Part of the Askani timeline
"Rocks and Waves"
Note: This story takes place after the Cable: Blood and Metal LS and X-Force #18.
Synopsis: The story opens with Garrison Kane still 2000 years in the future, watching a holodisc of Cable's recent past. Apocalypse's Canaanites are attacking Cable's rebel base camp. His troops are quickly overwhelmed, and Cable orders them to fall back to protect the people left behind- especially his wife and son-- but it's too late. Stryfe has detonated a bomb that kills Jenskot- Nathan's wife- and kidnapped his son, Tyler. There is nothing anyone can do for them. As Kane leaves the futuristic library he was in, a signal is sent for some Rowdies, "neo-Canaanite fascists" to attack him. They don't like the idea of him studying the holo-tapes, but they underestimate his recent upgrades- Cable's people have given him organic metal arms that he uses to quickly defeat them, but he's still in danger of the Citizen's Protectorate joining the fight, so he flees. A mysterious group of people, led by a General Haight, are watching all this on a holo-projector. They decide to send a group of assassins known as the Flatliners to finish Kane once and for all- to appease 'Sinsear'. Kane manages to get back to the hideout the remainders of the Clan Chosen are living in, and he asks them for more info on what happened to Tyler. He needs to learn more, hoping to apply the knowledge to helping his own time period. He learns the Clan infiltrated some underground tunnels where they find Stryfe and Tyler- who seems to be on Stryfe's side. Tyler takes one of the Clan Chosen, Dawnsilk, hostage and tells everyone he's synched to her. Cable can't bodyslide out; if he does, Dawnslide will die. Stryfe tells them that he's had Tyler's mind hijacked so he can't resist, and that he means to completely destroy the Clan Chosen. Cable has no choice- he has to mind-blast Tyler to be able to save his people. Tyler is apparently killed, and the neural feedback causes Dawnsilk neural damage, but the Clan escapes.
As Kane ponders Cable's current whereabouts, wondering if he's dead and unable to return and take him back to his own time, the Flatliners break into the hideout and attack. One takes Dawnsilk hostage and the Clan offers to surrender to Apocalypse if it will save their teammate, but that becomes unneccessary when Cable suddenly returns from the past and defeats the Flatliners. They teleport out, leaving behind a teammate's corpse to detonate and destroy the Clan's hideout. Cable says they'll move on to Niagara, where a new time nexus has been built, so they can destroy it.
As they prepare, the same mysterious men who sent so many people after Kane are surveying the battlefield where rebels lay dead, killed by a single person--Sinsear. General Haight offers him the chance to travel back through time to kill Cable before he's born. But first, he's going to have to get through Cable and the Clan- who are hiding in X-Force's old camp in the Adirondack mountains. They've been studying the time nexus, and realize that Niagara Falls itself is the new time portal- built specifically to power an assassin's travel back into the past...and kill Cable!
Review: The regular series is off to a great start, picking up right where the Blood and Metal mini left off. We learn what Kane's been doing with his time, and a lot about Nathan's private life. Kane-and readers- will be more sympathetic to a man who hasn't really shown much vulnerability. A good conflict is set up and a new villain introduced. Art Thibert's art has gotten better, and perfectly suits Cable's 'look'. See if you can catch the Liefeld mention in the beginning of the issue.