Cable: The Last Hope, Vol. 2

Cable (2008) #3-4

by Duane Swierczynski, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost

The birth of a single mutant child changed the landscape of the X-Men's world. Some saw the baby as mutantkind's last hope; others as its doom. Cable took the girl into the future, believing he could save both "Hope" and their entire species. But Lucas Bishop has wreaked havoc across time and space trying to hunt them down.

Now Cyclops sends X-Force into the future to help Cable and Hope - and the Messiah War begins! Can a weakened Cable triumph over Bishop, Stryfe and Apocalypse, raise Hope to adulthood and bring her home? And what happens when Hope's mutant powers manifest?

Cable and Hope's survival skills will be put to the test like never before...and the fate of mutantkind rests on their shoulders!

COLLECTING: X-FORCE/CABLE: MESSIAH WAR 1, CABLE (2008) 13-25, X-FORCE (2008) 14-16, X-MEN: HOPE 1

Genres: Marvel, Comics, X Men, Graphic Novels

496 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2010

About the author

Duane Swierczynski is an American crime writer who has written a number of non-fiction books, novels and also writes for comic books.

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This final volume picks up right after not only the slam-dunk previous volume, but also immediately after X-Force: Book 1, and Cyclops has sent X-Force into the time stream in a desperate attempt to find out what's happened to Cable and the mutant messiah he's protecting and give him some backup, leading to the mini-crossover X-Force/Cable: Messiah War, which opens this volume. I love the ticking clock element in the story due to the fact that the time-slide devices that X-Force has will force them to return to the present in 32 hours. It added some good tension. I just wish they went further with that idea, which ultimately got thrown out of the window at the end. In fact the entire crossover, while interesting on a scene to scene basis, was ultimately pretty inconsequential and disappointing in it's lack of impact.

But once we get back to Cable and Hope's more focused story, the book regains some of the magic of the previous volume, as Hope begins to grow up, their time-sliding becomes more hectic, and Bishop gets more and more desperate. I really appreciate how Swierzcynski knows the importance of keeping this insane time travel story as simple as possible in regards to it's core objectives, and grounding it in a single antagonist with a clear motivation. And it pays off well here. No matter how crazy the story gets, it all comes back to Cable protecting Hope in order to save mutant kind and his former friend Bishop wanting to kill her to stop his dystopian future from ever happening. Really solid stuff and we need more writers like him in superhero comics.



This whole series can stand on its own pretty well, with only a little knowledge of what's happened in X-Men: Messiah CompleX being all that's really necessary. But I warn you, once the end comes, you'll definitely want to immediately read X-Men: Second Coming, to see what happens in the next chapter in Cable and Hope's story.

And if none of this is enough to entice you, there are also space sharks in this book. Yes, I said it. SPACE. SHARKS.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man I loved this Cable run. This volume was just as good as the 1st. It starts of with the Messiah War crossover with Cable and X-force. X-force has arrived in the future where Cable is. They only have 24 hours to be there before they are zapped back to the present thanks to Beasts time devices. Meanwhile Bishop has enlisted the help of someone from Cables past by offering to help him kill his “father”. Throw in a cameo who was funny, we have a great opening to this book. Afterwards it’s back to the chase. Man Bishop is relentless. It feels like Cable is Sara Conner, Hope is John Conner and Bishop is the Terminator. He just won’t stop. 😂 With Bishop chasing Cable and Hope for the duration of two fat trade paperbacks, one might think it could get boring or repetitive after awhile. However, Duane Swierczynski does a great job coming up with fresh new ideas for the chase. They even leave earth for a little bit and damn Bishop is still right there on their heels. This book was action packed and fun as hell to read. Looking forward to reading the rest of Fractions Uncanny X-men run so I can see this all wrap up in X-men Second Coming.

[Ant Tellez · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.1/5.0

The constant storyline of Bishop tracking the steps of Cable and Hope grows rather tiresome after a certain point in this story. Aside from that, I really enjoyed the character building that we see Hope Summer experiences alongside Nathan as they travel through time to protect the future of the mutants. This was a great collection of stories that helps readers understand the significance of Hope Summer as the X-Men stories progress into a different realm of Marvel storytelling.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite as strong as the first volume, which had the added bonus of fairly regular Ariel Olivetti artwork. He continues here for several volumes and then they get turned over to a rotation bunch that isn't nearly as good. The story also gets increasingly silly and drawn-out the longer it goes on (how many near misses with Lucas Bishop can there be? A lot, apparently). Still, I enjoyed this pretty much. Wish the library had the X-Men: Second Coming follow-up.

[Jase · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the first story arc, the art gets bad and boring. The same story has been happening from the beginning but Bishop brings on Stryfe & Apocalypse with a bigger scale. The great X-Factor guys fade out as we start time jumping into confusion. Nice that the book has a huge Apocalapadeia.

[Edward Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun read, and thankfully included the Messiah War storyline, but the drastic change in art direction made it difficult to enjoy it as much as volume 1.

[Elia · Rating 2 out of 5]

A continuation of Messiah Complex with Cable and Hope (baby and later adolescent) in the future and Bishop hot on his heels. It's essentially a version of Terminator as Bishop is nigh unstoppable here infused with techno-organics. And I've really enjoyed the writer Duane S. for his novel work, which have a lot of pulp style. Yet, this run is a bit exhausting. The first half has some great art, but once the second half kicks in, it's just really repetitive.