Shit My Possibly Racist Time Traveling Mutant Grandpa Says

It's been a while since we checked in on the Unity Team, and I figure we're about due. My feeling on this title so far has been mixed. I admittedly have deeper ties as a reader to most of this lineup of characters than anything else I've written for the blog to date, but I've yet to feel more than okay about this book. Of course, compared to its previous two volumes, I can say I like it quite a lot, but on its own merits, it's only a solid "okay." Of course, at the end of last issue we saw the introduction of this team's sixth ranger, the man called Cable. Whether he proves to be this book's missing ingredient or a flavor that overpowers the rest of the team remains to be seen. Of course, naming the issue "Too Many Cooks" gives a good sense of where this is leading.

The cover is fairly straightforward. It's Cable. Holding a big freaking gun pointed in the reader's face. There really isn't much to elaborate on other than the fact that he has an Avengers insignia on his chest where he'd normally have an X badge. So, there's very little mystery whether or not he's joining the team. I do have to wonder why his body language has his legs spread so wide apart. I mean, he ends up in that pose a lot. Is it because those BFG's he carries around are so heavy that they lower his center of gravity or does he simply take manspreading to a new level?

The issue starts off with Brother Voodoo and Quicksilver. They're standing under a massive tree under the unearthly red skies of Boston. Pietro is bragging about how easily he took out the Shredded Man. If that doesn't sound at all the way things played out at the end of the last issue, then congratulations for paying attention.

Aw, Pietro's getting better at making friends...

Brother Voodoo is less than delicate in pointing out the discrepancy. As soon as he points out that Quicksilver didn't exactly survive that encounter, the next thing Quicksilver knows, he surrounded by the grasping hands of demons. Considering Marvel has long established that the appearance of hell / hell dimensions are subjective, and moments ago everything was honky dory for Quicky's afterlife experience, I'm just going to rule this sudden shift as being Brother Voodoo having a flair for the dramatic. In short order, Jericho pulls Pietro away from the throng of demons, pulls open the veil between this life and the next and they escape. Interestingly, as they flee, Voodoo tells Quicksilver not to look back. It feels very reminiscent of the story of Orpheus and makes me wonder whether Haitian mythology has a similar myth. Once they're gone, an ominous demonic voice says that Voodoo owes him a life and that he'll seem him/her soon.

As far as hellscapes go, this is underplayed, but effective. If you hadn't looked at the recap or read the previous issue immediately before this, the turn really can take you buy surprise and feels disturbing without feeling too graphic. It gives you just enough of a tease for the future story they're setting up here.

The afterlife are big believers in "take a penny, leave a penny."

Back in the land of the living, Deadpool is administering CPR to Quicksilver's body. Once revived,, I find it funny that Quicksilver is so used to the life of being a superhero that he doesn't even acknowledge Deadpool for his medically resuscitation, but thanks Brother Voodoo for his mystic mojo. He also asks what that  voice they heard as they left was. Voodoo's response is vague and portentous, and also avoids gender pronouns, which makes me think the creative team hadn't figured out who this was by the time the issue hit the printing press.

Deadpool's defining trait on a team book seems to be
solidarity with the boss.

Now that their teammate is out of mortal peril, they rejoin Synapse and Rogue, who is attempting to handle crowd control The citizens of Boston are scared and the team is trying to main a quarantine. Now, I love Rogue. She has many admirable qualities. She has an unorthodox leadership style and can do wonders under less than ideal circumstances, has some killer fashion sense, can really turn a phrase, and is hella sassy  However, being the public face of a team and reassuring the public are not really in her repertoire. Her words of reassurance are interrupted by someone pelting her with garbage and shouting "Go home, mutie!"

This splash page would feel earned if both this
issue's cover and last issue's final page
reveal hadn't done the exact same thing.

Deadpool goes on the defensive. He's been tangential to mutant narratives for so long that I'm sure he has a strong sense of mutant solidarity. Either that or he shows her the same amount of respect as team leader as he has shown Wolvie and Cap in the past. Rogue calls him off, though.

The crowd suddenly bolts, a pack of veggie hellhounds are headed for them. The team lines up to block them off at the pass when they are surprised by the arrival of (one of) the X-Men's own time traveling continuity snarl, Cable. Deadpool shouts out his name and it appears fully illustrated in big blocky bubble letters. Had you been reading this in a trade, that would have been the second time that happened in under 10 pages. Cable fires off his BFG with a widespread blast that neutralizes the oncoming devil dogs.

Cable is inches away from being your offensive grandpa.

There is a funny exchange in which Synapse fulfills her role as Ensign Newbie to perfection. Cable is unfamiliar with her and asks her what her shtick is. Upon description, Cable replies, "Okay, well... we can't all be winners." I know she's probably good at what she does, but it is funny to watch a grizzled old vet blow the wind out of her sails so off-hand like that.

Deadpool pals around with Cable while Cable attempts to strongarm the team, but Rogue isn't having it. She may not break the fourth wall like Deadpool or She-Hulk can, but she has a long history of leaning on it, being very genre savvy. She knows how superheroing works. She knows what's what. So, seeing Deadpool and Cable in a room together, she's not going to stand for this serviceable if dysfunctional team book to turn into an anti-hero shit show on her watch.

Rogue doesn't wink at the fourth wall. She rolls her eyes at it.

It's honestly odd how immediately adversarial Rogue and Cable are in this this scene, considering the last time the two ended up on a lineup together, Rogue handpicked Cable and he was pretty much her Number Two. Then again, Rogue has been frustrated with a team consistently fails to follow her leadership since the start of this volume, so Cable showing up and attempting to commandeer command is probably the straw breaking the camel's back. Still, considering the shared background of career X-characters, her accusing Cable of being reason for the mission's failure and throwing in that he's a suspected terrorist feels like one twist of the knife too many. Yes, I know. Rogue is one of my earliest comic book loves and perhaps I'm a little over-protective, but this honestly doesn't sound true to her voice.

"Being awful is my shtick, you two! Now play nice!"

Quicksilver steps in and taking his cue from Rogue also leans on the fourth wall a bit by commenting on how low things have gotten that he's the one that has to be the peacemaker. This isn't quite my ideal Quicksilver (weaponized snark/smarm/delight for the forces of [mostly] good), but I do appreciate that he references the fact that he's supposed to be the jerky one when attempting to de-escalate a confrontation.

Despite resolving to work together, there is still a bit of a dick waving undertone to Rogue and Cable's argument for another half a page before Deadpool runs out of patience and takes off his mask, exposing his gruesome visage for a mic drop. I like the idea, at least in the instance, that he kind of treats his mask as a clown face, something he can hide behind as he cracks wise, but when he wants to be taken seriously unequivocally, he removes the facade. Although, I think that could get tired real fast if he does that every time.

"Get this plot moving again or I'll make you look at this all day!"

Cable points out that the cellular structure of the animals he's been periodically shooting are closer to plants than animals. Cable's AI, Belle, chimes in that future intel cites them as what causes the contagion to spread. Deadpool is stricken by her and asks if Cable brought everyone Tamagotchis. Now, in case you don't recall from last time, Belle appears as an animated bombshell pin-up girl tattoo (or maybe fridge magnet, since she's on his metallic arm). A tamagotchi is a virtual pet with rudimentary animation built into a key chain fob. This causes me to question whether Deadpool has ever seen a Tamagotchi. Or even a Giga Pet.

Cable hands off an enzyme inhibitor (read: antidote) to Quicksilver, who rushes it off to MIT where the Human Torch has his newly recruited think tank working on the current crisis. Yeah, I almost forgot he was on this team, too. I get that he did have a good idea to enlist their aid, since this lineup is devoid of your typical Marvel big brains, but why is he still slumming with the grad students? His firepower would be pretty damn useful against plant life and there is someone else on the team who can shuttle from the battleground to the staging area in seconds. I'm convinced that in the wake of Secret Wars, with the Fantastic Four team effectively dissolved, Ben and Johnny were foisted onto other titles by editorial edict, and Duggan and Stegman just don't know what to do with him. His arc in this story was the realization that when in doubt, there's always another egghead. And that was treated like a glorious epiphany.

Quicksilver has barely sped off when the team is confronted by their foe The Shredded Man. Cable blasts a hole straight through his midsection, but he's apparently more plant than man at this point, so no harm, no foul. Rogue rushes upon him for some good old-fashioned fisticuffs, but is swatted away without any strain. He doesn't even stutter in his evil monologue. Brother Voodoo, whose magic might be effective in this scenario is more focused on Shredded Man's security-guard-turned-plant-zombie-henchman to be much use in the fight.

Brother Voodoo: "Supernatural Zombies? No prob.
Plant zombies? OMG WTF We're all gonna die!"

Correction: Cable is inches away from being your offensive racist grandpa.

Weary of smacking them down and delivering villain speeches, Shredded Man releases a green cloud of incredibly potent neurotoxins and psychoactive spores into the air and walks away, regretting that they didn't put up more of a fight. Deadpool, Brother Voodoo, and Rogue are K.O.'ed. Cable put on a rebreather before he could be effective and Synapse is immune. How convenient for her. Belle reports that Rogue is in critical condition (most likely, the M-Pox has a side effect of weakening her immune system) and ought to be the focus, provided Cable chooses not to pursue Shredded Man. Well, Cable is a gruff and a bit of a hard ass, but he isn't a total jerk, so he sends Synapse (while making a withering jab about her Inhuman heritage) after Shreddy while he administers doses of the formula he cooked up to the effected team members.

As Synapse chases after the Shredded Man, for the first time since her debut, we get a look inside her head. It's a scant glimpse, but for the past few issues, she's been, if not a mystery, than certainly an unknown quantity. She certainly doesn't like that Cable has showed up and instantly started ordering her about, but more to the point, she recognizes the fact that a time traveler stepping in means that she failed and she really doesn't like that. Something tells me in her civilian life, she is some sort of student prodigy, or at the very least a perfectionist.

Synapse doesn't want to be here. Neither do the readers, full disclosure.

I think more telling than anything else though is the fact that she thinks, "he represents everything I've feared ever since Captain Rogers dragged me onto the team." That one sentence, even without going into further detail is just very packed with insight into her character. She's not confident about her place on the team and has had underlying worries about what could happen as a superhero. There's a strong implication that she was recruited either reluctantly or maybe even drafted against her will. She can see the bigger picture or at least recognizes symbolism. For a character whose powerset centers around the mind, the fact that she as a person can't tamp down the irrational side of her own mind that can recognize ill omens, and portents speaks very much to who she is: someone who is in way over her head.

I do like that we have this moment, considering we desperately need to make her feel like less of a cipher and more of a fully realized character in this lineup. However, this is the first and only time in the issue (though quite possibly significantly the second time in the arc) that we get to see some of our characters' internality.

Her thoughts are cut short when she meets up with her quarry, who seems to have been awaiting her. She engages in fisticuffs (the team newbie apparently thinks she has a better shot than Rogue, the team's seasoned brawler) while Shredded man effortlessly deflects he moves as he yammers on about how humanity's time is at an end, mutants are collateral damage, and how he is merely doing the will of the mists. This makes me wonder whether he genuinely has some innate understanding of the Terrigen Mist's purpose that nobody else does or following his Terrigenesis, is he in quasi-religious zealot territory?

Stegman's art goes from grade school to master class as soon as he doesn't have
to bother with realism. Why isn't he working on a monster/zombie title?!

Towards the end of this fight, she pulls off the gas mask he wears. Note that I said he only deflects Synapse's moves, he doesn't actively strike her. It turns out that was meaningful. Following removing his mask, she falls to the ground, staring up at him, shocked, disbelieving what she sees. We turn to a final reveal splash page to reveal (dun-dun-duuuuuun!) her grandfather. Oh. Kay. I bet that would be a better reveal if we knew enough about Synapse for this to feel significant. We only just started getting insight into her personality. We as readers need some sort of understanding into her background in order for this to feel significant. In the past three issues, even just a couple throw away lines here or there about a troubled or broken home since the Terrigen bomb would have set this up beautifully. Fitting in one mention in her date with Pietro and again when she heals the baby, both scenes where the subject of family is either directly mentioned or inferred would have been a great opportunity to set up a good three-beat that would have been paid off here. Instead, we have a reveal that goes out of its way to tell us it's significant without feeling significant.

The most the title has come to establishing this connection is the fact that they are the only two characters thus far who have been given inner monologue narration boxes. Admittedly, I grasping at straws because I want to believe the writer made some effort at being clever with his construction when it's honestly more likely a happy accident. This book can barely maintain its own straightforward narrative from issue to issue (and last time, it gave up halfway through), so I doubt it has the sense of subtle nuance required to form character parallels with its dramatic structure.

I will give this issue credit where it's due, though. As much as I've harped on Stegman's ability to render people (which he kind of fails to do, but he has a future in rendering dolls, action figures, mannequins, and androids), he makes up for it when tasked with rendering body horror (intentionally). That final page with a full beauty shot (meaning it's a close up, not that it's beautiful... although everything is someone's kink) of the Shredded Man is pretty freaking awesome. He's so, for lack of a better term inhuman in his appearance. His skin gone, his skull replaced by something the dried out bark of a dead tree. It's really difficult to make a botanical man look grotesque and not silly, but this one image sells it, even if it looks like it was made for a different, higher quality book. Yet you can still see just enough of the traces of the more human looking man we first met in the prologue of this arc to justify Synapse managing to recognize him.

For the past couple issues, I think I've been on the fence about this title. It's neither brilliant writing, nor is it utter dreck. And mostly I maintain that stance. However, I feel like the gap between good and the bad is widening, leaving a lot of meh betwixt the two extremes. On the one hand, the structure of this arc feels muddled. The pacing is off, almost as if the writer stopped the narrative dead in its tracks last issue to give Cable an excessively long introduction only to give him another such lengthy introduction this issue. Oh, wait. He did. Bad writer. No cookie for you. But on the other hand, the art of that final pages blows everything leading up to it clean out of the water. If only every page had that level of quality. That's ultimately the problem with the series is that the individual issues feel uneven without really achieving either a high or a low. They have their moments, but I kind of feel like I'm reading a title that's marking time instead of progressing in one direction of the other.








































































and bad in the title is growing more pronounced. The structure of this story feels off. I think it's fair to say stopping half-way through the previous issue's main story in order to provide Cable with an indulgently long introduction only to give him a second introduction in this issue really disrupts the story's pacing. The middle issues of an arc are never the easiest sell, but Duggan and Stegman