New team, old look.
Cable is the first of Marvel's ResurrXion titles to undergo a major status quo shift. Not only does the series revert to legacy numbering for this new arc, it features an entirely new creative team in the form of writer Ed Brisson and artist Jon Malin. With the new creators comes a more ensemble-based approach, as Cable begins assembling a new version of the New Mutants to help him solve an urgent murder mystery. There's definitely more substance to the series than we saw in the first arc, but the decline in visual quality more than makes up for any storytelling improvements.
There's a lot to like about Ed Brisson's script in this opening chapter. Brisson gives the book a fast, peppy pace as Cable begins recruiting allies for his latest mission. Brisson doesn't allow the script to get bogged down by exposition, focusing more on the character dynamics than the whys and hows of the plot. The eclectic cast pays homage to a number of different X-Men and X-Force eras, and Brisson captures their distinctive personalities well. Even at this early stage, there seems to be potential for an X-Force or New Mutants spinoff featuring this team.
The downside is that the team is far more compelling than the mission they've been assembled to carry out. This issue never makes it entirely clear why Cable cares so much about these murders in the first place, and as a result there's a certain lack of impetus to the plot. Marvel revealed a few more story details at NYCC earlier this month, and perhaps Brisson would have been better off cutting right to the chase and revealing the arc's mastermind villain straight away.
However, the art proves to be the real sore point in this issue. Mind you, there's probably no current Marvel book better suited to Jon Malin's heavily Rob Liefeld-influenced style. And at times, Malin does tap into that nostalgia-heavy '90s sensibility - crisp lines, powerful figures and colorfully outlandish costumes. But Malin's work shares far too much in common with Liefeld's, including loosely rendered feet and a penchant for weird, wonky perspective. Worse, Malin's figures rarely display a convincing range of emotion. Cable and his allies merely cycle through varying degrees of intense focus or bug-eyed surprise. The fact that figures and backgrounds are often bathed in shadow for no apparent reason only adds to the haphazard look of this comic.
The Verdict
Cable seems to have taken one step forward and several steps back as it joins the Marvel Legacy. The new team writer Ed Brisson begins assembling in this issue shows plenty of potential. And group with Doop as a member is a group worth following. But while the team dynamic is great, the conflict is somewhat less memorable. And with the book now struggling so much in the visual department, this series flaws are outweighing its strengths.
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