{"id":12337,"date":"2026-09-10T23:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T22:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=12337"},"modified":"2026-09-10T23:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T22:12:07","slug":"inglorious-x-force-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=12337","title":{"rendered":"Inglorious X-Force #9"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #9<\/strong>
\n“A Force to be Conflicted”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Tim Seeley<\/strong>
\nArtist: Michael Sta. Maria<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Romulo Fajardo Jr<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Joe Caramagna<\/strong>
\nEditors: Mark Basso & Alanna Smith<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER:\u00a0<\/strong>The two X-Force teams fight.<\/p>\n

X-FORCE:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cable. <\/strong>The entity that’s been possessing him throughout this series is named Catharsix. Cable remains oblivious to the fact that he’s possessed; his own dictaphone recordings actually show him talking to himself, but he apparently can’t register the other voice.<\/p>\n

The previous issue ended with another time slip, in which Cable’s mind appeared to be transported to the Askani timeline, somewhere amongst the flashbacks in\u00a0Cable<\/em> vol 1 #1-2. There’s no direct follow-up on that – Cable’s mind appears to have returned to the present day, and he either doesn’t remember or doesn’t mention what happened.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In trying to explain himself to Ms Marvel, Cable recounts the death of his wife Aliya, which took place in a flashback in\u00a0Cable<\/em> #1. He then explains that he tried to change the past and save her, but “the threads of time were too tangled”. I don’t think that’s referring to any previous story. The 2025\u00a0Cable: Love and Chrome\u00a0<\/em>miniseries involves him making repeated efforts to avert a lover’s death by changing time, but it’s not Aliya. At any rate, Cable says that having ruled out alternating history, he “tried everything else”. This is accompanied by a flashback which seems to show the same Clan Chosen mission that we saw at the end of the previous issue. There was a “Project Catharsis 6.0” box lying on the floor in that scene, and in this flashback Cable has a vial with the same label, apparently containing a fungi modified by Apocalypse. This is evidently Catharsix.<\/p>\n

Cable still claims to be preoccupied with finding the person who killed Kamala Khan in the future timeline shown at the start of issue #1. He claims that after X-Force defeated Kali last issue, she’s used her AI to identify Domino as the killer. Presumably this is nonsense driven by Catharsix. Nobody else initially believes it either, though that’s mainly because they trust Domino so much, rather than because they can’t see how Kali’s AI could possibly work out such a thing.<\/p>\n

However, Cable backs up his claim by producing footage of Domino shooting him at the end of issue #3, and being interrupted by Boom-Boom. As Shatterstar explains later in the issue (and as we already knew from issues #4-5), Cable asked Domino to keep an eye on him because of his memory gaps, and she was trying to get through to him about his parasite. In issue #4, neither Cable nor Boom-Boom could remember this encounter. Cable suggests here that Boom-Boom’s own explosion gave them both short-term memory loss, as a fluke effect brought about by Domino’s powers. That seems as plausible as anything else. Cable also explains that he had to salvage the footage, which again explains why they didn’t just check it in issue #4.<\/p>\n

The brief sequence seen here includes two lines of dialogue. One is Domino saying “I’m sorry, Nathan. I didn’t want to shoot you. But you only listen to violence.” This seems to be new, and would slot into the flashback in issue #4, where Domino actually says something vaguely similar immediately before\u00a0<\/em>firing. The second line – “Don’t do it, Tabby, please” – comes from the end of issue #3.<\/p>\n

Archangel.\u00a0<\/strong>He claims that having “the power over both life and death itself” – in issue #5 – gave him perspective, and made him stop defining himself by his anger over what other people had done to him.<\/p>\n

Boom-Boom. <\/strong>She’s still sleeping with Akihiro, but she’s increasingly leaving during the night; he attributes this to her conflicted feelings for Archangel.<\/p>\n

As she has been throughout the series, she’s blindly loyal to Cable. She’s persuaded of the truth on listening to the recordings that Cable was making with her Walkman last issue, and hearing him speak in two voices. When she does accept the truth, she gets angry and yells that she gave up her whole life for him – in issue #1, she’s the one recruit who doesn’t even need a sales pitch because she’s so keen to be on the team.<\/p>\n

Shatterstar regards her as one of the most reasonable members of Cable’s team, presumably on the view that she doesn’t have murderous alternative personalities like Warren and Akihiro.<\/p>\n

Hellverine.\u00a0<\/strong>In narration, he refers to waking up alone, but then says that his hellfire is “a reminder that I’m not really alone”. The suggestion is that he doesn’t experience Bagra-Ghul as a voice in his head, at least continuously – though he also says that they have an “understanding” and that Bagra-Ghul is now helping him to atone for his past. He seems to regard X-Force as an important part of his redemption arc and has a lot emotionally invested in the team’s mission being real.<\/p>\n

He believes that bonding to Bagra-Ghul has given him a better perspective on humanity, and fears reverting to type if they ever get separated. This is dubious in continuity terms, because his face turn came years before he bonded to Bagra-Ghul.<\/p>\n

He says that “Cable recruited me with a simple implication. Sooner or later, my attempt at redemption may end in failure, and the demon will extract a heavier price from my soul”, though he now wonders whether Cable meant Bagra-Ghul or himself. The relevant scene is in issue #1, and what Cable actually said was “I’ve been fighting for half a century across a million years, and sooner or later, your demons always catch up to you.”<\/p>\n

He’s prepared to accept Boom-Boom’s judgment that Cable can be trusted. Whether that’s because he really trusts her on the point, or because he thinks it’s what she wants to hear him say, is open to interpretation.<\/p>\n

Oddly, when his hellfire flares, his costume appears even though he’s otherwise not wearing clothes.<\/p>\n

Ms Marvel.\u00a0<\/strong>She alludes to knowing about X-Force’s history from “fanfic”, which is the sort of thing that used to come up a lot in the early days of the character. It doesn’t really make sense when applied to the internal affairs of early X-Force, but shhh.<\/p>\n

She dithers about whether to trust Cable over Domino, but seems to be won round by the mention of Resonant’s death last issue, with a veiled implication that if she abandons Cable now then his death will have been in vain.<\/p>\n

SUPPORTING CAST:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Domino.\u00a0<\/strong>Ms Marvel suggests that she might have been replaced by a shape-changer, as she once was in the past. She’s referring to the fact that X-Force’s first Domino turned out to be an impostor, Copycat, in X-Force<\/em> #11.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t seem accidental that Domino’s group has, if anything, a stronger claim on the X-Force name than the stars of the book. It’s a large chunk of the classic line-up.<\/p>\n

Warpath\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Rictor\u00a0<\/strong>are both there, but don’t get a whole lot of solo time, since it’s a very busy issue.<\/p>\n

Shatterstar.\u00a0<\/strong>In the early days of X-Force, when he was basically socially non-functional, Warpath and Rictor used to leave him behind when they went into town. He says that he no longer enjoys battle for the sake of theatrics; when he first debuted, he saw everything in terms of Mojoverse entertainment, even while ostensibly rebelling against it.\u00a0He claims that his experience in the Mojoverse makes him good at recognising when someone is just going through the motions of their part, and hence able to tell that Cable is faking it.<\/p>\n

Pug-Smasher.\u00a0<\/strong>He identifies his homeworld as Earth-8311; this is the established number for the homeworld of Spider-Ham. As in the 2018-9\u00a0Shatterstar<\/em> miniseries where he previously appeared, he describes himself as an enemy of capitalism and nationalism. As such, he despises Archangel. The mainstream Flag-Smasher shares his anti-nationalist views but isn’t really an anti-capitalist. Pug-Smasher was a member of Ultimuttum, who are new, but they’re the counterparts of Flag-Smasher’s ULTIMATUM group. He mentions having fought Captain Americat, who is indeed the established Captain America counterpart on that world.<\/p>\n

VILLAINS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Catharsix.\u00a0<\/strong>The creature possessing Cable is apparently a fungal entity designed by En Sabah Nur. As a creation of a classic version of Apocalypse, it seems to believe that a global conflict between man and mutant is highly desirable, and will in some way allow it to conquer the world. If Cable really did get infected with Catharsix way back circa the flashbacks in\u00a0Cable\u00a0<\/em>#2, then it’s been lying dormant for a very long time.<\/p>\n

It seems to believe that Kamala will indeed avert this conflict if allowed to do so, and therefore wants to get close to her and kill her at the most opportune moment. At the end of the story, it seems to take X-Force to the site of Kamala’s own future murder in issue #1, but only Cable is actually seen emerging at the other side.<\/p>\n

Last issue, it was very keen to get its hands on Kali’s AI after she was defeated. It’s not clear yet what the purpose of that was – it surely can’t have been just to use it to try and frame Domino, which is what Cable claims to have used it for, since the video footage would have done that anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #9 “A Force to be Conflicted” Writer: Tim Seeley Artist: Michael Sta. Maria Colour artist: Romulo Fajardo Jr Letterer: Joe Caramagna Editors: Mark Basso & Alanna Smith COVER:\u00a0The two X-Force teams fight. X-FORCE:\u00a0 Cable. The entity that’s been possessing him throughout this series is named Catharsix. Cable remains oblivious to the fact that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12339,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12337\/revisions\/12339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}