Cable and X-Force, Vol. 4: Vendetta

Cable and X-Force (Collected Editions) #4

by Dennis Hopeless (Writer), Sam Humphries (Writer), Geraldo Sandoval (Artist)

What havoc will Forge, in the thrall of the Adversary, unleash upon Cable and X-Force? And can Cable control his drastically altered powers in time to save his daughter?
Then, classic X-Force villain Stryfe has returned, and he's eager to exact revenge on Cable! Meanwhile, Hope comes face-to-face with Bishop, the man who crusaded across centuries to exterminate her. But this time she's ready to retaliate, and they'll hold nothing back as they race to destroy on another.
Don't miss this no-holds-barred, knock-down, drag-out X-Force event starring Cable's squad, and Psylocke and Storm's uncanny team! Because when the dust settles, only one X-Force will be left standing!

Collecting: Cable and X-Force 15-19, Uncanny X-Force 16-17

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, X Men, Superheroes, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics

152 pages, Paperback

First published March 26, 2014

About the author

Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum is an American comics writer from Kansas City, Missouri who has written for Marvel Comics, Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Boom! Studios, Arcana Studio, and Oni Press.

See also under Dennis Hallum

Reviews

[Adam Stone]

The beginning of this series was tailor made for very specific X-Men readers, but by the end, it's just a mess of characters being moved through the script just to reach the end.

The Adversary? That might be the worst villain from Claremont's 1980s issues. The brain switching? The Boom Boom/Nemesis frenemieship? Strife?

Ooooof. I don't know who this is for, but I know they're not invited to my next board game night.

[C]

Continuing the great x-read of 2017/18...

I am going to write one review for the final volumes of each of these X-force series (though different scores which will be obvious in the review) as they cross over and each volume is at least 50% shared content (which is kind of a crappy way for Marvel to bleed money out of consumers but that is a whole different topic...).

So the two X-force series that were set up to follow up Remender's fascinating and excellent series end together here and both fall a little flat in this end but for different reasons in my opinion.

Humphries team of mutants was an intriguing group as an idea but he never quite made them gel in any way that made their story actually interesting. Puck was a caricature rather than a character, Storm was background noise, Spiral didn't matter much beyond her power in the end... Psylocke's relationship (and its collapse) with Fantomex was the most interesting part of the whole series and even that had its problems. In the end, this Uncanny X-force book was - for me, at least - completely forgettable. The status quo remains intact for nearly all of its characters and it just didn't do anything new... I feel no remorse whatsoever about seeing this series end - I won't miss this team at all.

Cable and the X-force, though, I will miss. I feel like Hopeless was much better at writing a team book and making the reader care about every character, at least on some level. The overarching plot was a good backbone to a series (though I imagine it would have worn out its welcome fairly quickly if the stakes weren't raised or changed...) and it only picked up steam with the introduction of Stryfe and Bishop. The ending of the series was more than a bit of a letdown, but I feel like Hopeless *got* these characters and could have really accomplished something with this series if he had been given more time to get there.

[Daniel]

It’s really 2.75 stars but I can’t do that here.

The first three volumes were great. Good old fashioned X-Force fights with some weird romance and jokes thrown in to make it fun.

This volume started with a story about Forge and the Adversary which I found incredibly boring. The art also took a dive and I have to assume they knew the end of the series was coming.

There were some completely unrelated fun parts. The romance between Domino and Piotr has been all kinds of fun. Their portion of the story was well done.

The father/daughter relationship between Cable and Hope was also nice to see. Again, only tangentially related to the main plot.

The we get into the final Vendetta storyline crossover with … Uncanny X-Force. You’ve got one led by Cable and the other, inexplicably, by Storm. That’s a separate issue.

Hope goes after Bishop to kill him. Why? Because from the time she was a newborn until she was sixteen he chased her across time and killed *billions* to try to murder her. That should be unforgivable because it’s worse than anything any X-villain has ever done but, hey, Storm thinks bygones should be bygones.

I want to backpedal a little. During Forge’s thing we learn Hope had absorbed Cable’s omega level telepathic and telekinetic powers and used them efficiently. Yet, in this story, it’s some huge deal that she absorbed Stryfe’s omega level telepathic and telekinetic powers and oh no how will she handle that much power! Spoiler: Bishop talks her through it. If you can remember what happened a couple issues early you know the editors couldn’t even be bothered anymore.

[Villain E]

First: Where there's Forge, there's the Adversary. The ancient mystical entity who once killed the X-Men never gets out of the basement and nothing much happens.

Then: The crossover with Uncanny X-Force, the same one that's collected in the last volume of Uncanny X-Force. Hope finds out Bishop is alive and in the present and goes after him, putting the teams at odds. Then Stryfe returns, to give them a common enemy.

This had potential. Bishop once chased Cable and Hope through time because he thought killing Hope would alter a horrible future. Currently, Cables powers have altered to the point where he sees horrible futures and his team takes action to stop them. Bishop is a recovering evil maniac. Forge is a recovering evil maniac. There's a lot of potential philosophical debate. But instead the story focuses more on whether or not Hope will actually kill Bishop. So, it was okay, but it could have been better.

[Jeff Lanter]

I may have said in previous volumes that this book is underrated here on Goodreads but I think the rating is on the money here. This last volume felt rushed and uninspired to me. It crams two quick stories in together and neither one really makes full use of the villains. I thought the dialogue lacked the spark that earlier volumes had and that some of the characters who I had previously liked were a bit grating here. Doctor Nemesis's rivalry with Forge especially was that way which I didn't mind previously. The art was much less consistent as well which was a strong point of this title. All in all, it is a less than satisfactory way to end this series but I imagine that it got abruptly cancelled or re-imagined as this book was probably not setting the comic book sales chart on fire.

[Dean]

mindscape fight. not into them. I thought that would be a re-enact and tie into uncanny x force instead I don't know where that evil spirit came from. looked racist.

I've not read boom boom in years, didn't think Tabitha was meant to be this dumb.

domino and Peter fight a sentinel.

cable and hope fight reavers.

uncanny x force vs x force:
first issue was okay for the setup.
second was a waste of time as that's the inevitable hero vs hero issue.
three and four indont even remember. stryfe kidnaps Bishop, cable and hope. hope has to not kill Bishop to win. she injures him abd that's it. cable threatens Bishop.

[Sean]

This book had a lot going on but not enough of what you want from an X-Force title, which is an edge. It was good seeing Forge's past being dealt with but this was too redundant. Boom Boom's dialogue was insanely stupid. She didn't speak like this twenty years ago so why has she regressed. Simply put, bad writing. The long awaited clash between Hope and Bishop was done reasonably well but the why's didn't make any sense. I'm not sure why the antagonist was used in this way. The art was subpar. Overall, the series ended on another down note.

[Matthew Gilliland]

The Exciting Conclusion of Cable and X-Force:

This is effectively 2 stories.

The first is the Cable team doing 3 different missions concurrently and they are all fun. I love this cast so much and wish this wasn't the end for this team.

The second part sees Hope trying to kill Bishop and they get abducted by Strife and Cable's X-Force and the Uncanny X-Force team up to save them.

Its heavy, action packed and a ton of fun.

[Angela]

Cable is starting to feel the effects of the new powers. Bishop has turned up again and Hope wants revenge. There's also a nice side story with the adversary.

This is mainly Hope's story and her coming to terms with what has happened to her. The side story is great for showcasing the other members of Xforce. A good read.

[Hannah]

I enjoyed the Uncanny X-Force issues more than the Cable and X-Force issues in this volume. Bit anti-climactic with the Adversary, but I guess it had to be to move the rest of the story forward. Oh well. Overall a pretty good series, and I enjoy most storylines that have two of my favorite characters (Storm and Psylocke).

[Jesse]

An excellent ending to this series. It blended quite well with UXF too, I will probably have to figure out how to put some of that into the bind. Anyway, this is all about Hope and Bishop, and in the end did not disappoint on telling that story of vengeance and hurt. Very well done.

[Megan]

2.5

[Jdetrick]

This title falls apart a little during this last trade, but it's still a better title than most of the Marvel's X-comics.

[Frans Kempe]

The Adversary takes over Forge and wrecks havoc and the second story is about the two X-force teams facing of when Bishop and Hope clashes and Stryfe enters the fray.

[Steve Owens]

Eh! Fizzle.

[Eric]

Four stars is a bit high, but I enjoyed the issues in Forge's mind, and, this book handled the Uncanny X-Force crossover a lot better.

[Christopher]

The first "half" of this volume offers a quick story to buffer the timed execution of the crossover with Uncanny X-Force. A shame, since it features Forge, one of my favorite characters from back in the day, and Dr. nemesis, one of the more well-written recent additions to the X-Men world.

Like some modern-day crossovers, this one suffers from mix of tones. Uncanny X-Force was less remarkable than Cable and X-Force, largely, and while UXF had its moments of humor and lightheartedness, C/XF's were better. That issue aside, the crossover shoehorns in old villain Stryfe after just using him (...sort of) in the previous story. Stryfe unfortunately doesn't break out of the "cool looking '90s villain" ghetto this time out and the best that comes of this x-over is some mending of fences between Cable, Hope, and Bishop (as well as both teams). Otherwise, nothing remarkable comes of this volume as a whole, unfortunately.

[Shannon Appelcline]

Adversary. Hopeless has done a good job in the past in telling this sort of action-oriented, multithreaded story, and he continues to do so here. It's got nice continuity, nice character interactions, a bit of fun. There's not a lot of depth here, and I feel like we've dropped the comics' main plots (involving Cable's premonitions), but it's still a strong arc [7+/10]

Vendetta. The final crossover with Cable & X-Force is a badly needed confrontation over the whole Bishop issue. I've never been too happy about bringing him back, but Hopeless and Humphries actually make me believe his change of heart herein. Overall, this is a fine storyline, though it makes it a little obvious how superior Hopeless' writing is to Humphries' [7/10].

My biggest complaint with the comic is that it never picks up the topic of Cables' premonitions, instead dismissing it in a single line of dialogue, which seems like a pretty disrespectful ending for the core of this comic's writing.

[Chris Lemmerman]

The first arc here ties up a few loose ends, such as explaining why Forge was so crazy in Ghost Boxes, whilst also giving some more time for the rest of the team to enjoy each other's company. The character work here is strong, and I could have seen this series going far with the cast had it not been cut short. The actual battle with the Adversary is okay, but nothing special. Then the trade ends with the crossover with Uncanny X-Force, the titular Vendetta arc. The conflict between Cable, Bishop, and Hope is well explored, but the rest falls a bit flat. The other teams do nothing but bicker and be ineffective for 4 issues, whilst Stryfe's appearance makes no sense at all and is never explained other than 'He wants to mess with Cable.' The artwork is solid, but it's not really a crossover that needed to happen, nor is it really a series-ending arc.

[Travis Duke]

im such a sucker for x-force and cable, so i cannot help but like this book. We get a conclusion to what is inside forges head with a really cool story line with nemesis helping him solve his puzzle. Nemesis is great comic relief ( and boom boom) and his little storm conversation was well placed.The colossus and Domino story line shrinks down but that is expected since colossus isnt such a wreck now. some x-men make a cameo with Betsy leading them on hunt for cable. Bishop makes an appearance and we get some closure on the hope story line as well, long time coming. Overall the book was a fun ride but lacked some good artwork, not a fan of Sandoval.

[Anchorpete]

Well, here we are, at the Crossover that breaks down the two X-force teams and melds them into one.

I can't say I really cared for Psylocke's Uncanny X-force team, once Remender left the book. Psylocke is one of my favorite X-men, but the book just seemed like it was trying to hard. Cable and X-force, however, was really starting to become something great.

This book draws a lot from the Messiah War crossover that featured Wolverine's X-force, Bishop, Stryfe as well as Cable and Hope. I think the original version of Wolverine's X-force (pre - Remender) is Underrated and I thoroughly enjoyed that crossover. it is nice to see it have such an impact on both of these versions of X-force.

[Willow]

The story is probably deserving of 4 stars, but it gets less because I despise it when Marvel puts out multiple trades with overlapping issues forcing readers to buy some issues twice if they are reading all of the crossover titles. In this case, this book shares 4 issues (of 7, over 1/2 the book!) with Uncanny X-Force, Vol: 3: The Great Corruption. It's simple exploitation of their readers and fans and I hate it.

[Silas]

This volume went downhill a bit from the previous ones. The art, in particular, is far lower in quality, and the writing is far more about the characters sniping at each other than about advancing the plot in any meaningful way. The volume is also hurt by changing gears halfway through from a story about Forge being taken over by the Adversary, to a crossover story with Uncanny X-Force about the confrontation between Hope and Bishop. That second story is a bit better done, but not enough to make this book entirely enjoyable.

[Berger M.P.]

I've been so down on this series and this last bit really surprised me. Great way to end, just wish the previous issues were this fun mixed with serious.
+Random missions are better here and how they get side tracked is fun and eventful.
+Dr. Nemesis is fantastically written in these issues.
+Domino shines.
+Stryfe!
+goofy badguys in a good way.
+Puck and Boom Boom back and forth.
++Bishop and Hope confrontation feels authentic.
+++”Bastard"
-Certain person leaving didn't totally make sense, but that's alright, minor wrinkle.

[Elia]

The ending is a crossover of the two books with the two books tying up the multi-year story involving Hope, Bishop, and Cable. Hope confronts her greatest demon in Bishop and she has to decide to give into the manipulations of Stryfe and give into vengeance or not. The rest of the characters sort of fall away at this point though.

[B]

So much of this is in the Uncanny X-Force Volume 3: Great Corruption that it's pretty hard to get into.

It also doesn't resolve much of the concerns building up in the first couple of volumes in the book at all. It's pretty good but more as a sidestory than a conclusion.

[John]

Disappointingly rushed finish. It feels like Hopeless was playing the long game, then had to cram his ending into a few issues. Larocca's art is sorely missed. The relative realism of his figures grounded Hopeless' often fantastical dialogue. This volume feels cartoony.

[Matthew Ledrew]

Bringing Bishop back, in this way, is ridiculous. That everyone forgives him, is ridiculous. His turn made sense, it makes sense for everyone to despise him for that turn. This book does not make sense.

[Daniel Butcher]

I want to like this but it fell short.

[Craig]

Not terrible, but not too good, either...