Cable & Deadpool – Eric Watson

Marvel Comics Final Thoughts – Deadpool & Cable Ultimate Collection, Book 3

While the previous collected volume had its ups and downs trying to give our unlikely duo things to do, the final Ultimate Collection almost solely focuses on Deadpool’s wacky adventures, to the great benefit of the series.

With Marvel’s popular and successful foray into films with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’ve finally decided to get back into comics. I grew up a big fan of X-Men and other superheroes but haven’t really kept up since the 90s. Thus begins my grand catching-up of the last ten years of Marvel comics, events and stories.

Thanks in large part to trade paperbacks and the digital convenience of Marvel Unlimited I can make relatively quick progress, and I’ll write down my Final Thoughts for each collection here on my blog. Like my gaming Final Thoughts, this will be full of spoilers. You’ve been warned!

Writer: Fabian Nicieza

Artist: Reilly Brown

Issues: Cable & Deadpool #36-50, Deadpool/GLI Summer Spectacular #1

It’s the Cable & Deadpool show! Starring Nathan Summers and Wade Wilson, but mostly everyone’s favorite fourth-wall breaking, pop culture referencing, Merc With a Mouth Deadpool! While the previous collected volume had its ups and downs trying to give our unlikely duo things to do, events to crossover with and guest stars to battle, the final Ultimate Collection almost solely focuses on Deadpool’s wacky adventures, to the great benefit of the series.

Although the series retained its Cable & Deadpool titling (which then gets changed to Deadpool & Cable for these Ultimate Collections – I like to think that was Deadpool’s doing), Cable only actually appears in three total issues among the final 15 issues. Cable has a major role to play in the adjective-less X-Men series as he joins Rogue’s team in the Supernovas volume of stories.

Cable’s “Fractured” story in Cable & Deadpool (#40-42) act as a bit of an epilogue to those adventures, as well as writing him out of his own series in preparation for the mega X-Men crossover Messiah Complex. His island of Providence is attacked and he’s forced to sacrifice himself to keep Gambit and Sunfire (see “Blood of Apocalypse“) from learning any of Apocalypse’s secrets. It leads to some exciting moments, and its fun to see Cable flashing back (or is that forward?) to his past life in the future as a soldier and commander making the tough decisions.

That just leaves Deadpool, whom Nicieza excels at writing and definitely feels most comfortable with. Deadpool’s solo adventures first have their seeds properly planted in the first few issues of Book 3. In “Unfinished Business,” (#36-39) Deadpool is steel reeling from the physical and emotional ass-kicking he got from Civil War, and ends up grappling with Taskmaster and then the Rhino. In the latter fight he’s shrunk down with Pym particles, which leads to another few issues of tiny Deadpool hilariously taking on an entire Hydra base and holding a Hydra agent hostage with a plastic card.

That Hydra agent would go on to become Deadpool’s new sidekick Bob in one of the more brilliant and hilarious characters I’ve ever seen. Together they rescue Agent X, a previous guest-star and regular Deadpool supporting cast-member whom has been hit with an obesity ray and is now an overweight cream-puff. Deadpool gets hired on by X’s company Agency X after Cable’s ordeal, and his first mission is to rescue his previous sidekick Weasel from the Hydra base where he accidentally left him.

In these final eight issues Deadpool and Bob (and later Weasel) get paired with a different Marvel character every issue – literally on the cover Cable’s name is crossed out and replaced with Wolverine, Dr. Strange, the Fantastic Four, etc. Rescuing Weasel sends Deadpool and Bob hurtling through time due to Weasel’s new teleporting suit, and they team up with Captain America and Bucky in the 40s before getting into an appropriately confusing and messy time-travel plot with the Fantastic Four.

Upon returning to their proper time, Dr. Strange enlists the help of Agency X to help with some mystical mumbo jumbo, leading to more excitingly random battles, including battling Brother Voodoo’s Zombies in Louisiana. Bob’s strategy of Run and Hide nearly steals the show from Deadpool’s own wise-cracking and violent antics and I was pretty much grinning throughout the entire arc.

It all ends with a trip to the Savage Land. In a neat tie-in to his former compatriot, Deadpool goes to the dino-infested jungles to get a power source for Cable’s former liberated country of Rumekistan and ends up battling Brainchild and some random mutate villains. The fun part comes at the end as they attempt to teleport an army of dinosaurs away. Deadpool picks Genosha as the destination, forgetting that Genosha was destroyed about five years ago. The dinosaurs thus get dropped into the Genoshan embassy in Manhattan, crash into the Mighty Avengers and unleash the Venom symbiote – leading to an epic final issue where Deadpool joins forces with the Avengers to defeat a bunch of dinosaur symbiote monsters rampaging New York!

This run of Cable & Deadpool marks the first time I’ve ever read a series to completion. All fifty issues, four years worth of comics, in a few months. Having the same writer and generally consistent, satisfyingly action-packed art style throughout helps immensely in rewarding loyal readers. Cable’s semi-frequent tie-ins to other ongoing Marvel events created some problems, but the series treated them amiably and mostly succeeded on Deadpool’s everlasting charisma and unique charm that makes him more lovable than irritating.

The latter half of Book 3 creates a worthy finale full of exciting scenarios and awesome guest-stars, but it never loses the funny. I was always fan of future-soldier and all-around badass Cable, but Cable & Deadpool definitely made me a huge fan of Deadpool. I look forward to exploring both characters’ solo series next.

Marvel Comics Final Thoughts – Deadpool & Cable Ultimate Collection, Book 2

Thanks to Marvel’s popular and successful foray into films with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’ve finally decided to get back into comics. I grew up a big fan of X-Men and other superheroes but haven’t really kept up since the 90s. Thus begins my grand catching-up of the last ten years of Marvel comics, events and stories.

Writer: Fabian Nicieza

Artists: Patrick Zircher, Lan Medina, Reilly Brown

Issues: Cable & Deadpool #19-35

The second massive volume of everyone’s favorite Marvel odd couple, Cable & Deadpool is going to be one of the harder Final Thoughts for me to recount, simply because I read it over the whole last month.

It starts with Issue #19, an epilogue of sorts to their House of M ordeal (which I find weird wasn’t included with the House of M tie-in’s in the first Book), while Issues #28-32 tie in to Civil War. I’m attempting to get better about starting and finishing at least whole story arcs before picking up more series, but some of these long collected volumes are a bit tricky – especially in this case where the stories are more about fun and humor than actually telling a coherent story.

Most major series have at least one major branching story line to along with minor vignettes along the way, but Cable & Deadpool is pretty much only the latter style in this second volume. Ironically my favorite issues were the nearly self-contained one-shots. Issue #19 stars Deadpool taking care of a rapidly re-aging Cable after his dimensional-hopping adventures. This mostly constitutes going to a bar and drinking together, but also includes some surprisingly poignant and rare revelations about Deadpool’s tragic past.

Issue #24 involves a fun match between Deadpool and Spider-Man, with all the verbal smack-talk slinging you can imagine. Issue #25 has Captain America infiltrate Cable’s little utopian project of Providence as a normal citizen, and becomes delighted with what Cable’s built and how he runs things (leading to a nicely logical reason why Cable helps support Cap in Civil War). We also get some fun glimpses into Cable’s dark future, where he wielded Cap’s iconic shield to inspire his own soldiers in the war against Apocalypse.

The other stories are varying degrees of quality, with the only notable importance to the series continuity being Deadpool stealing technology that allows Cable to simulate his lost telekinesis and telepathy. It leads Deadpool to a fun fight against Luke Cage, Iron Fist and the B.A.D. Girls.

With Cable’s ties to Apocalypse, it makes sense that he’d be involved in the “Blood of Apocalypse” storyline that hits the X-Men book around the same time. Issues #26-27, “Born Again,” act as a spiffy, if cheesy prologue to those events as Cable witnesses Pocky Lips’ premature resurrection and we got tons of backstory involving a mullet sporting Cable wielding a sword. It’s alright, and certainly leagues better than the ill-conceived X-Men story.

Unfortunately both the story telling and art gradually start to decline in the later issues. Domino, Cable’s ex-lover and former X-Force compatriot takes center stage in a few issues involving a coup in a made up Eastern European country. She’s not particularly interesting and her character doesn’t seem to have much to do outside of complaining about Cable.

The Civil War tie-ins are also profoundly disappointing. I was hoping to shed some insight in how Cable joins the resistance, but instead I get some pithy fights between Deadpool and the Anti-Reg team. Cable then goes on a round-about way to show Deadpool how wrong he is for the side he’s chosen. That story bleeds over into the next, involving the lame Six-Pack team that showed up in the previous Book attacking Cable’s newly liberated country of Rumekistan and Providence. Cable of course swiftly kicks all their asses.

I still enjoy my time with the dysfunctional duo. Fabian Nicieza’s writing remains funny and enjoyable throughout, and Deadpool is still delightfully hilarious. It’s a shame the series starts turning over artists as it’s definitely not for the better, and I’m hoping Nicieza can find his footing again with telling some more interesting stories.

Marvel Comics Final Thoughts – Deadpool & Cable Ultimate Collection, Book 1

Writer: Fabian Nicieza

Artists: Patrick Zircher

Issues: Cable & Deadpool #1-18

Maybe my 90s is showing a bit, but when I walked into a comic store in 2004 and saw a new series starring two of my favorite 90s-created characters, I had to jump on board. I bought the first six issues, encompassing the entire “If Looks Could Kill” story arc, which puts our titular heroes crossing paths while battling a cult and they wind up dissolving into each other from a virus that is contracted through light (comics!) and crossing DNA.

In plain terms it means they can teleport together and continue to have ridiculous adventures. In the first issue alone Cable telekinetically explodes Deadpool’s head (which he eventually heals from) and later Deadpool shoots Cable in the head (where he telekinetically stops the bullet). Both characters are deliciously overpowered and ridiculous, and the entire series revels in it.

Now ten years later as I jump back into comics I had to dig up this series and was delighted to find that it ran for a whopping 50 issues! These Final Thoughts cover the Ultimate Collection Book 1 (which is listed as Deadpool & Cable, no doubt Deadpool’s doing), which includes the first three volumes, or 18 issues of the series.

Cable, aka Nathan Summers is the son of Cyclops and Jean Grey (actually a clone of Jean Grey but let’s just leave it there for now) that gets infected with a techno-organic virus and sent into the future where he wages war in a war-torn Earth ruled by Apocalypse. Eventually he comes back to our time and he’s all kinds of powerful. Deadpool, aka Wade Wilson is a crass mercenary with Wolverine’s healing ability but in a less elegant state – and his constantly shifting molecules also makes him a bit insane, but in a totally hilarious way.

Together they make for one of Marvel’s oddest odd couples, and one of the most pure silly fun I’ve had reading comics. Writer Fabian Nicieza co-created these decidedly over-the-top badasses back in the early 90s and he successfully straddles the line between interesting plot lines and story-telling and silly jokes and conceits.

Deadpool’s shtick, for those unaware, is to constantly break the fourth wall. He often knows he’s in a comic book and will reference the reader and the action going on. Normally this would be incredibly jarring but Deadpool owns his role as the motor-mouthed jokester so much that it just works (though humor is entirely subjective and your mileage may vary). By contrast Cable is super stoic and serious and they act as wonderful foils for each other.

The second story arc, “Burnt Offering,” sets up the main story of the first chunk of the series – Cable constructs a floating island paradise named Providence and invites anyone to come join him in his Eden, which pisses off every major power. He fends off attacks from a silly SHIELD team named Six-Pack full of D-list superheroes and villains and generally sees himself as a savior attempting to make the world a better place. His philosophy is refreshingly plain – in order to change the future (and avoid his war-torn apocalypse) we need to change the present.

Once he threatens to throw everyone’s guns into the sun, however, even the X-Men get involved to try and stop him, but it’s not until Nick Fury calls in the Silver Surfer that Cable finally gets his ass kicked. Deadpool’s mostly along for the ride in these first two arcs, helping Cable and cracking jokes when he’s not trying to kill him.

A big reason the series works as well as it does is the constant rotating cast of cameos. It’s like a television sitcom with a constant stream of fun guest-stars. From random D-lister’s like Thunderbolts’ Fixer and Six-Pack there’s the X-Men, Silver Surfer, MODOC, Forge, Cannonball, Syren and Mr. Sinister. Using guest-stars is not exactly a new concept in comics but Cable & Deadpool uses everyone in a way that adds to the story and never feels tacked on.

Cable & Deadpool is also not afraid to use smaller story chunks in the midst of the bigger tales. After Cable is knocked out of commission at the end of “Burnt Offering,” Deadpool goes on a quest to save him in “Thirty Pieces,” enlisting the help of Fixer, Forge and others while killing hordes of random soldier dudes along the way. If action heroes are known for spouting one-liners, Deadpool is known for going full-blown soliloquy.

“A Murder in Paradise” is the only story that feels a bit pointless, as Deadpool helps investigates a murder in Cable’s island which – spoiler alert – discovers he did (he’s a bit crazy in the head, and also someone kinda brainwashed him). As the story builds to this new brain-washing villain, however, House of M happens in the Marvel Universe, and Cable & Deadpool tie in by having Cable jump through dimensions while Deadpool (joined by Cannonball and Syren) follow in “Enema of the State.”

This was by far my favorite storyline in Book 1 as Deadpool travels to an apocalyptic future (where they battle the Four Horseman of Archangel, Blob, Spider-Man and Cable), an Eloi-style utopian future where no one fights (and Deadpool hates, naturally), a scary future where the TO virus has assimilated everyone, and finally the House of M universe, where Deadpool has a fun chat with Mister Sinister on a farm with a genetically engineered baby Cable. At one point Deadpool explains to Sinister why he’s there while our merc takes a long leak in the bathroom (he’d been holding it for several issues). It’s just the best scene ever, and ended up as my favorite House of M tie-in.

The writing stays fresh and funny, the action is always bombastic and entertaining and Patrick Zircher’s crisp art style meshes perfectly with the tone of the book (ignore the Rob Liefield cover art of the first six issues, it’s pure nostalgia and the comic looks nothing like it, thankfully). Cable & Deadpool has such a fun time with its own cast and its crossovers that I just can’t help but devour every issue. Highly recommended to comic fans looking for a bit of silly fun.