{"id":7062,"date":"2021-08-26T21:40:34","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7062"},"modified":"2021-08-26T21:40:34","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:40:34","slug":"cable-reloaded-1-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7062","title":{"rendered":"Cable: Reloaded #1 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition – with a caveat that we’ll get to at page 22.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>CABLE: RELOADED #1<\/strong>
\n“Call in the Big Gun”<\/strong>
\nby Al Ewing, Bob Quinn & Java Tartaglia<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a one-shot published as part of the\u00a0Last Annihilation<\/em> crossover. It could arguably count as\u00a0Cable<\/em> #13 or\u00a0S.W.O.R.D.\u00a0<\/em>#7.5, and certainly contains plot points that are relevant for\u00a0S.W.O.R.D.\u00a0<\/em>readers.<\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Cable posing. Note that he’s carrying both the signature big gun and the Light of Galador sword that Kid Cable was carrying around throughout his recent solo run. Cable kept it behind in\u00a0Cable<\/em> #12 when his younger self returned to the future.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong>\u00a0Cable sets the scene.<\/em><\/p>\n

Graymalkin II<\/strong>, the second version of Cable’s space station, was first seen in\u00a0Cable<\/em> vol 4 #11.<\/p>\n

The Breakworld<\/strong> was an alien planet introduced in the 2004\u00a0Astonishing X-Men\u00a0<\/em>run by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday. It’s one of those alien planets locked in constant war.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.<\/strong>\u00a0Cable prepares to dive.<\/em><\/p>\n

Belle<\/strong>, the AI which appears as a “tattoo” on Cable’s arm, was introduced in\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em> and showed up again in the last couple of issues of\u00a0Cable<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Cable’s outrageously big boots are explained later on as technology, but they sure seem like an intentional nod to the art style of Cable’s creator Rob Liefeld – as is the joke about what he keeps in his many, many pouches.<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.<\/strong> Recap and credits. This being a one-shot, the recap focusses on what happened in the earlier chapters of\u00a0Last Annihilation<\/em>, which appeared in\u00a0Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em> #16-17 and\u00a0S.W.O.R.D.\u00a0<\/em>#7. Again, the title is a nod to Cable’s traditional Liefeld design.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.<\/strong>\u00a0Cable enters the atmosphere.<\/em><\/p>\n

“The ultimate HALO drop.”<\/strong> That’s a real term, standing for “high altitude, low opening.” “High altitude, hard acceleration” is not a real term, because you’d be insane.<\/p>\n

“This’ll be my second demonic invasion this month.”<\/strong> Presumably referencing his fight with Stryfe in a demonic realm in\u00a0Cable<\/em> #11-12 (and previous flash-foward scenes).<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.\u00a0<\/strong>Flashback: Cable is briefed by Abigail Brand.<\/em><\/p>\n

“My first official briefing as S.W.O.R.D. security chief since I came back.”<\/strong> Kid Cable was S.W.O.R.D.’s security chief in their early chapters, but never really did a great deal. Now we know why he was there: to set up his replacement by Cable Classic. Cable figures that his younger self was only appointed to the role as a political gesture, and he’s probably right. The teenage Cable was largely written during the Krakoan era as hopelessly naive and inexperienced, though admittedly that was more in his own book than\u00a0S.W.O.R.D.<\/em>. Still, it’s hard to imagine that he’d have been Brand’s first choice for the role if she’d been working purely on skill level.<\/p>\n

“The Dread Dormammu…”<\/strong> Abigail’s explanation of Dormammu’s plan is based on what the Guardians of the Galaxy and Dr Doom worked out in\u00a0Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em> #17. Basically, he’s powering himself up by conquering five planets that represent mystically-significant elements, and that can be arranged into a mystic sigil. The details don’t matter for the purposes of this book. The video screen in panel 1 shows Dormammu himself; panel 2 shows his regular henchmen, the self-explanatory Mindless Ones.<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.<\/strong>\u00a0Flashback:\u00a0<\/em>Rocket briefs Cable.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m pretty sure that the idea of Rocket as a legendary figure in the future is new. I don’t know if this is the first time that Cable and Rocket have met on panel, but it might well be, since Rocket was a pretty marginal figure in the Marvel Universe through most of Cable’s heyday.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.<\/strong>\u00a0Cable crash lands.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGE 9.<\/strong> Data page: Cable’s personal diary.<\/p>\n

The five alien races he mentions here reflect the five planets being attacked by Dormammu: worlds belonging to the Skrulls, the Kree, the Shi’ar, Spartax and the Chitauri.<\/p>\n

But for wider purposes, the main point of interest here is Cable’s discussion of resurrection. In part, he’s just making the point that the mutants haven’t conquered death when there are so many lives out there that have no access to resurrection. But – writing with the benefit of someone who knows how Krakoa turned out, as explained in\u00a0Cable<\/em> #12 – he also talks about mutants having achieved only an “armistice” with death, and talks about “Death com[ing] for us all, in a single moment”.<\/p>\n

Cable also refers to “Death” as a proper noun, which suggests he’s referring to Death the abstract cosmic entity, rather than just death the natural phenomenon. The only book so far to really engage with how death gods feel about Krakoa is\u00a0X-Factor<\/em> with its Morrigan arc, which wound up being cut short.<\/p>\n

“Shi’ar superguardians.”<\/strong> What we call the Imperial Guard post-Morrison.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-11.<\/strong>\u00a0Cable makes his portal.<\/em><\/p>\n

The idea that Cable’s arm is a complete prosthetic as opposed to just a part of his body infected with techno-organics isn’t new. It was removable in the recent Cable<\/em> series, but it was also removable as far back as the “X-Tinction Agenda” crossover in the late 80s.<\/p>\n

Nicky is new.<\/p>\n

PAGE 12.<\/strong>\u00a0Cable’s team arrive.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cannonball<\/strong> was a member of the original New Mutants and X-Force line-ups, and Cable mentored him in those roles. He’s a “family man” now because he’s semi-retired and living in the Shi’ar Empire with Smasher of the Imperial Guard and their son Joshua. “Nigh invulnerable when blasting” was his catchphrase back in the 80s.<\/p>\n

Boom-Boom<\/strong> was also a member of the original X-Force (and late period New Mutants), when Cable was in charge.<\/p>\n

Wiz Kid<\/strong> is a member of\u00a0S.W.O.R.D. The team name\u00a0X-Terminators<\/strong>, which he suggests, is a call back to the 1988\u00a0X-Terminators<\/em> miniseries, a tie-in to Inferno. Wiz Kid was a member of the original X-Terminators, but the team mostly consisted of trainees of the original X-Factor. He didn’t stick around, and the rest of the team merged with the New Mutants not long after. When Cable talks about how he saw Wiz Kid “when I was young”, he presumably means as Kid Cable in the early issues of\u00a0S.W.O.R.D.<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Khora of the Burning Heart<\/strong>\u00a0first appeared in\u00a0S.W.O.R.D.\u00a0<\/em>#3 (in shadow), and made her first full appearance in\u00a0S.W.O.R.D.\u00a0<\/em>#5, where she replaced the hated Fabian Cortez on the team. She’s from Arakko, hence being “at war for her entire life” and her persistent lamentations of the softness of her teammates.<\/p>\n

Lila Cheney<\/strong> is a second-tier member of S.W.O.R.D. who serves as part of their teleport team. Originally a supporting character from 1980s\u00a0New Mutants<\/em>, where she was Cannonball’s girlfriend, she is indeed an intergalactic rock star.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-16.<\/strong>\u00a0The X-Terminators fight the Breakworld soldiers.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I guess they got tired of waiting for Colossus to come back.”<\/strong> Colossus was the subject of a Breakworld prophecy, and he technically seized power in\u00a0Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men<\/em> #1. Powerlord Varrn is new, but the title “Powerlord” comes from the original Breakworld arc. If “Powerlord” seems a less than subtle title, bear in mind that the previous one also had a fleet of “Bruteships”. So the name “Powerlord” was the least of his problems, really.<\/p>\n

PAGE 17.<\/strong> Data page. It’s a proclamation by Powerlord Varrn, whose PR strategy is robust and direct.<\/p>\n

We establish in the next scene that “City Seven” is an uninhabited facility to build a robot weapon, so this notice is presumably intended to warn the locals away from the place.<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-21. <\/strong>The X-Terminators approach the City Seven factory.<\/em><\/p>\n

We get a bit of discussion in here of time travel. As in\u00a0the recent\u00a0Cable<\/em> series, the model here is that the future can change, and so details of history are not necessarily fixed.<\/p>\n

At the time of writing, the digital edition on Comixology has an obvious error on pages 22-23, which show individual panels from the double-page spread that appears again as page 24. I assume it’s an error when programming the guided view option. At any rate, I assume those two pages will be deleted in an update, so I’ll just ignore them for page count purposes.<\/p>\n

PAGES 22-27.<\/strong>\u00a0The X-Terminators fight the robot.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cable and Wiz Kid both seem unusually cagey about relying on resurrection. Cable is willing to use resurrection if he needs to, but would prefer to avoid it. These are unusual views on Krakoa, where we’ve seen in\u00a0Way of X<\/em> that people are mostly becoming alarmingly casual about the whole idea.<\/p>\n

Khora and, to a lesser extent, Cable both seem pretty at home in this war zone – though Cable makes many more concessions to standard \u00a0heroic behaviour. Khora’s arc, clearly, is going to involve her learning to co-operate with her new teammates instinctively, rather than having to be actually told to work together. She’s perfectly willing to follow orders, she just doesn’t have the right value system to understand what’s wanted of her. In her favour, she seems to recognise that. Wiz Kid sees her behaviour – which is perfectly normal Arakkan warrior schtick – as immature. One wonders what he makes of the whole planet of them on Mars.<\/p>\n

PAGES 28-31.<\/strong>\u00a0The X-Terminators steal the giant gun.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I am steal big things as easily as little ones.”<\/strong> Lila used to do a bit of thievery in her early appearances, though it’s kind of been forgotten about over the years.<\/p>\n

“We have the ammunition.”<\/strong> This seems to be literally a giant bullet. It’s a callback to the original Breakworld arc, in which the plan was to destroy Earth by simply firing an enormous bullet at the planet. (Kitty phased it through harmlessly.)<\/p>\n

PAGE 32.<\/strong> Trailers (for the crossover). The Krakoan reads NEXT: WICCAN AND HULKLING.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition – with a caveat that we’ll get to at page 22. CABLE: RELOADED #1 “Call in the Big Gun” by Al Ewing, Bob Quinn & Java Tartaglia This is a one-shot published as part of the\u00a0Last Annihilation crossover. It could arguably […]<\/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-7062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7062","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=7062"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7065,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7062\/revisions\/7065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}