Cable Gets a Fancy New Arm
All/any spoilers have been blocked.
Plot
Hopeless seems to like to begin his stories at the action point then jump back and expand on what led to it. Though it did work in a way, it irritated me that it was such a cliffhanger followed by a slightly less exciting back story. Admittedly, for this story, it makes sense. The premise of the comic is Cable and his X-Force team being on the run and we had to be shown how that happened as well as what led to it.
The back story section was good albeit a little slow. It was good to see a certain character (Hope) make an appearance as we find out a bit more about what has happened to them after recent events. Their interaction with the team was pretty interesting and I'm curious to know how they will fit into the team later on in the volume.
Overall, the plot was good and enjoyable but nothing spectacular, I'm hoping it will build up to something truly awesome later on.
Art
Overall, the art was very good. There wasn't much detail put into the background most of the time - opting instead for plain backgrounds with just a few colours. However, lots of detail was put into the foreground and it looks really good. Larroca drew Domino, Dr. Nemesis and Hope particularly well. However, like so many other artists, some facial expressions really didn't work. There was also a dead guy (don't worry, no one important) whose face looked pretty weird. D'Armata's colouring was good, a bit blotchy in places but it fitted Larocca's stuff well.
The Inexperienced Reader Test
One of Marvel NOW!'s main goals was to provide easy jumping on points for new readers. Because of this, I gave this comic to someone with no experience with comics (my Dad in this case) and asked them to tell me how much they would rate the comic out of 10 for how well they understood what was happening.
Unlike a lot of Marvel's comics, Cable and X-Force didn't have a background summary for the characters at the start. This led to some confusion for my Dad who didn't know the backgrounds of the characters. He said that he could easily tell what was happening in the comic but not why it was happening. Therefore, if you don't know who these characters are or if you have a very limited knowledge of them, it might be an idea to avoid this comic.
Verdict
An enjoyable comic and definitely a must buy for fans of the characters but not for new readers. I give it a 4/5.