THE CREATORS: Fabian Nicieza writing, with Mark Brooks pencilling the first two issues before being replaced by Patrick Zircher.

THE FILL-IN ARTIST COUNT: Nil, although replacing the artist two issues in (so that Brooks could be reassigned to Amazing Fantasy) deserves a mention.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2004: Cable and Deadpool fight over control of a face-changing virus, leading to them being linked together in a complicated plot contrivance about a teleporter.  Cable sets himself up as the messiah and attempts to martyr himself as an example to the world.

Cable & Deadpool is an odd comic, formed from the ashes of the Soldier X and Agent X solo titles.  Well, strictly speaking Agent X wasn't a Deadpool book, I know.  But it's close enough for these purposes.

The two lead characters have little in common besides being created by Rob Liefeld, and the book has always seemed like a bizarre idea.  They just don't make much sense as co-headliners.  Writer Fabian Nicieza has obviously been wrestling with that problem, and thus far, the solution has been to write a Cable book with Deadpool acting as comic relief. 

To be fair, Nicieza has also clearly been taking steps to address the problem, putting Cable in a coma so that Deadpool can drive the book, and depowering him so that Deadpool can work with him on more equal terms.  (Besides, there's only so many stories that you can tell about uberpowerful psychics, and the whole angle had dragged Cable far away from what made him successful in the first place.)

In theory, I really shouldn't approve of this book, because it's such a transparent attempt on Marvel's part to revive the commercial fortunes of two flagging characters, with delirious disregard for whether the concept makes any sense.  But remarkably, the creators have managed to get an entertaining book out of it.  Without any sign of a stable status quo emerging, Cable & Deadpool has a quality that is singularly lacking elsewhere in the line - direction.  I may not know where Nicieza is going with this, but at least I'm persuaded that he does. 

Far too many of this year's new X-books have no sense of direction or purpose at all.  Nicieza really does seem to have a story he wants to tell here, and if you can convince the audience of that, you can cover for a multitude of sins.

Artist Mark Brooks started off the title before being removed only two issues in, so that he could be re-assigned to this year's white elephant, Amazing Fantasy.  Patrick Zircher took over midstream in a similar style, and has kept up an impressive level of quality.  It's a bright and shiny book, and so it should be.  You can't play these characters too seriously, it just wouldn't work.  Early issues were regrettably plagued with Rob Liefeld covers, but thankfully they're out of the way now.

It's far from a perfect book - Nicieza's usual tendency to write overcomplicated plots continues to rear its head, with needlessly complicated macguffins frequently obscuring the point.  But at least there's a point to obscure, and the creators are obviously enjoying themselves playing with the Marvel Universe characters.  Supervillains in full costume seem to have been going out of fashion lately, but Cable & Deadpool is an enjoyable throwback to the days when comics were simply more fun.

Somewhat against my better judgement, I'll give this one a pass - I just enjoy it too much.  I'd like to see it continue, although with sales the way they are, I certainly wouldn't place any money on it surviving 2005.

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