Joe Casey Comics: Cable #64

[Continuing my look at Joe Casey's run on Cable. New posts Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.]

Last time, I mentioned this may be the best single issue of Casey's run on Cable and it's all talking. Most of the story is told through Irene's perspective in her writing. Instead of using captions per usual, this issue pushes the text to the gutters and gives us pics without text. This technique works well as much of the issue is Cable telling Irene his past--which means lovely Ladronn drawings depicting those various moments.

There's also a subplot where Stacey, not knowing Cable's powers exactly, asks if he can use them to help her brother with down syndrome. One of those "comic book logic meets real world problem" moments, but it works as it's portrayed more as her being so desperate to help her brother that she'll grasp at any straw, including those she knows won't/can't work.

This issue was also meant to be the final appearance of Appocalypse before the year 2000, kicking off the road to the crossover involving the Twelve and Cable's final battle with Apocalypse--something the X-office then fucked up horribly, including kicking Joe Casey off the book basically after he set the whole thing up. That's a simplification of the whole thing, I will admit.

One of the interesting, albeit cliche, parallels drawn in this issue is between Cable and Christ as the story takes place around Christmas and Cable discusses his role as a messiah/chosen one. It's actually more subtle than most Christ allusions, which works in its favour.

What makes this issue so good is just how well it functions as a whole, self-contained story. It's a good jumping on point for new readers (at the time) and really sums up the main characters.