"Deadpool & Cable: Ballistic Bromance"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Deadpool & Cable: Ballistic Bromance” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format. It IS NOT a review of the film “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

            Wade Wilson/Deadpool is a mercenary with a healing factor that lets him recover from about any wound.

            Nathan Summers/Cable is a mutant with telepathic and telekinetic powers.

            Deadpool received a call from Anton Kruch, the Prime Minister of the One World Church in France. Sunic Pharmacopoeia in Germany had invented the Façade Virus, a synthetic virus that enabled shapeshifting. Kruch wanted Deadpool to steal the virus. Cable planned to destroy the virus. Cable and Deadpool arrived at Sunic and had an altercation; Cable won. Cable found out that the Spammers, a group of three graduate students, had already stolen the virus themselves and used it on themselves, planning to cause anarchy. Deadpool and Cable had another altercation; Cable won. Cable found the Spammers, who did not survive their exposure to Façade, but obtained the virus, until he had another altercation with Deadpool; this time Deadpool won and stole the virus, which he brought back to Kruch. Kruch then injected it into Deadpool, hoping Deadpool’s healing factor would be able to stabilize the virus. Deadpool converted to the ways of the One World Church. Cable came to the One World Church and observed Deadpool for several days. He found out that the One World Church planned to use the Deliverance Device to transmit the Façade virus through the optic nerve. The believed side effect is it would turn a person blue. Kruch showed the device to Cable, which also infected Cable, and the side effect on Cable was it blocked his access to his mutant powers. As a child, Cable had been exposed to a techno-organic virus, and his telekinetic abilities were all that was keeping it in check. Cable and Deadpool had another altercation; this time the techno-organic virus completely immobilized Cable, and the Façade virus completely turned Deadpool into goo, until Cable mixed himself with Deadpool, which saved both their lives and restored them to their previous forms. The One World Church had hired Edward Lansky/Lightmaster to release the Façade virus. Cable modified the virus and launched Lightmaster into space. Lightmaster released the virus, that turned everyone pink instead of Kruch’s planned blue, and also did not turn everyone exposed to it into goo. The transformation would only be temporary. Cable had once had a space station that had blown up and been buried. Cable restored all those pieces. He also restored his teleport matrix. He used it to Bodyslide to the Daily Bugle office in New York to see his reporter contact, whom he had been in telepathic contact with over the course of this whole story. Because of their mixing, every time Cable or Deadpool performed a Bodyslide, both would teleport to the same location at the same time. Cable was recognized as saving the world from a destabilizing virus and deemed a savior in the Daily Bugle. Because of his status as a mutant, the X-Men, the mutant superhero team began to plan for the eventuality that Cable would cross a line.

            While in Hong Kong trying to steal an item for a job, Deadpool encountered Shen Kuei, the mercenary known as the Cat. Deadpool battled him and lost, and the Cat obtained the item. They met again in Tokyo where the Cat was trying to steal the second part. This device could be able to stop Cable. Deadpool was able to steal both pieces and Bodyslide away. S.H.I.E.L.D., the world peacekeeping agency, also prepared for the eventuality Cable would turn, and formed the Six Pack, a team consisting of G.W. Bridge, Hammer, Anaconda, Constrictor, Solo, and Domino. Cable established a floating island called Providence and took in refugees who wished for a home with their savior. Cable battled the Six Pack and won, then brought them to Providence and was able to sway them to his side. Deadpool and the Cat both tried to steal a device, but the X-Men prevented it, and took in Deadpool. Cable asked the governments of the world to disarm, or he would throw every weapon on Earth into the sun. Deadpool and the X-Men launched an assault upon Providence, and they battled Cable and the Six Pack. The fight was joined by the alien being the Silver Surfer, who was able to defeat Cable. Providence crashed into the ocean. Cable had Deadpool use the device he stole, which lobotomized Cable.

            After Deadpool took out Cable, public favor turned against Deadpool. Deadpool, wishing to restore Cable, went to Advanced Idea Mechanics and took an extraterrestrial techno-organic embryo. Cable had telepathically called the Six Pack to his Safe House and drew them into his mind, trapping their consciousnesses in his mind permanently until he died. Deadpool turned to P. Norbert Ebersol/Fixer, to fix Cable. Alex Hayden/Agent X was hired to prevent Deadpool from saving Cable’s life. The two battled and Deadpool won. Fixer was able to use the alien embryo to merge with Cable and restore him to consciousness. He and Deadpool then went to Providence.

            Haji Bin Barat, the world’s most wanted terrorist, had taken refuge on Providence. He was found murdered. Deadpool decided to take the case, only to find that he himself was the murderer. Cable then banished Deadpool from Providence. Deadpool then turned to the Black Box to fix himself.

            Instead, the Black Box reprogrammed Deadpool to eliminate the greatest threat to humanity: superhumans. Deadpool returned to Providence to learn that Cable had gone missing after fighting a supervillain called the Skornn alongside his team X-Force. Cable was not on this Earth, so the mutant inventor Forge created a device that would allow Deadpool interspatial and intraspatial travel through his Bodyslides. Theresa Cassidy/Siryn and Sam Guthrie/Cannonball would be able to travel with Deadpool as well, but they would appear three minutes behind Deadpool. Deadpool’s first stop was an Age of Apocalypse, where Cable’s greatest adversary Apocalypse had taken over the world. On this Earth, Cable was Apocalypse’s Horseman Death. Deadpool’s next stop was one where Cable was like unto a God. His third world was one where the techno-organic species the Phalanx had taken over Earth and Cable was the colony leader. On his fourth Earth, Cable was a baby, created in a laboratory by the evil genius Mr. Sinister to be the ultimate mutant. Sinister injected baby Cable with Deadpool’s DNA, hoping to rapidly age baby Cable to adulthood. Deadpool was able to Bodyslide with baby Cable back to the main Earth. X-Force then needed to find a way to break Black Box’s programming over Deadpool and restore Cable to his proper self.

            Okay, so let’s talk about my opinions on this book for a little bit. First off, I love Deadpool, I think he’s great. Cable is also a favorite character of mine, if you know enough about him and you found me on X, you might just get the reference of my handle, but I’m not actually going to spoil it for you, I’ll just leave you to do the research if that’s what you wish to do. Anyway, enough on that. I was so excited to get this book. Some of you now might be more in the line of thinking about “Deadpool & Wolverine” rather than “Deadpool & Cable,” but that’s not how it was back in 2004-2005 when this series was originally published. And I do have to say I thought this book was decent. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either. To me, it was just mediocre. Did I enjoy it? Yes, I did, but it was not an instant favorite of mine. I guess I can just say it was okay. The stories just didn’t wow me the way I hoped they would. And I just didn’t find it to be as funny as I was hoping it would be. There was just no true laugh aloud moments for me. There were a few scoffs, snorts, and parts that made me smile, but I just didn’t really laugh, if you know what I mean. I can, however, say that I did enjoy the inclusion of the X-Men rosters of the time, having members from all three of the main teams in one book at the same time was nice. And I also loved the artwork in this book. I thought it was great. I will say the funniest moment for me was when Deadpool claimed to look like Ryan Renolds crossed with a shar-pei, considering that issue was from 2004, and in 2009 Ryan Renolds as we all know did in fact start playing Deadpool, so I found that amusing that Fabian Nicieza, the writer, picked who he wanted to play the character five years before it actually happened. Hey, Mark Millar got Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury like he wanted.

            Okay, next we’re going to talk about accessibility. What I mean by that is how easy it is to pick up this book if you are not familiar with Deadpool or Cable comics. I will say this is not an easily accessible book. If you don’t know anything about Marvel Comics, if you’ve never read a Marvel comic book before and want to start, this book is not entry level. I know Deadpool is great and all, and “Deadpool & Wolverine” is killing it in theaters, but if you don’t know Cable, this is going to be difficult. Cable is an extremely complicated character, even I have difficulties with him, and I’ve been reading Marvel Comics for twenty-four years. Also, the X-Force storyline is a little obscure, I think some of that happened in a different comic that was not included in this book, so part of that story got chopped out of this book, which makes understanding that storyline a little difficult. Plus this book did have the House of M issue, which, if you read my review of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” we have talked about this before, but I will say in this book it really didn’t seem to matter since Deadpool was going to alternate Earths, but it might not be clear to a reader who doesn’t know House of M that the Earth with Mr. Sinister and baby Cable actually is the main Marvel Universe, just that the Scarlet Witch messed around with it. But House of M was a separate event that was not elaborated on fully in this book, so a reader who doesn’t know the event may have missed a substantial chunk of Marvel history. Also, there was an Age of Apocalypse visit, which was another event, but it should be said that even Deadpool mentioned this was AN Age of Apocalypse, not THE Age of Apocalypse, but even the concept was something that happened in the comics ten years prior and may be something that might go over the head of a person who is unfamiliar with the storyline, but even that doesn’t seem to be super important to know because it doesn’t reference the content of the event, so I honestly don’t think not knowing Age of Apocalypse will matter, but it would help to know. There were also several other characters, such as the Six Pack, Agent X and X-Force, who are more obscure. I just feel that there’s so much history involved in this book too that just won’t be easy for a new reader to pick up. If you’ve read Cable or Deadpool enough for any length of time, though, I think this book will be understandable, but if you just saw “Deadpool & Wolverine” and saw this book and thought it sounded cool, let me tell you, it’s not what you’re thinking.

            Anyway, I’ve gone on about that long enough, you’re getting a little bored at this point, so let’s get down to the important part: my numeric score. I know that most of you just read these for my synopsis and numeric scores anyway and see if I say I recommend it or not and that’s really all you care about, so I’ll just stop droning on about something you probably don’t want to be reading anyway. So, of course, like I always say, this is a GRAPHIC novel, which means that I must consider both the art AND the story when I give my score. Now, as my regular readers know, artwork has knocked my scores down in the past, or raised the scores. I’ve had some books that were potential tens based on story, but the artwork just couldn’t justify a ten and knocked my score down to a nine, and I’ve had some books get higher scores based on art, despite having awful stories. Like I said, this book was mediocre when it came to the story, but the art was good. So, we’re going to mix a balance here when we give it a score. Now, I score on a scale of one to ten, one being the worst, ten being the best. So, combining everything, all the cards on the table, the story and the art, the numeric score I can give this book is… six. Like I said, it was average, so it just falls right in the middle of the scale.

            Next up is my recommendation. The question is do I recommend this book, and if so, to whom do I recommend it. Honestly, I can say that I do recommend it if you are a fan of both Deadpool and Cable from the comics. However, if you just like Deadpool from the movies and want to read a Deadpool book, I do not recommend it to you. In general, though, this book does not get a high recommendation from me.

            Okay, I know that I have been going on for way too long, so let’s just start to wrap this up. I post on this website very frequently, so you can always expect new content. I write tons of Marvel reviews, every Modern Era Epic Collection that comes out gets added to my collection and as soon as that’s done, that gets a review on this website. There are a few I’ve read that I haven’t reviewed because I didn’t have a laptop at the time to type these reviews on, but I’ll get around to those when new volumes of those series come out. In fact, that’s about to happen. You can expect another review within the next couple of days, so check back then. I also write short stories, poetry, editorials, and essays, so there’s plenty of other content on this website if you’re interested in reading more. So, I hope you will be back for more, because I will be back within the next couple of days, so I’ll say to you that until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!