Cable and X-Force #19 Art

Cable and X-Force #19 Preview

Cable and X-Force #19

Writer: Dennis Hopeless

Art by: Angel Unzueta

Cover by: Ramon Perez

The Story:

"Vendetta" Part 3! For years, the mutant Bishop relentlessly chased Cable and his adopted daughter Hope Summers through time and space on a mission to wipe her out of existence. Though they narrowly escaped with their lives, the scars still remain. Now, the man who has haunted Hope's dreams has returned to the present - and he's working with their fellow X-Men?! Hope is out for blood, and nobody is going to stand in her way, even if she has to take down all of Uncanny X-Force to get it! But as Hope exacts her revenge, a much greater threat closes in from the shadows - and one of the X-Men's deadliest villains returns! Can Hope fend off her demons, or is this the beginning of the end for her and X-Force?

In Stores: January 22, 2014

Cable and X-Force #18 Art

Cable and X-Force #18 Preview

Cable and X-Force #18

Writer: Dennis Hopeless

Art by: Angel Unzueta

Cover by: Ramon Perez

The Story: “Vendetta” Part I

• Classic X-Force villain STRYFE has returned! And he’s eager to exact his revenge on the man who left him broken and adrift in the timestream: CABLE.

• As Stryfe’s plan comes to bear, Hope is brought face-to-face with Bishop, the man who crusaded across centuries in a mission to exterminate her. But this time around, she’s ready to retaliate…and they’ll hold nothing back as they race to destroy one another.

• Don’t miss this no-holds-barred, knockdown, drag-out X-FORCE event! Because when the dust settles, only ONE X-Force team will be left standing...

In Stores: January 8, 2014

 

Cable and X-Force #19 Advanced Preview

Humphries and Hopeless Pursue Their "Vendetta" With "X-Force"

CBR News spoke with writers Sam Humphries and Dennis Hopeless about Vendetta and how they plan to wrap up their respective "X-Force" titles.

Dennis and Sam, let's talk about the origins of"Vendetta." When did you guys first start talking about this crossover and how did it evolve over time?

Dennis Hopeless: Sam and I have been friends for a long time and as soon as we knew we were both going to be writing X-Force series, we started thinking about crossing them over. We just wanted to let the two teams find their footing before smashing them together. Once we both had a few arcs under our belt, we started talking seriously about what a crossover might look like.

Sam Humphries: It started as "X-Cutioner's Song 2: A Dubpunk Odyssey." A bunch of roller-skating ravers saving the future from a dystopian future where Apocalypse and Doop rule the planet. But neither X-Force team was in the story, which is kind of important for an X-Force crossover, so it got shot down.

I would have read that. [Laughs I know one of the great appeals of doing crossovers is the chance to play with another creator's toys. Which characters that you don't normally write are you excited to play with in "Vendetta?" What do you find most interesting about these particular characters?

Humphries: I'm excited to write Forge. He's been a lot of things over the years, but Dennis has been able to make him a clean character again, boil him down to the essence of who he is -- a brilliant guy trying to work his way out of mixed karma with technology.

Hopeless: Spiral and Puck. Sam's DJ Spiral is one of my favorite character ideas ever. The woman has six arms. OF COURSE she's going to rock the turntables. As for Puck, I'm really enjoying his shamelessness. He's a ladies man and isn't afraid to flaunt it. Puck and Boom Boom have been my favorite unexpected duo to script so far.

The conflicts in "Vendetta" are very personal for some characters: we have what Cable & Hope went through at the hands of Bishop in the previous "Cable" series and Cable's long standing animosity toward his arch-enemy Stryfe. How personal is "Vendetta" for some of your other characters? How invested are they in the two big rivalries at the heart of this story? What do these conflicts mean to them?

Humphries: Plenty of these characters have had intense histories together. Storm and Forge, Betsy and Peter, Puck and Domino -- but the centerpiece is definitely Cable/Hope/Bishop. That trio has so much bad blood between them, it's like the elevator scene in "The Shining." They've got a lot of scores to settle, and it's not gonna be easy.

Hopeless: Yeah, character relationships and shared history are what tie the whole story together. Tonally our two books are very different. We wanted to tell a story that made sense for both of these teams. The best way to do that was pretty obviously to mine the relationships. When you have Bishop on one team and Hope and Cable on the other, it's not terribly difficult to find the drama. And then, you know, Stryfe is Cable's evil twin. The worst member of Cable's "family" shows up at the worst possible time and screws everybody.

We've talked about story so let's shift gears to the art side of things. Which artists are drawing "Vendetta?" What do they bring to this crossover?

Hopeless: Angel Unzueta is drawing my issues. The work he's done with Sam on "Uncanny X-Force" has been absolutely phenomenal so I was stoked to hear he'd be our artist. This story requires a lot of emotion from two teams worth of characters along with crossover worthy action. Angel brings the perfect mix of both.

Humphries: I'm working with Harvey Tolibao who brings his experience with Psylocke to the table. Plus his action scenes are dynamic as hell. Perfect for pitting the two teams together on the battlefield.

Wrapping things up, we now know that "Vendetta" is the concluding story in both "Uncanny X-Force" and "Cable & X-Force." How does it feel to bring your runs to a close? Were you able to bring all your plot threads to a satisfying conclusion?

Humphries: I am bummed to leave, but Marvel is keeping me busy elsewhere. I can't talk about any of it yet, but it is all very exciting.

(And yes, I am continuing on "Avengers A.I." without interruption.) Si Spurrier and Rock He-Kim's "X-Force" is launching in February. It is going to be awesome. I will be picking it up and so should you."

Special thanks to all the amazing artists, colorists, and letterers who made the book so thrilling and gorgeous. Thanks to [editors] Nick Lowe and Daniel Ketchum for keeping the book from collapsing on itself.

BUT there's still plenty of fight left in "Uncanny X-Force" We've got three incredible issues to go. The end of the Revenant War, then the "Vendetta" crossover with "Cable & X-Force!"

Hopeless: I had an absolute blast writing these characters. It has been an outstanding experience. I'm proud to have been a part of the X-Force family. I can't wait to read what happens to these characters next. And like Sam said, Marvel is keeping me plenty busy going forward. Fans of my work should read "Avengers Undercover" launching in March and keep their eyes out for new project announcements to come.

The four-part "Vendetta" begins in "Cable and X-Force" #18 on January 8, and continues in "Uncanny X-Force" #16 on January 15.

'Vendetta': X-Force vs. X-Force Leads to 1 New X-Force

Newsarama: “Vendetta” will take place in January, starting with Cable & X-Force #18 then Uncanny X-Force #16 followed by two more issues of each leading to their finale. And as we count down the days to this double series finale, Newsarama talked with series writers Sam Humphries and Dennis Hopeless to find how out how it all goes down.

Newsarama: Guys, this is like an old school boxing match – so give us the story of each of your team as they come into the “Vendetta” crossover.

Sam Humphries: The Uncanny X-Force team are licking their wounds after the Revenant War with Cassandra Nova, and split in two by a revelation from that story that hits Bishop and Storm the hardest.

Dennis Hopeless: Cable’s X-Force are doing great. They have their cool new underground headquarters up and running, from which they’ve just completed a few missions. Cable has finally accepted Hope as a member of the team and they’re getting along great. Colossus and Domino are a full-fledged item and managing to juggle their work and sexy business. Forge and Nemesis are… Forge and Nemesis. And Boomer is blowing stuff up right and left. This crossover represents the worst thing that could possibly happen to Cable’s X-Force now that things are finally going smoothly.

Nrama: Finally going smoothly, until this “Vendetta” crossover happens. With these two team sharing the same name and featuring some characters that have hunted each other down at one time or another, a showdown was always on the horizon – so what is the catalyst that puts it all into motion?

Humphries: Hope learning that Bishop is alive, and in the present. This is the man who turned her childhood into a war zone. It fills her full of fear...but also bloodlust. If Hope has two fathers, Cable and Bishop, this story will show which father she takes after most.

Hopeless: Yeah, I’d say white-hot rage is the catalyst. First Hope’s when she realizes her own personal boogey man is hanging out in Los Angeles. Then Cable’s when he realizes what Uncanny X-Force allowed to go down by not warning him Bishop was back.

Nrama: Cable, Hope and Bishop have enough venom for one another to be story enough, but you also have Stryfe coming into this. What's Stryfe playing at here?

Hopeless: In case we hadn’t made it perfectly clear, we’ll be dealing with a lot of bad blood in this story. Stryfe versus Cable is just one example.

This is basically Stryfe seeing Cable at his weakest and taking the opportunity to attack. Cable’s power set has changed. He’s no longer the Omega Level telekinetic and telepath he once was and that Stryfe still is. And now that Cable has a daughter for whom he would gladly die, Stryfe can manipulate Cable into all sorts of trouble.

Nrama: Guys, your two books were launched simultaneously, and both shared the team name "X-Force" in their titles – it happen all the time with the X-Men and the Avengers, but for X-Force it seems novel. Can you talk about working on separate books with similar names, then it all falling into place that your two books would now crossover?

Humphries: I dunno, our books were pretty different from the get go, so we were able to just do our own thing and root for each other from the sidelines. It was more difficult to get the teams "in the same room" (metaphorically speaking) for the crossover since they walked such different paths. Fortunately, one team has a member that ruthlessly hunted two members of the other team across a thousand years, so that was our in.

Hopeless: Yeah, the big trick has been finding a story that makes sense for these two very different teams. We were lucky to have the Hope/Cable/Bishop connection. It really helped us find a middle ground without contriving some earth-shattering foe that only these two teams can defeat. I love that our conflict is so personal and character driven.

Nrama: How closely together are you two working to make this crossover mesh?

Humphries: Not at all. I send Dennis' calls to voicemail, ignore his texts, mark his emails as spam, and block him on IM.

Nrama: Ouch.

Humphries: Just kidding. We talked it over a lot and came up with an outline together. Each part follows the other, so yeah, we have to work very close.

Hopeless: Yeah, it was a close collaboration from the start. We wanted to find just the right story and bounced ideas back and forth for quite a while to get there. I think we drove our editor Daniel Ketchum nuts with all the brainstorming and scrapping half-finished ideas to start over from scratch. But we ended up with a story we can both sink teeth into so it was definitely worth all the phone calls and outline drafts.

Nrama: It all starts in December, so before I let you guys get back to it, answer me this: what's your favorite member of each other's team that you looked forward to writing, and why?

Humphries: Forge! I love him from his earliest appearances in the 80s. A brilliant guy with spotty karma and a bunch of hot stuff technology. Dennis has been able to boil him down to a clean character again.

Hopeless: Probably Puck. That wouldn’t have been my guess going in but he’s been surprisingly fun to write. I love his bluster and total shamelessness. Puck and Boom are particularly great together. I could write an ongoing all about Tabby busting Puck’s balls.