This week: Capsule reviews of Cable #20, Dark X-Men #1, Titans #19 and X-Force #21!

Review: Cable #20
After a strong start, the current Cable series has fallen into an inexcusably formulaic holding pattern, waiting for the arrival of a crossover it won’t actually be participating in. The question of what Cable and Hope have been doing since their departure from the present has never felt more like it could be served just as well by a few panels of flashback than after 20 issues of ploddingly inevitable material where Bishop chases Hope and Cable, only to be outwitted. In fairness, there’s a slightly more unusual climax than usual to this issue, as Bishop apparently hijacks an Acanti through sheer force of will, but it still feels like it’s going through the motions, and inventive plot mechanics aren’t enough to keep prevent book from feeling stale. The knowledge that it’s going to end up sitting on the sidelines when its ongoing premise is resolve has unfortunately sapped what little life remained in the title. [JHu]

Review: Dark X-Men #1
Unfortunately, not even the spectacle of one of my favourite creative teams resurrecting one of my favourite characters can mask the fact that this isn’t quite working. What sounded like a good idea during the Utopia crossover was left considerably less appealing by the removal of the more compelling characters from the ‘Dark’ team, and at times we’re left with what feels like a solo Mystique book, due to the weaker nature of the rest of the cast. Dark Beast is fun, but too shallow a character to really hold the reader’s attention in a team book. Paul Cornell pulls some clever tricks here, such as tweaking the make-up of the cast to mirror the five original X-Men and presenting a classic X-plot which the leads have a majestic disinterest in, but he’s going to have to pull something truly extraordinary out of the bag for the book to leave a mark. As one of the paid-up members of the Nate Grey Appreciation Society, I had a massive grin on my face while reading, but it’s a rather small organisation these days… [JHa]

Review: Titans #19
Long past the point where it was an incredibly misguided attempt to bring back the Wolfman/Perez Titans team, this may no longer be the worst read in comics, but it’s little more than an increasingly pointless set of unconnected stories based around individual characters who aren’t even a team any more. Anyway, in lieu of an actual review, I present a list of some of the dialogue given to the British assassin Lady Vic by writer J.T. Krul: “Cheers, Anton” (said as a greeting, not as an expression of thanks). “Bollocks.” “You’re Cheshire’s bloke. Jade said you were manky in the sack.” “You’re in trouble now, you git.” “About bloody time, I was starting to get knackered”. And really, that quality and accuracy of discourse says just about all that needs to be said about the comic. [SP]

Review: X-Force #21
Following with commendable speed from the opening one-shot, Kyle & Yost turn the zombie infiltration into an all-out attack, throwing more and more familiar faces into the fray. Things are moving rather slowly, but it’s easy to forgive the writers for wallowing in the nostalgia for a moment, as bigger name are revealed amongst the undead hoard. It’s also a chance for Clayton Crain to work a little more variety into the book, and it’s fascinating to see his murky style being applied to the dayglow costumes of the regular X-Men. The only real complaint concerns the fact that the magnificent film-poster style covers are being relegated to variants! [JHa]