Laying Cable: Marvel Announces Avengers: X-Sanction

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Yesterday afternoon, Marvel announced in a conference call that their next big event will be called Avengers: X-Sanction, written by Jeph Loeb and penciled by Ed McGuinness. The story will focus on the Avengers – probably to keep focus on the team for the release of the Joss Whedon movie nest summer – and will feature the return of Cable, the popular mutant character killed in the X-Men Second Coming event last summer. Cable, who was introduced in New Mutants in 1990 by *eyeroll* *drool* *take back fuck I threatened to give*

Okay, maybe that’s not fair and a little premature. Let’s see what Loeb has in mind for the story:

As to how Cable’s mission relates to the Avengers, Loeb said he “doesn’t want to give away too much,” but “how Cable survived ‘Messiah Complex’ and ‘Second Coming’ — and I do consider those one big arc — if there had been even a hint that the Avengers had something to do with Hope’s future, he would… do something to them.”

…[Marvel Senior Vice President of Publishing Tom] Brevoort said the event puts Cable in conflict with characters readers aren’t used to seeing him with. “The definition of Cable as a father out to protect his daughter by any means necessary gives the character a weight and heft you can relate to on a very human level.” There are also “some larger situations going on” for both Nate and the Avengers.

Okay, THAT changes things. NOW I feel… yeah: I got nothing.

Look: I like Jeph Loeb’s stuff, and not just his “color” books and Batman stories with Tim Sale, which are classic no matter who you are. I like Jeph Loeb to the point where I will defend NBC’s Heroes up through and including season four. And I like McGuinness’s art (And not just because his name makes stout sound even more Irish); he’s a lot of the reason I picked up the first arc of Superman / Batman back in 2003.

But this just isn’t working for me for a few reasons, the first being that, as I’ve said before: I’m not an X-Men guy. That’s Amanda‘s department, and she might have a comment and a very different opinion on this story arc at some point.

The second is that this appears to be yet ANOTHER case of comic companies taking the opportunity that an impending major motion picture about one of their characters gives them to draw in new readers and PISSING IT AWAY by introducing story elements in their comics that will utterly alienate and confuse any potential new readers who might wander into a comic store to learn more about the characters they just enjoyed on the big screen. Let’s go down a list of self-dickstepping that I just compiled off the top of my fucking head:

The Dark Knight, 2008: coincides neatly with Batman being fucking KILLED in Final Crisis and replaced by Dick Grayson. Oh, and Robin is an unlikeable, mouthy little prick.
The Incredible Hulk, 2008: in comics, Bruce Banner is missing, and apparently replaced by a Red Hulk who’s a completely different guy.
Iron Man: 2007: after Civil War, Tony Stark is a douchebag who fought with Captain America and is now the head of a secret spy organization.
Ghost Rider, 2007: Fans of the movie looking for comics mimicing that experience were disappointed to find Ghost Rider comics that were actually pretty good.
X-Men, 1999: In the X-Men comics, they were featuring X-Men written and drawn in the 1990’s.

And that last point hits the third reason this isn’t working for me: I just don’t give a fuck about Cable. To me, Cable represents the worst of the excesses of comics in the 1990’s – a decade where if it weren’t for Vertigo comics, I might have drifted out of the genre entirely. Big, McFarlane-style art no matter where you looked, gimmicky characters, overly-bombastic storylines… I tuned out back then, and it’ll take a lot for me to tune back in now.

Make no mistake, I WILL give this a shot. After all, I felt the same way a few years back about Shatterstar, but in the hands of Peter David in X-Factor, I’ve grown to really like that character. Maybe Loeb can do the same for me with Cable.

Any more selling points, Jeph?