By Zack Quaintance — Here it is in the year 2020, and I find myself not only reading a Cable comic but also taking my time out to review it. Cable. A comic about Cable. But such is the strength of this new Dawn of X relaunch, which has me at a point where I’m willing to at least hear the creators out about all of the many new X-Men comics that keep coming our way. I’m especially amenable to this one because writer Gerry Duggan has done such an excellent job injecting personality and intriguing into Marauders, a comic about mutants on a boat that passed on the phrase I just typed has no right to be as good as it is...yet it’s currently among my X-Men favorites.

Anyway, let’s talk some Cable #1! I’ve never been especially enamored with this character. He’s got an origin so complex that you can’t fit it on one page (a la Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s iconic opener from All Star Superman). I know, I know it’s not technically true...but on the surface his superpowers seem to include having a gritty design and carrying a big gun. Plus his fiercest enemy is a clone or alternate version of himself...it’s just all a lot of ingredients mixed up in a chili I tend to avoid (chili?! ah jeez, maybe I did take some stuff with me from when I used to live in Texas).

So now that I’ve aired all my baggage with this character, how did I like this comic about said character? I did like this comic. This book did a few things that endeared it to me at its start. First of all, it did what has fast become my favorite X-Men thing of the new era — it was additive to the setup of Krakoa, introducing a sparring area called the dojo where the mutants go to basically wrestle one-on-one with their powers. I’m sure I’ve written this multiple times in the past, but my favorite stories in Dawn of X are those that explore ramifications of the new status quo that X-Men reboot honcho Jonathan Hickman has built. In that same vein, the other thing this book did relatively early on was deliver up an interesting info page. The Tom Muller-designed black-and-white text pages (sometimes with graphs, charts, or other means of info dissemination) are a fact of the new X-books, and some are better at using them than others.

This one gave us in its early goings an info page that had a list of recent matches in the dojo that were a lot of fun to imagine, with Dazzler versus Jubilee ranking as a standout, at least in my mind, though they were all pretty good (honorable mention goes to Nightcrawler battling Blink to a draw). Like with Marauders, Dugan and his artistic collaborator Phil Noto gave this book a voice and tone that set it apart as its own thing, and then proceeded to have some fun with it. There’s a sense of levity and self-awareness to this book that has largely been missing from Dawn of X as a whole, with the exception of some of Hickman’s work on X-Men and new Mutants, and the way Benjamin Percy and Joshua Cassara have characterized/depicted Forge in X-Force. There’s even a scene here where Cable tells a kid, “I like your pouches,” which sort of plays to my own negative perception above a bit. In fact, a point is made throughout of pointing out that this is a younger, reborn Cable (see the pre-Dawn of X Execution series for why that is). 

Artist Phil Noto’s work is the perfect aesthetic to bring this to life. Noto is among the most visually singular artists in all of superhero comics, with an aesthetic that sort of mixes that world with the visuals that are just tearing through youth reading circles right now — forging work that is wholly his own. In a book that combines a sort of ‘90s relic character with a new clever tone, it’s a great fit, one that really emphasizes how new and aware this story seeks to be. So, kudos on all that — this a great marriage of creators.

The biggest surprise here, at least for me, was that this book seems likely to have ramifications for the rest of the X-Men line. I don’t want to spoil anything, but if you saw the X of Swords event announcement, keep an eye out — there is track being laid. This all adds up to a great first issue. If I’m detracting any points at all, it’s for this book being so heavily dependent on the rest of the X-Franchise. But that’s a small complaint, really. 

Overall: Cable #1 is a comic that somehow manages to add new elements to the Krakoa concept, sneak in a few laughs, and lay track for the X-Men’s near future. It’s a light and amusing read, too, a self-aware mutant action comedy with ramifications for the larger plot. 9.0/10

Cable #1
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Phil Noto
Letterer: VC’s Joe Sabino
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: $4.99
Solicit: THE DAWN OF REBELLION!
Cable was a grizzled old veteran of the wars to save the future... and he will be again. But for now, he's a young mutant living in paradise leading a life of adventure! Nathan Summers, son of two of the most powerful mutants on Krakoa, has a destiny leading the youth of mutantkind in rebellion... so why not start now? Gerry Duggan (MARAUDERS, DEADPOOL) and Phil Noto (STAR WARS, POE DAMERON) bring us young Cable as we've never seen him before!

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.