X-Force #18

X-Force #18
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Greg Capullo

What Went Down: Part 12 of the X-Cutioner’s Song. Finally, the final issue. We open with the customary Cable splash page for X-Force issues, which is Cable holding a big gun and wearing a costume covered in pouches and pockets. The big energy tower is now showing flashbacks that actually relate to this story, such as Cyclops giving up his son Nathan and scenes from the Askani’son future.

Stryfe reveals that Cable is a “scientific abomination” that was an attempt to preserve the young Nathan’s life. The implication seems to be that the baby Nathan Summers was cloned, and Cable is that clone. After months of fans complaining, this was reversed and it was revealed that Cable is the true son and Stryfe is the clone. But never mind that for now.

Anyways, this angers Cable, and the two begin to fight. Back at Stryfe’s Moon base, the Dark Riders escape, leaving Wolverine, Storm, and Psylocke standing around looking like idiots. Psylocke reveals that she senses Apocalypse is dying.

Iceman, Bishop, and Archangel are elsewhere, looking for more villains. Psylocke contacts Warren, and he flies off to go rub it in Apocalypse’s face. Bishop comments that Warren is no longer among the living, which confuses Iceman.

Polaris and Cannonball wake up outside the force field, but there is nothing they can do to help as Cable and Stryfe continue to fight.

Xavier is awake at the mansion, claiming that Scott and Jean’s lives will be the cost of this conflict.

Archangel finds Apocalypse mortally wounded; the villain asks Warren to finish him off, but Warren leaves him to suffer instead, because he is not a monster. Because Apocalypse desired a clean, fast death, this is obviously a very big disappointment for him.

Stryfe is about to defeat Cable, while Jean is trying to free herself and Cyclops. Havok saves Cable at the last minute, followed by a blast from Cyclops. Jean offers help in healing Stryfe’s wounds, but he doesn’t believe them and chooses to destroy the tower. Jean erects a teke shield to protect them, but Cable and Stryfe are outside of it.

Cable throws Cyclops a remote to hit; then he tackles Stryfe and starts an auto-destruct countdown. Cyclops is hesitant, but then he hits the button, and the explosion is contained by a time vortex. Everyone is sad because Cable apparently died a hero, especially because the story started with everybody thinking he was an assassin.

An epilogue shows Mr. Sinister’s assistant Gordon opening the package Stryfe gave him in exchange for Cyclops and Jean Grey. The canister appears empty, enraging Sinister. Actually, it contained the Legacy Virus; the fact that Sinister’s assistant starts coughing signifies that he is the first one infected, but there will be more on this story later.

How It Was: How about that for some huge ramifications?  Well, this story is only really huge if you were a big X-Force fan. If you were just an X-Men fan, then it was a fun little story that didn’t change a whole lot. Yes Cable’s sacrifice did change the dynamic in X-Force for a while, but don’t feel too bad for Cable. He gets his own solo series and he’ll return in about a year after traipsing around the future for a bit.

Getting to the complaints of this issue. First off, the majority of the X-Men have absolutely nothing to do in this story. Everybody is searching for the Dark Riders, but since the villains escaped, their arcs just kind of fizzle out. The only one who gets a decent scene is Archangel over the mortally wounded Apocalypse. This is a pretty great scene, if rather predictable. And it does offer somewhat of a conclusion to Warren’s struggle with his inner demons.

The end also falls a little flat because despite the characters’ sadness at the sacrifice of Cable, all of the readers knew that Marvel wasn’t going to just kill off a really popular character. Also, the revelation that Cable is a clone is lame. Not because of reasons expressed earlier, but simply because clones are cheap, lame plot devices that writers resort to when they’ve written themselves into a wall (See also Joseph/Magneto and X-23/Wolverine). Personally, I prefer the initial call by writers of making Stryfe the original son and Cable the clone; there is a lot more dramatic mileage for the story if Scott feels massive guilt about trying to save his son and accidentally turning him into a power hungry evil maniac. Plus making Cable the son pretty much negated Stryfe’s purpose, so the villain just faded into obscurity.

All in all, it does give some closure to what happened to Cyclops’ son, and the part where Scott can’t bring himself to push the button is rather well done. Stryfe finally meets his match after being undefeatable for the whole story, and there is the beginning of the Legacy plot, which started out interesting until it went on for almost a decade. As for the entire story itself, if you can ignore the C-list villain teams that all but disappear from the X-books afterward, this is a nice little crossover that highlights just about all of the X-Characters at the time (Except for Excalibur, who apparently don’t count because their team name doesn’t actually start with an X). It makes good use of continuity and furthers a good deal of plot points and character relationships.

B+