CABLE: LOVE & CHROME #4
Ross Hutchinson
Recap
A MISSION THROUGH TIME! The Prime Conclave stands defeated - but when Resistance leader Avery Ryder succumbs to the Techno-Organic virus, the price of victory proves too costly for Cable to bear. Yet when you're armed with a time machine, history itself can be your battlefield - embarking on a dangerous rescue operation to the past, can Cable find a cure for Avery's condition before it's too late? As an innocent life hangs in the balance, Cable will risk the timestream itself to set things right… But with the fury of Cicada hounding his every step, Cable's mission might exact heavy consequences not just for him, but the very universe itself!
Review
Phew, talk about kicking a mutant while he’s down. Pepose and the creative team dedicate the entire issue to tragedy as a grief stricken Cable chooses to break all the rules of time travel and try to save his beloved Avery but to no avail. In fact things just get worse and worse and worse for our wild man of Borneo. There are no happy moments this issue, just horrific realization as Cable tries desperately to beat fate. He tries saving her at the moment of her fall, he tries saving her before she can be infected by the techno organic virus only to go further and further back and in a tragic confrontation with a much younger Avery come to realise that he is in fact responsible for all of it. Pepose loops us all the way back to the opening of issue one. Nathan’s tragic connection to the Cicada is revealed as the creative team show that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It’s heavy going but remarkably good writing from Pepose. You feel for Cable more and more as things get darker and darker page after page in a vicious circle of time travelling tragedy culminating in a gut punch of a reveal at the end. Riveting stuff page after page.
Time travelling tragedy is the order of the day as Henderson and Prianto lead us through the landscape of a man trying to beat the fates only to discover that he is ultimately responsible for all the horror he is confronted with. A great deal of the book hones in tightly on Cable and his back and forth with Avery as he loses her time and time again, with some splashy shots in between. Henderson’s craggy, sharp style is perfectly suited to showing off technorganic terror, while Prianto adopts a darker background palette in keeping with the very sombre tragic mood of the book as Nathan’s descent to the truth and the price he pays for trying to save Avery culminates in the worst possible result. Joe Sabino continues to be excellent on lettering and sound effects play a large role in this issue on nearly every single page.
Final Thoughts
It's an issue that leaves you reeling as Cable's grief-stricken attempts to undo a tragedy ultimately reveal his responsibility for all the horror and hardship he has seen in Salvation Bay up to now. A masterfully dark issue from the creative team that hammers home the tragedy of what has happened up to now.
CABLE: LOVE & CHROME #4: The Road To Hell is Paved With Bodyslides by One…
- Writing - 9.5/109.5/10
- Storyline - 9.5/109.5/10
- Art - 9.5/109.5/10
- Color - 9.5/109.5/10
- Cover Art - 10/1010/10
