Welcome back, nerd squad.
Today it’s time to talk about one of our favourite time traveling mutants, Cable.
Who oddly enough is a weird mutant because although he definitely is one and is so involved
within the world of the X-Men, we don’t think of him all the time as such.
Most people who are just learning about Cable might be surprised to even find out he has
psychic-based superpowers primarily.
That’s likely because he just has so much going on.
He’s a time traveler who is known for his combat skills, with a cybernetic eye and arm.
But don’t get distracted by appearances because with Cable there is so much more to
him than just how he appears.
Today we’re going to uncover some of the more startling and generally overlooked facts
surrounding him as we count down the top 10 shocking facts about Cable.
Both about him physically and mentally.
Be sure to stick around till the end of this list where I will have some bonus content
your way.
Alright, let’s get counting.
10 Techno-Organic Virus
For those of you who are joining us after just learning about Cable through his appearance
in Deadpool 2, there is so much you need to know.
And so much that might shock you to learn when it comes to this anti-hero.
One is that his robot arm and eye are not just cool replacement cybernetic prosthetics.
They are actually a part of Cable.
His arm and eye were transformed as a result of the techno-organic virus which has been
attacking his body since he was a baby, and which he uses his powers to fend off because
if it took ahold of him fully it would kill him.
It’s actually part of the reason why you don’t get to see his psychic abilities used
as often or get to see how powerful they are.
Because he’s often busy using them just to keep himself alive as he holds back the
techno-organic virus.
9 Demonic Ritual
Nathan Summers, aka Cable is the son of Madelyne Pryor and Scott Summers.
And well, kind of Jean Grey, though she was more his adopted mother than anything.
Madelyne, Jean’s clone, was his biological mother.
Jean was given memories of raising baby Nate during a fight with Madelyne, which helped
her feel like and basically become his mother.
Which was good cause Nate’s natural mom, Madelyne ended up going crazy as a result
of Jean’s return and learning that she was a clone of Jean created by Mister Sinister.
In order to get more power, after being seduced the darkside within her and demons, she agreed
to sacrifice baby Nate in a demonic ritual.
Fortunately her attempt was stopped.
However later Apocalypse would kidnap this baby and infect him with the techno-organic
virus that would plague him for pretty much the rest of his life.
Side note: everyone wanted a perfect baby Nate.
Sinister’s whole reason for creating Madelyne was to get her to breed with Scott and as
a result create the perfect mutant offspring, baby Nate.
8 Super OP Version
In the Age of Apocalypse alternate universe of earth-295, a version of Cable exists in
Nate Grey, who is also kind of technically his alternate-universe-half-sibling.
Nate Grey was made by Sinister in this reality using genetic materials from Jean Grey and
Scott Summers.
The major difference between his origins and his half-brother, Cable’s is that he was
made from the original Jean, not her clone and he was never exposed to the techno-organic
virus.
As such, Nate Grey is one of the most powerful mutants to ever exist often going by the name
X-Man.
I imagine if there was a classification above omega-level, he’d be that.
But for now we’ll just have to settle with him being considered as Omega.
He is an insanely powerful psionic mutant with telepathic and telekinetic abilities.
He is immortal, can reality warp and has even been shown to be able to bring the dead back
to life.
This is likely what Nathan Summers could have been like in terms of his power levels, had
he not contracted the techno-organic virus.
7 Has An Evil Clone
Nathan has an evil clone known as Stryfe.
In fact for a while Nathan actually thought he might have been the clone and the villain
Stryfe was the original Nathan Summers, until Mister Sinister revealed otherwise.
Beyond that people also thought that for some time that Cable was actually evil.
Not only was he originally this very mysterious character in the comics but even after we’d
got to know him a bit better he was originally suspected of being the one behind the assasination
attempt on Charles Xavier.
However it turned out that this was a ruse of Stryfe’s who had impersonated Cable to
make him look bad and had actually made the attempt on Xavier by shooting him with a bullet
that infected him with the Techno-Organic virus.
In the end Cable and the rest of the X-Force came together and managed to save Professor
X.
6 Was His Evil Clone (Sort Of)
It all boiled down to a big showdown between Cable and Stryfe at the end of the story arc
we were just talking about in the last point, called X-Cutioner’s Song, with the attempted
assasination of Charles Xavier.
Stryfe ended up being defeated by Cable when he pulled him into a time vortex.
The unfortunate thing is that Cable also got pulled into that time vortex.
However Cable managed to survive.
And Stryfe died.
At least, we thought he died but what really happened was although his body perished, his
consciousness was basically merged with Cable’s resulting in him continuing to exist but within
Cable.
5 Omega Level Telepath
Especially if you have discovered the character of Cable through another form of media, other
than comics, you might be surprised to hear this fact.
Being the biological son of Jean Grey’s clone and the adopted son of Jean Grey herself,
Nathan’s telepathic powers are off the charts.
We don’t seem him flex them as often as his combative skills however because the techno-organic
virus requires him to invest some of his telepathic and telekinetic strength just to keep it at
bay but when he does decide to use them, even though they are both restricted, it’s amazing
what he can still accomplish.
Telepathic feats include being able to tap into the mind of everyone on the planet, repairing
years of brain damage within Deadpool's mind and defeating hundreds of militia just by
influencing them to not fight them instead.
Emma Frost was barely able to shield a conversation from Cable even while using Cerebro, that’s
just how powerful of a telepath he is.
4 Almost Defeated the Entire Avengers Team
During the 4 part mini-series, Avengers X-Sanction which happened right before things got crazy
in Avengers vs X-Men, Cable vowed to take on the Avengers who he believed would be responsible
for killing Hope Summers, his adopted daughter, in the future.
Killing her in the future.
She’s not from the future.
Well, she’s kinda from the future.
Sometimes.
Anyways, Cable ended up capturing two of the big team leaders, defeating them in combat.
Namely Captain American and Ironman.
Pretty impressive, especially considering that Nathan was dying at the time as the techno-organic
virus fought to fully take over his body.
In the end however Cyclops and Hope convinced Cable that this wasn’t the right move, freed
the Avengers and cured Cable fully of the techno-organic virus with a little help from
Hope’s access to the Phoenix flames.
3 Young Again
Cable has been young a few times in the comics.
He continues to have this serious case of the Benjamin Buttons that most people are
not a huge fan of.
People tend to like old, grizzled white-haired Cable better than young grizzled also kind
of white haired Cable.
I personally like both.
Currently in the comics, we appear to be stuck with the young Cable who you will notice appears
in the Dawn of X relaunch in titles like Fallen Angels, X-men and his own series, Cable, volume
4.
Which by the way, recently came out on March 11th, if you were interested in checking issue
#1 of it out.
Young Cable actually killed his older self after the two clashed over what to do about
some time-displaced younger X-Men.
2 Cured Himself
Cable has been cured of the techno-organic virus a few times, but one of the most astounding
times that this happened in the comics was when he cured himself of it.
The cure for Legacy Virus had reportedly somewhat weakened the power of his infection and when
that happened, Cable took this as his opportunity to fight back.
Concentrating, he was momentarily able to rewrite his DNA and remove the virus from
him.
Yeah, that’s right.
He was able to rewrite his DNA.
That’s insane!
Also what a 90s story this was.
1 Future Cannonball??
The character of Cable was originally created by Rob Liefeld and Louise Simonson.
The idea behind the character in terms of what they were tasked with creating was just
a man of action, someone who could act as a foil to Professor Charles Xavier, his parallel
opposite.
Thus the mysterious time traveller from the future, Cable was created.
Originally we didn’t know a lot about him.
And it was writer Chris Claremont who came up with the idea to make him a future version
of baby Nate Summers, Maddie and Scott’s baby boy, but all grown up and raised in the
future.
Liefeld actually had a different backstory in mind for the character and didn’t like
the idea of him being Nathan Summers originally.
His plan had been to make Cable the mentor of Sam Guthrie, Cannonball.
It would later be revealed that Cable was actually Guthrie from the future.
This is supposedly the real reason why Sam Guthrie was made an External, helping to explain
how powerful his future self was and would become.
And likely also why it was never really brought up again later in the comics that Cannonball
was so powerful.
In fact Cable himself would later state that Guthrie being an External was nothing more
than a rumour and that there was no truth to it.
Retconning the power-level Cannonball had once been stated to be at.
Thank you so much for watching, nerd squad.
I hope you enjoyed this list.
What are some of your favourite Cable storylines?
Who is your favourite time traveling mutant?
Do you prefer young or old Cable or do you prefer X-Man or Stryfe?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
And while you’re on your way down there be sure to like, subscribe and ring that bell
if you haven’t already.
This has been top 10 nerd and I’m your host, Amanda McKnight.
Until next time, you stay nerdy, YouTube.