Return of the 1990’s!: A Look at Avengers X-Sanction #1

Title: Avengers: X-Sanction #1 (of 4)

Author: Jeph Loeb

Artist: Ed McGuiness

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Rating: T+

Release date: December 7, 2011

Verdict: 7/10

Jeph Loeb strikes again! Fresh off the heels of their latest big time event, Fear Itself, Marvel is leaping right into their next thing. Namely, the return of Cable and the lead-up to the big 12-issue Avengers vs. X-Men story, which is coming our way in the next few months. Usually Marvel takes a few months off in between their big events in order to let the comic stories settle and let the gravity of what has just happened to sink in with the members of the Marvel Universe that it affected. That is not the case this time! This time we’re just running right back into the fire. You’d think that with the failure in sales that was Fear Itself that Marvel would be wary of any new events, but with the next to no time in between these series, I’m guessing Marvel had no choice but to push on with this thing. It was already coming to us before Fear Itself had even wrapped up. But no worries! So…what was the issue like?

It was just OK. Ed McGuiness’ artwork is pretty nice. It hasn’t changed or “aged” really since I was first exposed to it in the 1990’s on Deadpool, but when your artwork is as clean as Ed’s, evolution of your style can be overrated. It’s not like he hasn’t been able to draw exactly what he wants for the last decade. Why change a style that is obviously working? But anyways. The return of Cable! Right!

Cable sacrificed himself a few months ago (a year ago?) in order to save his adoptive daughter, and possible reincarnation of Jean Grey, Hope Summers, from death. Cable’s techno-organic virus was running at max; and then, in a flash of light, Cable was gone. Well…we thought he was. It turns out that Cable was sent forward in time to a point where Earth was going through a terrible nuclear winter. It turns out that when Cable came forward in time, something in the past caused this big nuclear war. From what Cable was able to glean from Blaquesmith, a character from the far future (which is actually Cable’s past), something happened to Hope, and this something is what caused this catastrophe. And from there, Cable somehow figured out that it was actually the Avengers that caused her death. This is why Cable came back. To stop the Avengers from destroying the future.

It all sounds kind of ridiculous, but from what I hear, Marvel has this all planned out and it’s going to have a decent payoff. This series will lead into the aforementioned Avengers vs. X-Men 12-issue series, and the upcoming end of the Avengers: Children’s Crusade, matched with the new X-Men Schism, will also lead into this. And then it will all be perfectly clear and make all kinds of sense. At least they say it will. I’m not holding my breath.

So what did you all think of this issue? Are you also of the mind that the 1990’s are coming roaring back at us thanks to Marvel? Polybagged issues…Cable being written by Jeph Loeb…the return of the Age of Apocalypse…variant covers everywhere…etc. Let us know! Sound off in our handy comments section below J