If you stayed through the end-credits of 2016's Deadpool, you probably heard the lead character
say this:
"The sequel, we're gonna have Cable."
No, he wasn't talking about upgrading his TV package.
Cable is actually a longtime member of the X-Men family of Marvel Comics, not to mention
a constant foil for Deadpool.
But with all that said, why hasn't Cable gotten his own solo film?
Here's a look at why Hollywood won't give Cable a movie.
Name recognition
Never say never, but it's kind of hard to imagine many people going out to see a movie
about the Cable guy.
And there's some historical precedent to back this up:
"Well maybe I shouldn't have come at all., JERK-OFF!"
Outside of comics fans, few people have even heard of him — and if they have, they probably
don't know much more than his name, which isn't really much to go on.
Even if you didn't know who Iron Man and the Hulk were, you could probably guess who they
are and what they do.
Cable?
That lack of name recognition is a huge hurdle, especially given the multitude of other issues
facing the character.
Simple name, complicated origins
Cable's comics backstory sounds like an outtake from Drunk History.
"I wanna be called Snorkie."
Ready to get confused?
Strap in: Cable is the son of Cyclops and a woman named Madelyne Pryor, who is actually
a demonic clone of Jean Grey.
He suffers from a techno-organic virus, which slowly replaced his body parts with liquid
metal and organic steel, threatening to kill him.
His only hope is a time-traveling being made of pure energy named Sister Askani, who appeared
to Cyclops in a vision and took young Nathan 2,000 years into the future, believing him
to be the savior destined to deliver them from Apocalypse.
"Because Apocalypse is behind the techno virus."
"Apocalypse, yeah right.
Teamed up with the tooth fairy."
Lots of time-traveling shenanigans ensued, and eventually he landed in the present day
Marvel universe, older than his parents.
And that's just the backstory that led up to his first appearance in 1990!
Meanwhile, Peter Parker was bitten by a spider.
Fashion don't
Cable is something of a joke in certain circles, held up as an example of comic books' convoluted
plots and the excesses of character design in the 1990s.
Famed comic artist Alex Ross broke down everything that's unappealing about the character when
he once said Cable "looked like they just threw up everything on the character—the
scars, the thing going on with his eye, the arm, and what's with all the guns?"
Powerfully problematic
Let's talk about Cable's powers.
Like his mother, he's telekinetic, able to manipulate matter with his mind, and his cybernetic
eye and arm give him enhanced vision and super strength.
Also?
He can travel through time, he's built like a redwood tree and loves gigantic Nerf-style
guns.
In other words, he's way too powerful, and seems like he was designed by a committee
of ten-year-old boys.
Which isn't far from wrong.
"You created X-Force?"
"Mmhmm"
"So what is this drawing of?"
"This the Spikeman."
"And what's this right here?"
"This is the camera on top of your head that will record the wrongdoings of others."
"So Rob, have you had any formal art training?"
"No."
Reruns
One big question for adapting Cable to the big screen: what the heck do you do with him?
His big thing is time traveling to change the past, but X-Men covered that already with
Days of Future Past.
And his archenemy, Apocalypse?
Yeah, they did that one already too in 2016, with X-Men: Apocalypse.
If the filmmakers wanted to use Cable, they had two golden opportunities to include him,
but they chose not to, for reasons that are probably becoming clear.
Super sidekick
It's perfect that Cable is set to appear in the forthcoming Deadpool sequel, because Deadpool's
satirical poke-fun-at-the-genre style is a match made in heaven for Cable's convoluted
and over-serious backstory.
"It's a big house.
It's funny that I only ever see two of you.
It's almost like the studio couldn't afford another X Man."
In fact, there's a long, rich history in the comics exploring the comedy gold to be mined
from the pairing.
But now that he's set to debut as Deadpool's sidekick, it seems pretty unlikely that he'll
actually graduate to his own movie.
But hey, stranger things have happened.
Major risk, small reward
Here's the bottom line: when a character needs so much reimagining to be viable on-screen,
it's a major problem.
Look no further than fan-favorite Galactus for proof.
In the comics, he's a purple-suited giant who eats planets for breakfast, lunch, and
dinner.
But the filmmakers behind 2007's Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer opted to portray
Galactus as a giant fart cloud in space.
Comic fans hated it, and films fans hated it too, because...really.
A cloud?
Even Parallax thinks that's stupid.
At least that was a fart cloud with a face.
Fox faces the same issue with Cable: if they remain true to what made the character popular
in the comics, film fans will likely just be confused, and if they don't, comic fans
will be disappointed.
It's a lose-lose scenario, which means that for now, the big screen will continue to suffer
from an ongoing Cable outage.
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