Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Marvel Comics | Tagged: cable, hellions, marvel, new mutants, X Of Swords, x-men, X-ual Healing - The Weekly X-Men Recap Column

Leave It to Nathan in Cable #5 [XH]

Published Mon, 19 Oct 2020 21:00:41 -0500

by Jude Terror

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Three X-books were published by Marvel Comics last week, all part of the X of Swords crossover event that's swallowed the X-line whole: Hellions #5, New Mutants #13, and Cable #5. As an "essential" crossover, this could be costing you a lot of money. Or maybe it just costs me a lot of money, and you're reading these recaps. Call it a public service. Now I've gotta go recap Raw (and while that's free, believe me, the emotional toll is way worse), so let's get right down to the recaps so I can click publish already!

Sworn to sell comics for Marvel executives who feared and hated the fact that Fox owned their movie rights, The Uncanny X-Men suffered great indignities. Still, thanks to a corporate merger, a line-wide relaunch, and Jonathan Hickman's giant ego, the X-Men can finally get back to doing what they do best: being objectively the best franchise in all of comics for lovers of soap opera drama.

The cover to Cable #5, part 8 of X of Swords

CABLE #5 XOS
AUG200621
(W) Gerry Duggan (A/CA) Phil Noto
X OF SWORDS, PART 8
A hand held aloft. A mystery in the stars. An ace up the sleeve.
Rated T+
In Shops: Oct 14, 2020
SRP: $3.99

Cable #5 Recap

After restoring power to The Peak, former space station headquarters of SWORD, Cable, Cyclops, and Jean Grey wonder where everybody went. They decide to split up and look, with Jean going off on her own. There's a Wikipedia article Hickman prose page about another Otherworld region, Blightspoke, but I don't buy comics to read Wikipedia articles. How is it these stupid prose pages have actually gotten more annoying than when they just contained weird symbols and other nonsense?

Cyclops and Cable believe there was a fight on the space station before everyone disappeared. Magik checks in with Cable via hologram to tell him he's got to bring his sword back home to participate in a crossover (we see this from Magik's perspective in New Mutants this week. Cyclops says they'll be on their way. Then he tries to convince Cable to give him the sword so he can fight in the tournament. Cable isn't into it. They find a science lab with the doors welded shut and open it up. Cyclops tells Jean she should come check it out.

Meanwhile, Jean has run into some dude. Some dude complains that she turned the space station back on. He says the station's crew were battling creatures from the other side of a portal or something. He passes the knowledge onto Jean telepathically and then throws himself out into space. RIP some dude.

Jean warns Cyclops and Cable not to open any doors, but they already figured that. There's a giant, ominous-looking gateway in the science lab. Jean shows up and tells them something on the other side of the portal is "a faceless death" called "the Vescora." Three aliens in spaceships walk through the portal. Jean says Cable to deactivate the space station's power source while she and Scott hold off invading aliens. Cable deactivates the power source. Jean and Scott say they're proud of him.

Cable heads back to Krakoa so he can stand in a circle with the other champions: Magic, Wolverine, Storm, and Cypher. We get a Wikipedia page on Cable's Space Knight sword, the Light of Galador. Cyclops and Jean wish Cable luck in his tournament.

This whole outing with Jean, Scott, and Cable felt really weird in this and the previous issue. Scott and Jean smiling creepily while imparting parental wisdom on Cable is really unsettling. Is that on purpose? I guess we'll see as the book continues. This is one of the X-books that feels like it's really disrupted by the crossover, much like X-Factor. It just hasn't had enough issues yet to establish an identity before getting whisked off into crossover land, though at least this issue didn't start the crossing over until the very end.