Cable being put in the role initially “was an obvious political appointment to keep the influential Summers family sweet.” He goes on to say that with his decades of combat experience he’s finally the security chief that Abigail Brand actually needs (Hoorah and damn right!).

- Enter the person who Brand has been collaborating with on the plan, Rocket Raccoon, who tells Cable basically “yeah, yeah, I’m a raccoon-like individual which must be weird for you, so go ahead and get it out of your system, Muscles.” But Nathan’s reaction is unexpected as he salutes Rocket and tells him that this mission will be an honor. And he calls him “sir.” Apparently Rocket is a historical legend in Cable’s future timeline. Like “Alexander the Great crossed with Jesse James” in outer space. This whole scene is really fun.

- Cut back to Cable crashing to Breakworld and, yep, the arm shorts out. He rips the thumb off attempting to reboot it and… BOOM! Crashes into the planet at terminal velocity.

- We get a data page about how Cable “wishes he could believe in history” but legends and futures change. So he cannot afford to just blindly believe in history. He talks here about the Krakoan age being one in which it was said that mutants “conquered Death,” but this isn’t true. Instead they presently have a “polite agreement with Death,” and it has turned away from mutants for now… but that doesn’t mean they won. Introspective stuff like that giving you OG Cable’s perspective on the current Reign of X era.

- Cut back to a crater, which Nathan emerges from, but his arm is toast. Fortunately he rebooted it in the nick of time to save himself, but he then jettisons the remaining scrap of his bionic arm and goes to a backup, which is a hard light holo prosthetic. He also boots up a different AI than Belle, this one called Nicky who is a “combat tattoo suite” designed specifically for situations like this (whereas Belle is much more of an “all rounder” multi purpose AI). This indicates he has multiple AI systems for different purposes, to along with his different arms in the arm-ory, which is kind of cool IMO.

- He pulls a seed from one of his pouches and plants it, and instantly a Krakoan gate springs up from the soil. Through that gate comes his team for this mission, calling themselves “the All-New X-Terminators” (which Wiz Kid dubs them) because X-Force is unfortunately taken at the moment.

- Every team member is there for a specific purpose, and the mission is to steal a massive weapon. The team consists of: Cannonball, Boomer, Wiz Kid, Khora and Lila Cheney.

- Some Breakworlders show up and a great fight scene ensues. In it, Khora instantly becomes my favorite new mutant and certainly my favorite of the Arakki mutants. She’s a badass, and she and Cable gel right away even though he’d never met her before.

- They win and take the Breakworlders’ skimmers into “City Seven” but there’s nobody there. There’s some good “catching up” dialogue between Sam, Lila and Tabitha before Khora rightfully remarks that it’s a trap… a blind. A weapon, as she says. Nathan’s impressed by her and agrees, though he tells her “less of the ‘old man’” since she referred to him as that in her comments.

- Suddenly a giant robot that Cable refers to as the Mark II emerges (apparently there was a Mark I on Breakworld that was as big as a moon but this Mark II is a more compact model). They all use their powers in creative ways, with Khora boosting them at different times, to take it down. This is what they are there to steal.

- Wiz Kid, with a boost from Khora, hacks it and reprograms it in seconds and it converts from a giant robot into a giant “planet-sized super gun.” Then Lila Cheney teleports it and them away to Port Prometheus on Mars.

- Cut back to Rocket and Brand, with Nathan telling them that he and his X-Terminators have done their part, and we see that they have used most of their remaining Mysterium to create a giant planet-killing bullet for their new giant planet-killing gun. Something tells me Dormammu, who has possessed Ego the Living Planet in The Last Annihilation event, is about to catch this Mysterium bullet to the dome. The end… for now.

Loved every panel of this! It was glorious and loads of fun. Wish the artist was an A-lister, but we can’t have everything we want I suppose. Regardless, I’m so pumped about Cable’s future after this, and him being in space with the S.W.O.R.D. team and Storm, Regent of Sol. I also love his X-Terminators team and hope we see them get together again too for future missions.

The only disappointment I had was that by the end Cable didn’t upgrade his bionic arm to a Mysterium one. That seemed like a layup to me for Ewing… but there’s still time. Perhaps in a future issue of S.W.O.R.D.

11 out of 10

[Frobisher]

I didn't get this cos it's not in the regular X listings, but sounds more fun than Wolverine was this week.

[Weather]

Loved the issue as well. In the beggining it was OK, but when the X-Terminators showed up, it was a party!

Cable's characterization is great. So happy Ewing is going to keep writing him, missed the "old man" (hehe). He was bad-ass but still lovable to the young mutants.

Loving Khora. New characters in a franchise with many mutants are hard to make us involved, but she was pretty great, loved the powers and personality. Although she likes to do things alone, she follows the orders given and keep us from being annoyed with her lol.

Lovely to see Boom Boom and Sam having their moments. Great characters and they looked very powerful. I hope they keep popping.

The sexual joke Lila did with Sam was hilarious! :'D

Glad we had this issue, it was basically a SWORD story in a month the book was not released.

[Steroid]

Definitely a great issue and I swear Ewing is a godsend to comic readers. Cable's badassery aside my favorite part was the interaction between Cable and Ranger Rocket. Nathan put much respect on Rocket's name and moreso it makes complete sense that he would.

[Kingdom X]

Don’t know why this wasn’t listed as an x-book. I was initially hesitant to buy it for that reason, but it was worth the risk!

This issue showed how multifaceted Cable can be and how the dynamics of SWORD will be switching up in the coming months.

[Devaishwarya]

This issue is a masterclass in how to do an awesome one-and-done. Pacing, characterisation, story, action...everything was beauty-fully balanced.

I love his hard light arm...Nicky is a hoot and a half.

"Teamwork makes the dream work."

[Hi-Fi]

Lila teasing Sam is my sexuality.

I didn't know I missed the 2 of them interacting until I read this issue.

[Journey]

Cable being a Rocket Stan is ironically so on brand for him no pun intended.

[CGAR]

Was a pretty good peek at whats coming in the future. I just love how Ewing can juggle charaters and give each a moment to shine.

Other writers need to have this sensibility.

[Purplevit]

My congrats to Cable fans! Glad for them that they got their fave character back and now he even will be in the best X book.

[DigiCom]

Also, Wiz Kid is apparently a Die Hard fan.

[Lady Midnight]

Was Tabitha sober?

[AJpyro]

I loved it. FUn. Good exposition.

And the final page: A BIG HONKIN BULLET FOR A BIG GUN.

I love it.

PS: Oh my god, they literally went to Breakworld to get their Magic Planet Bullets. No one tell Kitty.

[Journey]

The fact the plan really seems to be "let's shoot Ego with a really big bullet" is classic comic book satire.

[Weather]

Was Tabitha sober?

Yes, no talk about alcohol. She was very effective actually.