The Origins of Cable

Share This Post

Oh, hey there! Excuse me for a second as I hide my nerd boner in the elastic band of my underwear! Josh Brolin just released the first images of Cable from the upcoming Deadpool sequel, and I’ll be dammed if Brolin doesn’t look like he was ripped right from the pages of the comics. In light of these newly surfaced bad ass images, I thought we’d take some time to explore the strange history and origins of this time traveling,telepathic,techno-organic virus infected mutant.

The Setup

Cable aka Nathan Summers is the product of one of the more fucked up relationships to be introduced to the early X-Men universe. He is the son of Scott Summers “Cyclops” and Madelyne Pryor (Jean Grey’s Clone)….yea, buckle up. Shit’s about to get weird.

During the final events of the Phoenix saga, Jean Grey sacrificed her life by chucking her self into a star. Stricken with grief, Cyclops ditched the X-Men and set out to mourn Jean Grey on his own. While Cyclops was mourning, the villain with the greatest name ever….Mister Sinister(!), thought about how powerful a child Cyclops and Jean Grey would have and how he could use it to gain more power, only problem being that Jean Grey is dead.

Being a true villain, Mister Sinister hits the lab – he decides to just fucking clone Jean Grey. Once he realizes he is unable to replicate her powers, he gives her the name Madelyne Pryor and pretty much just drives her ass out to an old country road and lets her out of the car.

With her newly given clone life, Madelyne soon enough stumbles upon Cyclops. She has no idea she’s a clone, at first, because she possesses all the memories of Jean. Eventually, Cyclops finds out the truth and, in a strange turn of events, he doesn’t even care and says fuck it, settles down with her, bangs one out, and she gives birth to Nathan Summers aka Cable.

The Twist

After spending some time with his new clone side chick and newborn son, Cyclops is happy….then out of damn outer space comes his true love the real Jean Grey!

I know, this all sounds like a freak show episode of Maury, but if you’ve hung on this long shit gets even crazier. With the real Jean back, Cyclops splits from his clone wife and newborn son to be with Jean and reinvent the X-men as X-Factor. Now, that Cyclops is starting a new life again!

Here enters another villain! Apocalypse (not the Ivan ooze asshole from X-Men: Apocalypse, the bad ass blue one from the 90’s cartoon), who catches wind of the powerful child, decides to send his henchmen out to capture him before Mister Sinister. Apocalypse ends up getting his hands on Cable and infects him with a techno-organic virus that will constantly turn his tissue into metal and eventually kill him.

This will allow Apocalypse to transfer his being into Cable’s body and become a villain god. Cyclops finds out his son is gone and gathers up the old X-Men and his new X-Factor team to try and catch up with Apocalypse to try and stop him, but they all get their asses whooped. After being defeated, a bitch named Askani, from the future, shows up terminator style and tells Cyclops that the virus will kill Cable unless she takes him 2,000 years into the future with her. Being super awesome parents, Cyclops and Jean agree and Cable is whisked away into the future.

Cable’s Purpose

Holy shit, you’re still here?? Good! ’cause there is even more time travel, cloning, and villains as we dive into the meaty parts of Cable’s origin and why he is important to the X-Men universe.

Upon Cable’s arrival into the future, he is taken into The Clan Askani and cloned in case he doesn’t survive the treatment he was taken to the future for in the first damn place. In this future, Apocalypse has conquered the world and he yet again finds out about Cable. He sets out to capture him but the Askani grab Cable and run like little bitches, which leads to Apocalypse getting a hold of the cloned Cable and raising him up to become the super villain Stryfe!

Yes, another bad guy has entered the fold. Apocalypse now has the super powered Stryfe as his right hand man and this fucking future gets out of damn control and sets off a huge battle for survival.

As Cable gets older he uses his telepathic powers to maintain the virus his body carries while he moves up the ranks to become a leader in the resistances against Apocalypse and Stryfe. During this time, Cable makes it his purpose to stop Apocalypse at any cost and uses the technology available to constantly travel back in to the past to try and stop Apocalypse’s rise to power. Armed with the ability to travel through time, Cable has had to learn shit the hard way! Like every good time traveler (Hello! Mcfly!), no one fucks with the past and comes out with clean hands, which has led him to being a part of almost every single ‘end of days’ event in the X-Men universe.

Jonas Brotherly is a comic book/movie enthusiast and dedicated Denver Broncos fan who survived the Brian Griese era. An unapologetic lover of a good conspiracy theory who is willing to go out into the deep end with his thoughts and opinions. Follow on Twitter: @SoBro_JoBro

Shop our store on Redbubble. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter @SoBrosNetwork. Listen on SoundCloud. Watch on YouTube.

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Get updates and learn from the best

More To Explore