We all have our favorites, right? Like you have your favorite flavor of ice cream and I have mine. You have your favorite sports team and I have mine. You have your favorite super heroes and I have mine.
We all have our favorites, and most of the time those favorites stay the same forever. Every once in awhile though, I find a new favorite.
One of my new favorite comic characters is Cable. He's not taking Wolverine's spot, or Spider-Man's spot, or Batman or Superman's spot, but he's earned a place on my favorites list.
I spoke about his a bit on the latest episode of The Good Shit Podcast with special guest Kevin Davis now available: https://soundcloud.com/mike-milnes-802160554/good-shit-with-kevin-davis
So why is he one of my favorites now? Well I'm glad you asked...
Cable is one of the most powerful and absolutely one of the most bad ass comic book characters ever. Here's a brief history:
Born Nathan Summers, son of Scott Summers aka Cyclops and Madelynn Pryor aka The Goblin Queen (also the clone of Jean Grey). This wasn't a typical pregnancy, no, it was orchestrated by one of the most evil X-Men villains, Mr. Sinister. Cable was born for the sole purpose of fighting and destroying Apocalypse. En Sabah Nur (Apocalypse), infected baby Cable with a techno-organic virus. A virus that attacks organic matter and replaces it with technology. While the subject continues to live, they are completely overwhelmed with the desire to spread the disease.
When Cable was born, his mother attempted to sacrifice him in order to open a portal between the demon dimension and Earth, but was opposed by Cyclops and X-Factor. In order to keep baby Cable safe from Apocalypse and to give him a chance against the techno-organic virus, a desperate Cyclops agreed to have him taken to the future to be raised by Clan Askani, who was led by Cable's half sister, Rachel Summers aka Mother Askani. There, Rachel clones Cable just in case the techno-organic virus can't be stopped. Oh yeah, and his clone turns into his most hated adversary, Stryfe!
The techno virus can't be stopped though. But this just makes Cable even cooler. Ok, so Cable is a mutant right? And all mutants have special abilities. Well, aside from being the perfect soldier, Cable is also one of the most (if not, THE most) powerful mutant on Earth! He has telepathic, telekinetic, and psionic abilities that he uses to fight off the techno virus! Seriously, all of his powers are used to keep him from succumbing to the virus every second of every day. It's only when he allows the virus to take him that we see just how powerful he is.
Cable is also the PERFECT soldier. Rachel Summers transfers the minds of Cyclops and Jean Grey to the future, in order for them to raise Cable for the first 12 years of his life. There, Cyclops trains Cable to be the man he becomes. He is 100% devoted to whatever mission he's on. Often manipulating those around him into thinking he's working with them while Cable is actually just using them to further his own agenda. He's done this a handful of times, which has made some of his former teammates resent him greatly.
For instance, during the events of MESSIAH COMPLEX (a story about the first mutant born since HOUSE OF M, and it being the possible mutant messiah), Cyclops orders Cable to take the child into the future, raise her, and protect her from everything. In the follow up MESSIAH WAR, X-Force is sent into the future to find Cable and help him protect the child against Bishop and Stryfe who are working together.
Not only is Cable successful (spoiler alert) in protecting the girl (Hope is her name), but X-Force is also able to return to the present time line with Cable and Hope, but only because of Cable's own sacrifice. You see, the portal to return to the present fries any organic matter that attempts to cross over. So Cable allows the techno virus to take over his body so that he can cross through the portal and allow Hope and X-Force to return home. Cable's willingness to put his life on the line to protect Hope is pure dedication to his mission. He is the ultimate soldier.
Cable's story doesn't end in MESSIAH WAR however. Of course not! He's a bad ass comic book super hero, they can't stay dead! in X-SANCTION, Cable fights The Avengers and systematically takes them out! It's a really awesome story that I highly recommend and it's only 4 issues!
On top of all of this, Cable is a time traveler. My favorite moments featuring Cable, aren't his solo issues, but when he pops up randomly from the future while on some sort of mission. One of my favorite examples is during the X-MEN: FATAL ATTRACTIONS event. Cable had not been seen by his former X-Force teammates in a very long time, they return home from a mission and feel as if something is off around their headquarters. As they split up to recon the area, Cable immobilizes the team one at a time. This was my intro to how cool Cable is. He gathers the team together and is able to apologize and make things right again. I think he sticks around for a little bit, until X-Force helps him secure the piece of his mission he needed and then he disappears again. I love it.
One last thing. I talked briefly about Cable's clone brother, Stryfe, who is Cable without the techo-organic virus. Stryfe is a really bad dude, so what would Cable be like if he was still a good guy but was never infected with the virus. Well, that person exists, but in a different parallel universe! His name is Nate Grey also known as X-Man! We meet Nate in the AGE OF APOCALYPSE mini-series that took place in the mid 90's. I personally love this series, and have collected almost everything connected to it, incidentally I'm behind on the X-Man issues and so I now have a new mission in life. Anyway, Nate is so powerful that he goes toe to toe against Apocalypse during the final battle and it is nothing short of awesome!
Originally created by Rob Liefeld, Cable has evolved over the years, along with another Liefeld (co)-creation, Deadpool. In his first appearance, Cable was just a mutant cyborg mercenary. His evolution is a testament to how great the ideas at Marvel Comics were in the 90's.
I look forward to finding and reading more about Cable. His motivations and dedication to his mission is greater than almost all other Marvel super heroes.
For instance, during the events of MESSIAH COMPLEX (a story about the first mutant born since HOUSE OF M, and it being the possible mutant messiah), Cyclops orders Cable to take the child into the future, raise her, and protect her from everything. In the follow up MESSIAH WAR, X-Force is sent into the future to find Cable and help him protect the child against Bishop and Stryfe who are working together.
Not only is Cable successful (spoiler alert) in protecting the girl (Hope is her name), but X-Force is also able to return to the present time line with Cable and Hope, but only because of Cable's own sacrifice. You see, the portal to return to the present fries any organic matter that attempts to cross over. So Cable allows the techno virus to take over his body so that he can cross through the portal and allow Hope and X-Force to return home. Cable's willingness to put his life on the line to protect Hope is pure dedication to his mission. He is the ultimate soldier.
Cable's story doesn't end in MESSIAH WAR however. Of course not! He's a bad ass comic book super hero, they can't stay dead! in X-SANCTION, Cable fights The Avengers and systematically takes them out! It's a really awesome story that I highly recommend and it's only 4 issues!
On top of all of this, Cable is a time traveler. My favorite moments featuring Cable, aren't his solo issues, but when he pops up randomly from the future while on some sort of mission. One of my favorite examples is during the X-MEN: FATAL ATTRACTIONS event. Cable had not been seen by his former X-Force teammates in a very long time, they return home from a mission and feel as if something is off around their headquarters. As they split up to recon the area, Cable immobilizes the team one at a time. This was my intro to how cool Cable is. He gathers the team together and is able to apologize and make things right again. I think he sticks around for a little bit, until X-Force helps him secure the piece of his mission he needed and then he disappears again. I love it.
One last thing. I talked briefly about Cable's clone brother, Stryfe, who is Cable without the techo-organic virus. Stryfe is a really bad dude, so what would Cable be like if he was still a good guy but was never infected with the virus. Well, that person exists, but in a different parallel universe! His name is Nate Grey also known as X-Man! We meet Nate in the AGE OF APOCALYPSE mini-series that took place in the mid 90's. I personally love this series, and have collected almost everything connected to it, incidentally I'm behind on the X-Man issues and so I now have a new mission in life. Anyway, Nate is so powerful that he goes toe to toe against Apocalypse during the final battle and it is nothing short of awesome!
Originally created by Rob Liefeld, Cable has evolved over the years, along with another Liefeld (co)-creation, Deadpool. In his first appearance, Cable was just a mutant cyborg mercenary. His evolution is a testament to how great the ideas at Marvel Comics were in the 90's.
I look forward to finding and reading more about Cable. His motivations and dedication to his mission is greater than almost all other Marvel super heroes.
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