INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #8
“Kali Quest”
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Luca Maresca
Colour artist: Romulo Fajardo Jr
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editors: Mark Basso & Alanna Smith

COVER: A split image of Cable and the creature possessing him.

X-FORCE:

Cable. The mysterious alien which is possessing him seems to mostly leave him in peace this issue (aside from the one point where it takes him over), but it’s hard to tell how far it’s influencing the rest of his thinking, which isn’t always entirely rational.

Having eliminated his initial three suspects for the future murder of Kamala Khan, he claims that his suspect list literally includes “every mutant”, which is hardly helpful. He expresses some sympathy for Kali’s talk of “freeing mutantkind from an ageing leadership that’s out of touch with the real fight”, but only in the sense that he sees himself as having done this with the original X-Force. He describes Kali as both a possible future murderer of Kamala and an armchair general (though in fairness, he could mean that she has the potential to develop unless she’s nipped in the bud). He believes that his team have set personal issues aside and “evolved” into being loyal to him, and seems oblivious to the continuing tension between Archangel and Hellverine.

At the end of the issue, he suffers another time glitch (like the one he had after Kamala’s assassination in issue #1) and wakes in a version of the Askani timeline where he grew up. A caption describes it as Earth-4739, but for what it’s worth, the Askani timeline has previously been identified in the Official Handbook as Earth-4935. Decide for yourself whether this is a continuity error or a plot point.

In this timeline, he’s a member of the Clan Chosen again, at a point in time after Apocalypse was defeated. He seems to be occupying the body of his counterpart from that timeline, since he appears with a beard and different hairstyle. This seems to be somewhere among the flashbacks in Cable #1-2 from 1993, which take place during a (literally) post-Apocalypse war against Stryfe’s forces.

Kali’s chosen “personal” opponent for Cable is his old protege Cannonball, and presumably also Apocalypse, though he would also count for Archangel.

Boom-Boom. Boom-Boom owns a pink Walkman, which Cable appropriates as a dictaphone. Curiously, Kali’s chosen “personal” opponents for her are Elsa Bloodstone (who was a teammate in Nextwave) and the Beyonder (who she met in her debut appearance in Secret Wars II #5). Boom-Boom is understandably baffled at the choice of the Beyonder, and doesn’t even seem to register Elsa.

Ms Marvel. She treats Resonant as a kid who’s out of his depth, and promises to look out for him. Kali doesn’t seem to have any personal opponents identified for her.

Hellverine. He can recognise creatures from Hindu mythology. His “personal” opponents are his father Wolverine, and Sabretooth, who once killed him. It’s possible Kali chooses Sabretooth just as a general Wolverine opponent, though.

Archangel. His “personal” opponents are Apocalypse and Psylocke, his partner for much of the 90s.

SUPPORTING CAST:

Domino. Her memory has been restored through unspecified “healing techniques”, and she now remembers Cable attacking her in issue #5.

Shatterstar. He offers to form a rival X-Force unit to deal with the rogue Cable. Aside from himself and Domino, this group seems to include…

Pug-Smasher. The talking dog we also saw at the end of last issue. He’s Flag-Smasher’s counterpart from Spider-Ham’s world, and he’s been a tenant of Shatterstar since the Shatterstar miniseries.

Rictor. This is his first significant appearance since the Heir of Apocalypse miniseries, aside from a cameo in Hellfire Vigil. Presumably he and Shatterstar are a couple again at this point.

Warpath. Rounding out the other X-Force team. Again, this seems to be his first significant appearance since Krakoa, outside cameos and flashbacks.

Hope. No, not that one. The Hope who appears as a member of the Clan Chosen at the end of the story is a character who previously appeared in Cable #1-2 (1993), and nowhere else. Or an alternate universe version of her, if this isn’t the same timeline.

Hope’s back story is alluded to but not fully explained. She’s the sister of Cable’s wife Aliya (or “Jenskot”), who died in a mission under his command in Cable #1. That whole marriage is a remarkably under explored part of Cable’s back story, but if you remember Genesis, he was their child.

The other guy with her isn’t named, but he might be a miscoloured Tetherblood, who was coloured inconsistently even in the original stories.

Hope mentions that “Eleven” is coming to evacuate them. Eleven is a robot from the same series as Zero, who also appeared in Cable #1-2.

VILLAINS:

Kali. The recap page continues to give her name as “Kali Sez”, but the story itself consistently uses “Kali” as her name and “Kali Sez” as the name of her show.

Her real name is Dora Jane Graham. She’s an anti-mutant scientist who created “Kalikast” technology, which creates hard-light hologram disguises around people or robots, and gives them copied powers. Presumably the powers reside in the surroundings rather than in the people themselves. Kali herself can teleport using this ability. It does depend on the servers being switched on, and if they fail then she reverts to a normal-looking woman in a special suit, presumably designed to support the holograms. her appearance in the Kali Sez videos is a hologram.

Cable describes her on-camera persona as “a sparkling diamond of sex appeal”, though nothing in the art up to this point has really suggested that. Instead, as Kali, she appears as a stern-looking woman in a variation of Stryfe’s costume, presumably to invoke his association with the Mutant Liberation Front.

According to Speedburn, she claims in every episode of her show to be broadcasting from “the Ocean of Nectar” – she did indeed mention this in issue #2. Speedburn has always understood this to be “some kind of supersecret haven”. But last issue, Resonant revealed that he had secretly tracked her real location, and it turns out this issue that she’s actually in a barn in Walhalla, Texas.  She has a home video studio there, with a single producer and some drone cameras, though heaven knows what they’re used for, since she normally just speaks to camera.

She’s somehow got hold of some human-size Sentinels, which by default are disguised using her Kalikast technology as creatures from Hindu mythology – specifically, Raktabīja and other asura. This obviously plays into Kali’s own use of Hindu imagery, but seems to come as a surprise to Resonant since it has nothing much to do with the MLF imagery. She can also make them impersonate other characters and seems to have a surprisingly good knowledge of the X-Force members’ back stories – her selection of the Beyonder for Boom-Boom is both baffling as a choice of someone Boom-Boom cares about, but also indicates a staggering knowledge of her history.

We were told last issue that she carries advertising on her streams, and her sponsors here include a cryptocurrency site and “Bodybet, the premier organ gambling site”.

Cable believes, probably correctly, that her plan is to weaken mutants by causing young mutants to distrust their community elders; that in the long run she plans to use Kalikast to carry out false flag operations implicating the X-Men; and that ultimately her motivation is financial.

Resonant. He offers to take X-Force to Kali in exchange for his teammates’ freedom. Cable naturally accepts. While Resonant deals better than his teammates with the underwhelming reality of Kali, he’s still disappointed by the sight of her out of character, and he’s so angry with her that he tries to kill her after the fight. He claims that thanks to his metal powers, Ms Marvel’s bangles feel “soothing” to him.

Speedburn. He flatly refuses to accept that Kali could live anywhere other than a glamorous location. He seems to back down from this on being told that Resonant is trading the information for his release, possibly because he thinks it’s a ruse. (In fact, Cable sets a release timer on their holding cells in case it’s a ruse. That seems a bit risky in terms of them just being allowed to wander out and go home with X-Force’s location, but maybe it’s a longstop to stop them being stuck there forever in case X-Force never come back.)

DePop and Unveil are also there, but don’t get any dialogue.

Lolzmaxx / Gavin Shales. Kali’s producer. It’s his first appearance, and according to Cable, he’s been banished even from anti-mutant online communities for excessive extremism. Cable wipes his memory.

The creature possessing Cable. It doesn’t take an active part in the plot until the opportunity comes up to get hold of an AI. It feels very strongly about getting an AI. When Resonant stumbles upon Cable during an episode of possession, the creature shoots Revenant in an attempt to cover it up.