Cable and X-Force #9 - The Bitch is Back

In case I haven't made it abundantly clear in my many drunken rants, I like to sometimes kill a select number of brain cells that contain memories and feelings that piss me the fuck off. I've spent a good deal of my adult life trying and failing to kill most of my memories of high school and summer camp between the 5th and 6th grade. But I consider those the big issues that my therapist loves to bitch about. Some of the smaller issues that I try to suppress involve certain feelings about comics. I already made clear in previous posts how much the X-men movies and Bryan Singer pisses me off. But there's one other figure in comics that I've dedicated many reviews and many drunken rants towards shitting on like a constipated elephant. That figure has red hair, green eyes, and is NOT named Jean Grey.

Yes, I'm talking about Hope fucking Summers. I used to call her Jean rip-off, but now that O5 Jean Grey is back I'll just stick to calling her Hope fucking Summers. She's basically everything you hate in a character. She's an unoriginal, whiney, pissant little cunt who you wish Marvel would kill off in ways even more disrespectful than the ways they killed off Nightcrawler. It's not enough that she did jack fucking shit in Avengers vs. X-men. She was no mutant messiah. All she did was fucking let the Phoenix Force go. And somehow that required special training and shit? Hell, my mom could make me let go of my fucking dick just by scolding me. Since when did that shit become a power? But I digress.

It's bad enough Hope fucking Summers survived Avengers vs. X-men. Yet she kept giving me more reasons to want to take a shit on her grave. After Avengers vs. X-men, did she actually try to help the people who sacrificed everything to save her? Did she try to vouch for Cyclops after he dedicated a whole fucking island to protecting her? Fuck no! She just ditched the X-men and ran off to some private school so she could leave a 'normal' life. And low and behold, that shit wasn't enough for her so she ran off to find Cable. But he has since made it clear that he's had enough of her whiney little bitching and is busy with his new X-Force team.

Now Cable and X-Force was a series that started slow, but in recent times it has gotten a lot better. In recent issues this comic has become a compelling, eventful story involving a different kind of X-men team. And best of all, it got better without Hope fucking Summers and relied on more reasonable methods like Tabitha in a bikini or Colossus boning Domino. And while I've enjoyed these methods, in the back of my head I knew it was only a matter of time before Hope fucking Summers entered the picture again. And since I haven't killed enough brain cells to make me forget why she's a pissant little cunt, I suppose I must endure.

The story of Cable and his new team continues to unfold in Cable and X-Force #9 fresh off their little pwnage of Agent Brand and SWORD, but only to the extent that they crashed the ship they stole and left the Uncanny Avengers to comb through the wreckage. Now why would they crash a perfectly good ship? Okay, well maybe stealing a ship from Abigail Brand that was probably wired with all sorts of tracking wasn’t something they should have held onto. But whatever the reason, Cable is nowhere in sight and neither is his team. It leaves Havok and Rogue to talk about how fucked up it is how so many X-men have switched sides, including her. Never mind that some of them only switched sides because they were screwed over, but I guess with Cable it’s tougher since he did sort of fuck up a fast food chain. And what crime besides creating a global utopia with a cosmic force is worse than fucking up our ability to get cheap, unhealthy, processed food? Well if they are going to find Cable, it won’t be in this ship. They have to use other means and unfortunately those means involve asshole teenage girls with red hair and green eyes that aren’t named Jean Grey.

So here we go, the pissant little cunt is back after being MIA from the X-books for not nearly a long enough time. And surprise surprise, she’s finding new ways to be a total bitch. Remember that nice foster family that the Avengers went to so much trouble getting for her? Well like most bitchy teenage girls, she didn’t appreciate it in the slightest. And just to go the extra mile, she mind-fucked them into letting her go. She even ripped off a famous Star Wars quote. That means this little bitch hasn’t just fucked up the X-men. Now she’s shitting all over Star Wars. Is there no limit to the shit this bitch won’t taint?

Shortly after she’s done NOT showing her gratitude to two innocent people, the Uncanny Avengers show up. Naturally, they’ve been keeping tabs on her because why wouldn’t you want to keep tabs on a whiney teenage bitch that packs a full arsenal of mutant powers? They calmly and politely explain to her that they can’t let her join Cable. He’s a wanted fugitive who recently blew up a fast food warehouse, killed people, freed an alien tyrant, and stole a space ship. That’s a long list of crimes that they don’t need the so-called mutant messiah associated with.

But what’s even more remarkable and thus makes Hope even more a bitch is that she knows it’s a bad idea. She also tells them that Cable doesn’t want her to seek him out either. He’s basically cut her from his life and why shouldn’t he? He did his job and helped her be the mutant messiah in the lamest way possible by just letting the fucking Phoenix Force go. He doesn’t need to care for her anymore, but she just won’t let this shit go in the same way other teenage girls won’t let anyone share their tampons. There’s being a rebellious teenager and then there’s just being a total dick and Hope fucking Summers doesn’t even try to walk the line.

There’s not much going on here. There’s just a lot of talking. It’s just the Uncanny Avengers trying to reason with a teenage girl. They might as well try to convert Ozzy Osborne to being a fucking Mormon. To their credit, the Uncanny Avengers try to adopt a less authoritarian approach. They try to reason and empathize with Hope, telling her that she doesn’t have to get involved with this shit again. Rogue even tries to be friendly again, drawing parallels to what she went through with Mystique. She says she wants to make her own choices. But to a teenage girl that just means “I want to do whatever the fuck I want and I don’t give a shit about the consequences.” And given all the shitty things Hope fucking Summers has done to everyone who placed their faith in her, that’s even a bigger dick move than usual and this scene does nothing to make it compelling.

And she’s not done making people hate her more just yet. Remember how she mind fucked those two innocent foster parents that let her into their home and tried to give her a better life? Well where did she get such a skill? She’s got a long list of mutant powers, but she needs to pick up on them first. Well that is actually explained. During their conversation, we find out that Hope managed to ditch whoever was keeping tabs on her for the Avengers just long enough to pay a visit to the exact prison where the Purple Woman was being held. And for some reason this prison lets random teenage girls visit dangerous prisoners without question. I could list any number of ways this makes no fucking sense even in the must fucked up of justice systems. But that would just cause me to waste some perfectly good vodka. There’s nothing interesting whatsoever about Hope’s conversation with Purple Woman. She’s just there to get her power. That’s it. It’s by far the worst conjugal visit in the history of prison.

Armed with the Purple Woman’s power, Hope fucking Summers proceeds to mind fuck the Avengers into fighting each other. She even does it with an evil glare to show that she always goes the extra distance when it comes to being a bitch. So now she’s fucked over the X-men after they did everything to save her from Bastion. She’s fucked over the foster parents that lovingly let her into their home. And she’s fucked over the Avengers who gave her that home. Is there no lines this bitch won’t cross?

Again, there’s not much to this scene. Captain America and Havok fight over leadership. It’s basically the same fight we saw in the pages of Uncanny Avengers, but twenty times more awesome. Hell, I would prefer that the Red Skull was mind-fucking them more than Hope fucking Summers at this point. It’s not very action packed or compelling. It’s just some mindless bit of action in a comic that has consisted mostly of reasoning with a teenage girl. So it should come to nobody’s surprise that it devolved into an epic fail.

Rogue manages to stop the brawl before it becomes an all out dick-measuring contest and stops Hope from bolting. But rather than try to mind fuck them again, Hope employs yet another power. That obscenely contrived prison that was way too fucking lenient on visitor policies helped Hope in another way. As it just so happened, Martinique Wynegarde was being housed at that prison as well. Why was she there? And how was it that Hope knew they were there? We don’t get an explanation. That would make too much sense and as we’ve seen in every recent story involving Hope fucking Summers, making sense just isn’t a priority. So through this incredibly contrived coincidence, Hope now has the power to cast illusions.

But if Hope had the power to cast illusions all along, why the fuck didn’t she just cast an illusion to begin with so that she never had to face the Uncanny Avengers? Why go through the trouble of mind-fucking them when she knew they weren’t going to convince her? Again, that shit might have made too much fucking sense. It might have actually forced this comic to be about more than Hope fucking Summers. But again, that’s not what we get.

Showing that she has no imagination in addition to being a total bitch, she creates a fucked up illusion that consists of a sentinel with the Red Skull’s head Photoshopped on top. It makes for another short and bland action scene that is over exceedingly quickly and causes no commotion whatsoever at a crowded bus station in the middle of the fucking day. Either the scene just wasn’t that well thought out or Hope fucking Summers just mind fucked everybody to ensure she got away. And she did too. She succeeded in once again giving the finger to a group of people who tried to help her. She might as well have punched a nun in the face and taken a shit in good will donation jar because that’s the kind of bitch she is.

It makes for a very unsatisfying ending because now Hope fucking Summers has escaped and is on her way to join Cable. She’s now on a bus where she even gets recognized by some kid who saw her televised exploits earlier in the series. But again, absolutely nothing comes of it. We’re just left with a renegade Hope fucking Summers that’s now on her way to meet up with Cable and probably fuck up the awesome story that has been unfolding over the past few issues. I still want to see how that story pans out, but I know that there’s next to no chance that Hope fucking Summers won’t make it worse by being the little bitch she is.

In recent times, I’ve given the impression that I enjoy seeing the Avengers get pwned. And I do. It’s one of the many things I’ve been jerking off to lately. But like all my masturbatory habits, there is purpose behind it. I enjoyed seeing the Avengers get pwned in Uncanny X-men and All New X-men because they fucking deserved it. They were being assholes, which is pretty fucked up considering how nice their shit ended up smelling after Avengers vs. X-men. And they were being assholes in this issue too, but once again they were upstaged by a whiney little bitch named Hope fucking Summers.

There are any number of ways to fuck up a comic. Just having 22 pages showing the Hulk take a shit is one of them, but I would consider that far more entertaining than any comic that focuses on Hope fucking Summers. I knew that this bitch could upset the hot streak that Cable and X-Force has been on lately. But once again, the little bitch outdid herself. She actually found a way to make me hate her fucking guts even more with this issue. She actually made it so I couldn’t get a boner watching the Avengers get pwned again. And there’s just no excuse for that. Ever.

The biggest flaw with this comic is that it didn’t even follow the plot that has been unfolding over the past several issues, aside from addressing the crashed ship that Cable stole from Abigail Brand. I was enjoying that plot. I didn’t need to see a whole fucking issue dedicated to Hope fucking Summers being an even bigger pissant little cunt. That’s all this issue was. Hope just wasn’t satisfied with ditching the X-men that did so much to save her and not doing a damn thing for Cyclops, who placed all his faith in her. She was given a nice, simple life on a silver platter that most teenagers would kill for and even more teenagers take for granted. And she didn’t just throw that shit away. She mind-fucked the innocent people trying to help her and completely gave the finger to Cable’s wishes, who has made it clear that he’s had enough of her whiney ass. There’s being an ungrateful little bitch and then there’s just being a bitch. There aren’t enough crazy glue laced tampons in the world for this little cunt.

It wasn’t all flaws though. At times the conversation between Hope and the Uncanny Avengers was compelling. The dialog was strong and so was the artwork. And as much as it makes me want to shove an ice pick in my balls, I knew Hope fucking Summers was going to get involved in Cable’s shit again and this did help set it up. But it did so without even hinting at what Cable and his team were doing now that they had pissed of Agent Brand. There was no balance and it all just amounted to the Uncanny Avengers failing to convince a bitchy teenage girl to listen to them. I mean they might as well have told a story about me attending an AA meeting because the whole premise was flawed to begin with.

I don’t want to throw Cable and X-Force into the shredder just because of Hope fucking Summers. This issue is an anomaly in a series that has been getting progressively better. And one shitty issue with one shitty character shouldn’t ruin it. Hope fucking Summers comes dangerously close, but doesn’t succeed. Cable and X-Force is still a viable series, but this is not a viable issue. Because of her bullshit, I can only give this issue a 1.5 out of 5. Other than some emotional dialog, there’s nothing memorable in this comic except a teenage girl not listening to people who know better. In other words, you can spend a day in my old high school and get the exact same shit that this comic offered, minus the wedgies. Nuff said!