Trade Issues: Cable-Messiah War

Trade Issues: Where Chris reads comics should should have read years ago!

The title itself is a bit confusing. Messiah War was the second part of the X-men's mutant Messiah trilogy about Hope Summers that included Messiah Complex, Messiah War, and Second Coming. The Messiah War that was a part of that trilogy was a crossover between Cable's series and X-Force's. This trade (called Messiah War and taking place before the crossover Messiah War) actually contains the first story arc of Cable's solo series (As he escapes with a young Hope to the future) called War Baby. Why they didn't just call the trade War Baby, I have no idea.

I've never really liked Cable. Or any of Scott Summer's thirty bastard children from alternate timelines. It just gets really confusing and shit! I just don't care about them at all! I only picked up this trade because I wanted to see what eventually happens between Cable and Bishop since Bishop didn't pop up in Second Coming like I figured he would. This comic definitely changed my views a little bit.

To set the scene, this comic is right after Messiah Complex and Cable is time hopping to keep the mutant messiah (Still just a baby and not even named Hope yet) out of harm's way. Cable thinks Hope is the future of mutant kind and will do anything and everything in his power to keep her safe. On the other end of the spectrum, there's long time X-man Lucas Bishop; he believes that Hope is the mutant that caused his future to be the shithole it was (complete with mutants being locked away in camps and branded).

Something I definitely enjoyed about this story was the dual narration. It was a back and forth between Cable and Bishop, detailing extremely different thoughts on the situations as they occur. Another thing I enjoyed was the art. I'd never heard of Ariel Olivetti before this comic or seen of his(her?) work before but I'll definitely be scouting out some more of it.

If you like action in your comics, this is certainly a series for you. Bishop is constantly killing and blowing shit up in an attempt to bring Cable and Bishop down. But the best fight in the arc doesn't even involve the title character!

In this future, it seems like all mutants are gone aside from Bishop, Cable, and Hope. Then, like an angel from above, one of my all time favorite X-men comes from nowhere to save Cable: Cannonball. I was VERY surprised and delighted to see him make an appearance, mostly because he's a very under-appreciated character! He can become nigh invincible and has led X-teams by himself on many occasions. Yet, he is often relegated to a secondary character position. I don't really expect him to get a solo series (well, fuck, Gambit's getting one so why not?) but come on X-men writers! USE HIM MORE.

Is it just me or does Cannonball look like Mickey Rourke now?

But honestly, the best, best, BEST part of this series(that I've seen so far), is Cable trying to learn the new balance of his life. He is a hardened soldier from the future! Killing, guns, and battle are what he does. Watching him try to balance all this out and attempt to be a nurturing Father is just sort of an odd and welcoming change. It definitely makes me respect the character more and feel a lot more (SPOILER) for his death in Second Coming (but not for his revival in Sanction-X).