The key to a good X-book these days, seems to be pacing.  You’ve got characters floating in and out of the time stream, possible futures, plausible futures, good guys turned bad for good motivations, bad guys turned good for mysterious motivations.  It’s a lot to ingest.

Marvel has a history of using the future to speed up storylines.  Cable, himself, being a baby who was shunted into the future pretty soon after his birth in order to be saved.  He actually had a cameo as grown up Cable over a year  BEFORE  (New Mutants: Feb 1990) he was sent into the future as Nathan Summers (X-Factor 68: July 1991).  SO I was not surprised that this series would take the Messiah Complex baby and throw into fast gear againg through the magic of time travel.  And, while this story has had some up issues and down issues, as a whole, the development of Hope (the baby) has been one of the more interesting character arcs in the X-books recently.

Forget the speculation as to whether she would grow up to be Jean or Rachel or another Phoenix.  Hope is a very interesting Hope.  She is constantly upstaging both Bishop and the the man who’s name is on the cover with her actions.  And I’m okay with that.  In fact, I can’t wait for her to pop out of this time traveling tale (presumedly as an older teen/adult) and interact with the current Marvel Universe.  Of course, she’s going to have to go through Bishop and Cable to get there, and I am curious to see how that plays out.

In addition to the three main characters, the series recently picked up Emil, a boy who has spent a couple of years (all within the last three issues) falling in love with Hope.   Last issue, Cable left Emil and his people behind on the doomed planet, while he and Hope boarded a ship bound for a new, more hospitable planet.  But Emil wasn’t left completely to his own devices, as Bishop decided to take him under his wing.  Which is where this story picks up.

Where it ends could either be really awesome or incredibly disappointing.  A new wrinkle/familiar villainous entity is introduced into this story.  And while my reaction to seeing them was initially positive.  I then remembered their last few appearances and became less and less excited.

But, whether the new villains harbor a good turn or a bad turn, they are certainly a turn, and they entered the story at a point where a turn was necessary.  Bishop chasing Cable and Hope through time is only interesting for so long.  To me, almost exactly as long as Swierczynski played that card. 

Artisitcally, this was a well-drawn X-book.  I’m a big critic of penicilers/inkers who overline the faces, and the lines in this book felt right.  I like sparing detail, especially when it comes to cross-hatching, and that’s what Guzman has done in this issue.