Cable #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
CABLE. This is the fourth volume of Cable. The first is the 1990s run which lasted 108 issues. The second is the 2008-9 run where Bishop chases him and Hope through time. The third is a miniseries from 2017. (There’s also an early 90s mini called Cable: Blood & Metal, and a Cable & Deadpool ongoing.)
Cable’s back story is notoriously convoluted, and recent events haven’t helped. In very broad outline, Cable is Nathan Summers, the son of Cyclops and his first wife Madelyne Pryor (a clone of Jean Grey). For various reasons, assorted A-list villains were very interested in getting their hands on him. In the end, baby Nathan was (a) infected with a techno-organic virus that transformed part of his body and gave him his cyborg appearance, and (b) sent into a far future timeline ruled by Apocalypse, where he was raised by two foster parents (who were themselves actually a time travelling Scott and Jean – I told you this was all insanely complicated).
From there, Cable’s history used to involve him leading rebel forces against Apocalypse, eventually returning the present as a time traveller, and founding X-Force. However, in the recent Extermination miniseries, a second, teenaged Cable shows up from the future, and kills the original. This teenage Cable is the one we’re now following. Flashbacks in the previous run of X-Force attempt to explain this further. The long-term presence of the Silver Age X-Men in the present day (in All-New X-Men and X-Men Blue) was causing damage to the timeline, which Older Cable ought to have done something about, but didn’t. Teen Cable killed him in order to take his place and sort out the timeline problems. Why that meant killing the older Cable, and why everyone else was ultimately okay with it, is still a bit vague (if not downright screwy).
Aside from some appearances in X-Men, Cable also appeared in the poorly-received Fallen Angels series, but we don’t talk about that.
COVER / PAGE 1. Cable and his supporting cast in a mock film poster. The strapline is a version of “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick”, which is best known as Theodore Roosevelt’s description of his foreign policy. He claimed it was a South African proverb, but apparently this was news to everyone in South Africa.
PAGES 2-7. Cable and Wolverine fight in the Quarry.
The Quarry appears to be some sort of MMA fighting tournament, or maybe wrestling contest. There’s a ritualistic dimension to it as well, though, with the Samurai doing the “Hear me, mutants” stuff, and the data page later in the issue telling us that the “living record of single combat in the Quarry” is “the property of all mutants.”
The rules are a bit vague – Cable wins the match by pinfall, but apparently Wolverine’s allowed to use his claws and Cable’s allowed to carry a great big gun into action. So apparently shooting your opponent is allowed. Wolverine implies that killing the opponent is allowed, but he probably doesn’t mean that literally. Other stories have been very clear that casual use of the resurrection protocols is strongly discouraged (if only because the Five have got better things to do, like revive the many mutants who are still in the queue). Wolverine also claims that Cable’s use of his telekinesis was cheating, but nobody else seems to agree with him (and like I say, the gun is apparently allowed…)
Cable’s gun is slashed apart in panel 2, which seems like a meta way of distancing this Cable from the nineties original, who was notorious for his impractically enormous guns. The original character moved away from that focus over time, and Teen Cable uses his guns mainly as a distraction while he beats Wolverine more through guile. Naturally, a win over Wolverine – even when sparring – is something of an achievement.
The audience members are mostly randoms, though Strong Guy and Rockslide are recognisable. Also seen cheering on the fight are Callisto and Gorgon. Callisto is wearing the new white costume that she received in Marauders #7 upon joining the Hellfire Club. Gorgon is uncharacteristically cheerful, but then he’s watching a fighting tournament.
“I got a double date.” With Armor and Pixie, as seen later in the story – though it’s not entirely clear whether either of them see it that way. Armor is certainly keen on Cable, but Pixie’s less clear. That said, our attention has from time to time been drawn to an upswing in unconventional romantic relationships on Krakoa.
“Except for what Magik did…” Magik is the only person to have got herself disqualified in a Quarry match, as the following data page shows. Quite how she got disqualified is unclear, given that there don’t seem to be any clearly defined rules. Maybe she teleported a demon in to help her – or just teleported her opponent away.
The Silver Samurai. This man is wearing the costume of Keniuchio Harada, the original Silver Samurai. Harada was murdered by the Red Right Hand in Wolverine vol 4 #1 (and appeared in the afterlife a few issues later), so the obvious implication is that he’s been brought back from the dead. However, the original Samurai didn’t have the faceplate with the red glowing eyes and mouth – that’s new. It’s possible that there’s someone new in the costume, or that there’s some story behind the change.
Harada’s illegitimate son Shingen took his place as the second Silver Samurai starting in 2012. He looks different and doesn’t seem to be a mutant, so it’s highly unlikely to be him. He’s still out there, though, and would presumably be interested to know that the original is back.
PAGE 8. Data page, with the records of the 13 matches to date (the last being the match we just saw). Most of them read like friendly challenges.
- Gorgon v Magik. A battle between two of the Captains, which Magik apparently lost in some spectacularly dishonourable way. Conspicuously, neither of them has fought again, despite there being several other repeats.
- Nightcrawler v Blink was a draw, presumably in a teleport-off. It’s the first mention of Blink since the last run of Exiles was cancelled, and the first confirmation that she’s on the island.
- Esme Cuckoo v Irma Cuckoo. The Stepford Cuckoos usually act as a group, so there’s obviously a story here. When they do act separately, Esme is often the villain – her attempts to return from the dead were the focus of a storyline in X-23. Irma is the one sometimes known as Mindee, but evidently we’re going with Irma for now. (The name clash arises because she’s the one Cuckoo that Grant Morrison didn’t get around to naming on panel, so Chuck Austen named her instead. Aside from “Mindee” being an unpopular name, Morrison’s intended joke was that the Cuckoos were Sophie, Phoebe, Irma, Celeste and Esme – the S.P.I.C.E. Girls.)
- Rogue v Havok seems like typical Danger Room stuff.
- Magma v Firestar is a battle of the fire powers. Firestar’s been seen on the island before, but hasn’t done anything yet.
- M v Bishop is back to the Danger Room.
- Wolfsbane v Pyro seems a bit random. But Gerry Duggan writes Pyro in Marauders so doubtless he has some thoughts about what Pyro, Bishop and Callisto – his characters, at the moment – are doing on this list.
- Dazzler v Jubilee is another fight between similar powers.
- Leech v Artie is a really odd one, and presumably a friendly challenge. These two kids were close friends back when they were trainees of X-Factor, and mainstays of the 1980s X-books. They’re currently in the cast of Future Foundation, a Fantastic Four spin-off book.
- Callisto v Pyro seems like something that would come out of events in Marauders that we haven’t seen yet.
- Callisto v Fish is even weirder. Fish is a Brazilian mutant child who was rescued in Marauders #4. Maybe Callisto is training him.
- Callisto v Jumbo Carnation might be another training fight. Jumbo, the mutant fashion designer, is a non combatant, but Callisto did give him some knife-fighting tips in Marauders #7 – in a very offhand way.
PAGES 9-10. Credits and recap page. This is “Big Guns” by Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto. The small print reads “Guns & Swords – Swords Don’t Need Reloading.”
PAGE 11. Cable offers to help Curse to find the missing Fauna.
Armor has been appearing in New Mutants. She hasn’t had much previous involvement with Cable, but she did get recruited by the older Cable into a makeshift team in the “Newer Mutants” storyline from Cable #150-154. That’s presumably what she’s referring to later when she talks about being recruited into X-Force.
Pixie has been around since 2004, sometimes prominently, but mostly as a recognisable background character. Her hallucinogenic pixie dust has been downplayed for some time (in favour of a magical teleporting schtick) but comes back in real force in this issue.
Curse, named for the first time in this story, previously appeared in Marauders #1. She’s the kid who made fun of Kitty for being the only mutant that can’t use the gates. She had the same star necklace in that issue.
“The bad place” is the Arak Corral, which rose from the sea and joined on to Krakoa in X-Men #2. Cable was in that issue. It’s full of giant monsters, which are apparently happy to stay where they are and not bother the locals. Is something holding them at bay?
Fauna, Curse’s friend, is the kid who was arriving on Krakoa in House of X #1. He was credited in New Mutants #1 with making wonderful coffee (which was implied to be somehow a bit suspect). He seems to suggest in the next scene that he was drawn to the Arak Corral by the pain of the giant monster with a sword stuck in his foot.
PAGES 12-24. Cable, Armor and Pixie rescue Fauna from a giant monster, and Cable pulls a sword out of its foot.
“A couple of days back…” This doesn’t really work as a time frame for X-Men #2, which took place very shortly after Xavier’s assassination in X-Force #1. For one thing, the whole of Fallen Angels has to come after that. So we probably shouldn’t take this too literally.
The sword. Obviously, this is a riff on Androcles removing the thorn from the lion’s paw. In the original story, that was rewarded with the lion’s friendship, but the monster here just wanders off into the forest. We’re getting a lot of swords at the moment, which is building to X of Swords. This particular sword is in remarkably good condition given that, as we’ll see in the next scene, it’s been stuck in that paw for millennia.
PAGES 25-26. A flashback to the sword’s original owner, Morn, arriving on primordial Earth in pursuit of monsters, and getting killed by the giant monster.
Spaceknights. Morn describes himself as a Spaceknight, and the first of his kind. The Spaceknights are cyborg warriors from the planet Galador, and come from the 1980s series Rom. The established Spaceknight history has them being formed a couple of hundred years ago in order to fight the Dire Wraiths, with Rom himself as the first volunteer, but Morn seems to say that he’s the first of a batch of Spaceknights that goes back much further.
PAGES 27-29. Cable decides to keep the sword.
This ties in with the small print on the credit page.
PAGES 30-32. Three dormant Spaceknights wake and head for Earth.
These seem to be new characters.
PAGES 33-35. Coda – the original Cable fighting alien crabs.
All very mysterious. Given Cable’s time travel gimmick, he’s very easy to bring back from the dead – the version in Extermination might have been from a different timeline, or this might just be him at an earlier point in his life. Or maybe something else was happening, and this time it’ll make some sense…
PAGE 36. Data page – an entry from Cable’s journal. He seems to be trying to rescue hostages taken by demons and stolen to another planet. He “suspect[s] that the demons are attempting to replicate the old spell that caused Earth to nearly burn in an inferno of Hellfire.” That refers to the late-80s Inferno crossover, in which the demon hordes of Limbo invaded New York. Inferno has been mentioned once or twice in Hickman’s run already, but this is the most prominent.
PAGES 37-38. Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: LIGHT OF GALADOR.
The lack of other characters seeming particularly perturbed about NuCable and his murderous appearance has kind of soured me on the character in general, but I liked this.
Would the Blink here necessarily be the same Blink as from the Exiles? I seem to remember the 616 version resurrected and hanging around with New Mutants a few years back.
Yeah, everyone bring so cool with Kid Cable after he murdered Cable and mutilated Angel and Mimic is bizarre.
But then, so is living in a community with Apocalypse and Sabertooth and Gorgon and Mr Sinister and etc etc etc.
At least maybe Duggan is going to clean the mess up a bit.
This did suffer from “everyone becomes Deadpool” but maybe the idea is teen Cable is acting very differently now that everything is going great instead of being in a hellish future war. Let’s go with that.
Or maybe Cable was so tolerant of Deadpool because he reminded him of himself as a shitty teen.
Armor also feels and looks like a totally different character here.
I had forgotten how much I hate Pixie. The whole “I got mutant powers that makes me just like a faerie with wings and pixie dust and magic” thing just makes me eye twitch. It’s like a much worse Wolfsbane or Shark Girl. I can’t wait until we get a mutant with the power to transform into SpongeBob SquarePants.
As to the end, it says it takes place in another time. So I made the (probably incorrect) assumption that were seeing the new Old Man Cable who exists as the older version of Kid Cable. Ugh, the most complicated kind of main character in comics.
Hey, let’s launch a new Cable series by leaping right into the time travel batshit portion of the evening… Young Cable and Old Cable, existing simultaneously. But at what point in their respective timelines does Old Cable come from? Do they even share the same timeline, or do they diverge?
Frankly, Cable’s propensity for time travel and crossing his own time streams is so out of whack, you’d think they’d have steered clear for a while just to establish some sort of proper status for Young Cable. If this ends up with them teaming up… and it will…
Stryfe’s gotta appear soon, too. Young Stryfe and Old Stryfe, to beat the Doctor-I mean Cable, until one betrays the other.
Nice cover. That Spaceknight looks more like a Cylon to me, though.
The first Cable series was the 2-issue mini in 1992 or 1993. The second, the long-running 90s series, went 108 issues before being cancelled for Soldier X.
@Michael
To be fair, if you don’t delve into the time travel stuff, what else is there? With old man Cable, there was other stuff you could build a series premise around, but with young Cable I would argue there isn’t. The weird time shenanigans are the only thing that give him distinctiveness. Without it, he’s just another generic young mutant guy.
The 2-issue mini is Blood & Metal.
Fun issue, and I say that as someone who is baffled by kid Cable.
So, kid Cable leaves his “world” which is oppressed by Apocalypse and terrorized by Stryfe and his girlfriend Jenskot* is, and he’s been raised to believe he’s the only one who can fix it, to stick around in the past and go on double dates. Um, you’re cheating on your girlfriend, dude.
Also, he went to the past because time travelers were sticking around for too long. Um, you’re a time traveler that’s sticking around, dude.
It’s a zippy issue and the art is great. I just don’t understand the character’s motivation. Nice to see classic Cable, though.
*Isn’t it strange that his girlfriend’s name is a mashup of his parents’ names? Jean/Scott = Jenskot. Weird.
@Ben
I’m pretty sure Pixie was retconned into being half-fae (in the Pixie Strikes Back mini). Though I’m not sure whether that would count as a point in her favour for you.
Re: Mindee cuckoo…
Mini rant follows. This was just another nail in the Chuck Austen coffin for me. I mean, you have these quite classical names (Phoebe, Sophie, etc) and then you get… Mindee with a double ee?? The sound fits, but it was just so lazy, as if the writer couldn’t be bothered to spend 5 more minutes on thinking up something appropriate.
Like, why not Iolanthe? Even Irma doesn’t quite fit the scheme.
Man I’m a snob.
Ivy
@ Paul – Thanks for the clarification re: the mini. Wasn’t the ongoing 108 issues and not 74, though?
The “now-classic” (i.e., “old,” regardless quality) storylines “The Twelve” and “Dream’s End” took place in #76-77 and #87, respectively.
So it was. I’ll get that fixed.
There might be a lot of issues of Cable (vol. 1) that you want to forget, but you don’t want to forget the Darko Macan run at the tail-end of Cable.
Sure, it was only a handful of issues before it was relaunched as Soldier X.
Still, it was all worth it to get those few Macan issues.
Krzysiek Ceran- I didn’t read it but yeah I did know that. It took my hate from a 10 to a 9.
I know it’s a pretty silly complaint. It’s not like evolution giving someone laser eyes actually makes sense.
It’s just one of those things that bugs me.
Another one that’s come up a ton recently because of all the Krakoan crowd scenes…
The X-Men are 99.9% either human looking or “cool looking” mutants. Maybe they have purple hair or something. So why are all the background mutants always so bizarre and grotesque looking? Why isn’t there ever just some human looking guys around? Do all the humanish mutants end up on the X-Men teams? Is Xavier secretly prejudiced against weirdos?
The third Cable series wasn’t a miniseries, it just switched to “Legacy numbering” – you even mention that in relation to Armor later on.
Paul> Why that meant killing the older Cable, and why everyone else was ultimately okay with it, is still a bit vague (if not downright screwy).
I think he killed Old Man Cable because he was in the way, more than an outright plan. Why everyone is okay with it, and with him sticking around in the present day… got me.
Paul> They’re currently in the cast of Future Foundation, a Fantastic Four spin-off book.
That was cancelled months ago with issue 5. Given that Alex & Julie Power are in a Power Pack revival, and Artie & Leech are now apparently on Krakoa, I suppose the
[Of course, the Power Pack revival centring on the idea they’re all still “underage” is weird – all the more so since, given the SORAS Franklin & Val Richards suffered between Secret Wars 2015 & the current F4 run, he should have aged just as much, and be closer to 30 than 20…]
Speaking of Outlawed, Firestar is going to be in the New Warriors revival as part of it, so presumably she won’t be sticking around on Krakoa?
Me> …and Artie & Leech are now apparently on Krakoa, I suppose the
“book’s cast has dissolved off-screen”, is how that was meant to finish. Dunno how that happened…
“To be fair, if you don’t delve into the time travel stuff, what else is there? With old man Cable, there was other stuff you could build a series premise around, but with young Cable I would argue there isn’t. The weird time shenanigans are the only thing that give him distinctiveness. Without it, he’s just another generic young mutant guy.”
If we’re being brutally honest, Cable stopped having a reason to exist as a character a looong time ago. Apocalypse hasn’t been seen as a major, world-beating threat since at least the late ‘90s. (Hell, he was dead for a solid decade.) Every year that passes, Cable’s future becomes just another in an endless list of possible futures fans know will never happen, any more than Killraven’s or Major Victory’s. The New Mutants have long outgrown their need for a paramilitary cult leader. Wolverine and Domino stole X-Force from him. And now Apocalypse is a good guy, Moira’s the one protecting the future, and Professor X has gotten hardline. There’s literally no reason for Cable to exist beyond “Enough fans like Cable and will buy a book starring him, so uh… here!”
You know…
This is the perfect time to launch a CABLE & APOCALYPSE series.
“He’s a mutant freedom fighter from the far future, sent back to prevent a despotic ruler from destroying all civilization.”
“He’s an immortal mutant supremacist bent on ensuring a future where only the strong survive.”
“Now they’re stuck together in the one place neither wants to be: the present. Can Cable and Apocalypse learn to work together, live together, and even love together, or are they destined to fight each other throughout eternity?”
“Hint: it’s a love story.”
“SHUT UP DEADPOOL!”
I think that Brisson’s X-Force was meant to have resolved the issue of the X-Men accepting Teen Cable into the fold. If his closest “family” can get over him killing his future self, everyone else just kinda rolls with it. I don’t think it works, especially since the only one who expressly accepts Teen Cable is Shatterstar, not a character who can condemn violence too strongly. Hopefully we still get a beat where Mimic or Archangel are still not happy that Teen Cable’s around.
Teen Cable’s been a different character under each writer – grim and serious under Brisson, a doofus under Hickman, and Fallen Angels, well, yeah. This version feels like a viable middle ground, where he’s capable, empathetic, but also being played for laughs. It also has a high concept that’s built on Cable’s crazy backstory: he’s a cocky teenager rebelling against adults… except that the adult he’s rebelling against is his adult self. He’s getting along well with his actual family (Scott, Jean, and apparently Logan). It’s enough that it feels justifiable to have Teen Cable around as a distinctly different version of the character with different a different peer group, compared to an Old Man Logan where he just became Spare Wolverine.
>I know it’s a pretty silly complaint. It’s not like evolution giving someone laser eyes actually makes sense.
>It’s just one of those things that bugs me.
>Another one that’s come up a ton recently because of all the Krakoan crowd scenes…
>The X-Men are 99.9% either human looking or “cool looking” mutants. Maybe they have purple hair or something. So why are all the background mutants always so bizarre and grotesque looking? Why isn’t there ever just some human looking guys around? Do all the humanish mutants end up on the X-Men teams? Is Xavier secretly prejudiced against weirdos?
@Ben
Ben, you are speaking my language. Both those things absolutely bug me! And for exactly the same reason.
(Though I’m personally more okay with characters like Pixie and Nightcrawler who resemble things out of folklore than the ones who resemble real life animals. With the former, there’s no -real- template to compare to, so who’s to say how close the resemblance actually is? Whereas with Wolfsbane there’s no getting around that, wow, she looks -exactly- like an actual wolf.)
@Michael: I half-expected you to follow the introduction of the two characters with “Together, they fight crime.”
Although “Can this marriage be saved?” might have a bit more punch.
YLu- see Nightcrawler doesn’t personally bug me at all. Other than his pointed devil tail, he’s just so much more abstract looking. Blue fur plus elf ears plus bird hands doesn’t really add up to anything specific.
And I know Nightcrawler has a stupid “special demon mutant” retcon ancestry similar to what Wolverine and Pixie have. But the less said about that garbage the better. Not everything deserves to be in continuity.
Personally, I’d rather chalk characters like Nightcrawler, Pixie, and Angel down to weird coincidences. Lord knows the discrimination metaphor is pretty defunct, but having Kurt look a demon but be basically sends the message that appearances are deceiving. Having Nightcrawler be the son of a demon, Warren be descended from some sort of race of angels, and Pixie be a literal pixie sends the message that people are their appearances.
@Ben
I’d agree with you that Nightcrawler’s not that similar, if not for the bamfing that smells like… burning brimstone.
Though I’ll third the comment that, for all that, it’s still better off as a coincidental resemblance than a sign of some actual demonic heritage.
Listen, we all smell like sulfur from time to time.
I don’t hold that against him either.
I like Ben.
<3
I’m on board with the idea of secret mutant racism against the more freakish of the specie. If you want to see what mutant society would really be like, the old District X is well worth a read. Almost none of the mutants have any useful powers, but the useless powers are also really original and clever.
As for Wolfsbane, there was that old story where she shape-shifted into a beautiful adult, which insinuated that she can change into anything she likes, but only knows how to be a wolf. A bit late to do anything with that storyline though.
Yeah District X was a cool idea they didn’t really do enough with.
I didn’t know that about Wolfsbane!
Now the idea that she can only turn into a wolf because of a mental block is interesting.
She sees herself as cursed, so she turns into a cursed pop culture figure from her subconscious.
Pixie is one of the two best Welsh major characters in the X-books. It’s between her and Dai Thomas. I think it’s hard to argue with that.
Actually, though, I really do unironically like Pixie. She’s probably my go-to example of a new character who had a lot of interesting work and development put into into her, and then got unceremoniously dropped when creative teams changed and there was a status quo shift.
Strong agreement with MasterMahan that it was not a good idea to “explain” her themed powers and appearance (or any other character’s) by making it a matter of literal ancestry. But done now, and while that story was not one of the greats, it was certainly better than the equivalent for Nightcrawler.
Yeah not saying she’s a bad character at all, just a pet peeves of mine.
I’m fond of Pixie and I was sad when she was sidelined. Although I was very suprised when she suddenly made it to the main team at the start of the San Francisco era. There didn’t seem to be a plot reason for that.
It made sense to move her from that to the then current young mutants title (Generation Hope), but that was basically her last starring role, I think. And even there she was more of a secondary character.
In addition to character development she also went through several power gains – the teleport spell, at least a mention of further magical training, her own signature weapon (the soul dagger)… and then, in a thread no one ever bothered to pick up, post Age of X Mike Carey gave her the ability to change her form into what she was like in Age of X. All of that seems to be gone, even the teleportation (seriously, if ever there was time to use it, it would have been while escaping with a child from a rampaging monster in this very issue).
It kind of reminds me how Angel went through all his changes to – in the end, under Chuck Austen of all people, revert completely back to basics (…except with healing blood…). But in his case the was an explanation, however slim, or at least an acknowledgement of the change, in the book itself.
On the subject of pet peeves – mythological or animal looking mutants never bothered me as much as basically any power that doesn’t have anything to do with the mutant’s own body, but is still presented as a mutation. Though it’s basically magic. Weather manipulation, psionic armor fueled by dead ancestors (which is a story someone wrote for Armor for some reason), bringing Tarot cards to life… Obviously it doesn’t bother me a lot, or I wouldn’t be able to read these books – they are full of such powersets. But it’s still pretty ridiculous.
Rahne wasn’t actually shapeshifting, just revealing her full potential as a beautiful woman under the influence of Dagger’s light power.
Agree that Xavier has a penchant to choose beautiful human-looking folks as his core X-team. Originally, it makes sense as part of his “let’s get regular humans to like us!” plan. Now, not so much.
Remember when Northstar and Aurora were supposed to be half-fairy, too? Even ignoring the rather obvious terminology problems re: Northstar, going fully literal with any mutant always seems to be a bad idea.
Also a Pixie fan. Well… was. Could’ve done without the Mastermind connections and the magical stuff. Also thought it was a bit silly to attach teleportation to a flying character.
I thought this issue was fine, but I don’t get the feeling this direction for him is really interesting.
There’s been a lot of space-themed stories lately. New Mutants and X-Men are spending a lot of their time on Brood, Starjammers, and Shi’ar Empire plots, and now let’s toss in the Spaceknights. With the mysterious behavior going on at Krakoa, this seems just like treading water; most of these stories could have happened without the current status quo.
It’s too bad, because the direction of the latter issues of Cable (Tischman/Kordey, Soldier X) could fit in nicely now: someone who doesn’t fit in on Krakoa (already seen in Fallen Angels) doing secret missions around the world. But this incarnation of Cable seems to be more of a blend of Hickman’s Sunspot and Quentin Quire in terms of personality.
Am I way off-base in comparing Pixie to Blink (616 or AoA) in the 1990s? Cute, teleporting female with a sort a fantasy design (I mean, stick fairy wings on Clarice Ferguson…) I say this as someone who knows very little about Pixie but was, for some reason, a huge Blink fan in the 90s.
@Thom: IIRC, Aurora and Northstar were once believed to be half-elves, not half-fairies.
Whoops — thanks for the correction. The “too literal” part still stands, at least. Turning mutants into elves is just as dumb as turning them into fairies.
“Rahne wasn’t actually shapeshifting, just revealing her full potential as a beautiful woman under the influence of Dagger’s light power.”
She was 14 in the story, and turned into a much larger, adult shape. It had something to do with her holding Dagger’s powers that wasn’t really explained, but Dagger never changed physically. And someone, Xavier maybe, commented that the new form might be her powers evolving.
My personal take on Azazel: he’s an immortal reality-warper from the Middle Ages who decided to become a “demon” and create his own fake “Hell” to rule…
…until his Alzheimer’s set in around his eighties. Now after centuries of dementia, his mental state is so degraded he’s completely bought into his own bullshit.
“On the subject of pet peeves – mythological or animal looking mutants never bothered me as much as basically any power that doesn’t have anything to do with the mutant’s own body, but is still presented as a mutation. Though it’s basically magic. Weather manipulation, psionic armor fueled by dead ancestors (which is a story someone wrote for Armor for some reason), bringing Tarot cards to life… Obviously it doesn’t bother me a lot, or I wouldn’t be able to read these books – they are full of such powersets. But it’s still pretty ridiculous.”
I wish that mutant power sets were straight-forward and obeyed some sort of uniform set of rules, enforced by an editor or something. Or, at the very least, someone took the time to really codify them.
Though with some of your examples, it’s easy to explain them. Psionic armor is basically just telekinesis/energy manipulation where the mental trigger is the wielder’s belief in ancestor worship (or whatever). Tarot’s abilities are energy projection/reality manipulation but shaped by her belief in the cards. If either one of those characters were able to overcome their limitations (pay off the points placed into their flaws with experience? Heh) they wouldn’t be limited to these specific expressions.
I just hate it when someone comes along with a grab bag of powers that don’t make sense… like when Rahne was “upgraded” to become an entire pack of wolves. If you’d told me that she’d had Madrox gene-spliced into her by Sinister, sure… but that whole Mothervine explanation was stupid and went nowhere. 🙂
@Evilgus: Iolanthe might be a stretch, but Isabelle? Irene? Hell, they could’ve just gone with Yvette and had the acronym be SPICY instead of SPICE, same principle
Okay, here’s a bit of no-prizing. There’s really just two types of super power: energy manipulation (including psychics), and body modification. The specifics of how the power manifests is largely up to epigenetics. If you’re fixated as a child on the idea that you’re wild and evil, then epigenetics will see your powers manifest as you becoming a symbol of wild and evil, such as a werewolf. If you’re in the process of being beaten up, your power will suddenly manifest as super strength as part of a fight/flight reaction. This could even explain superhero nominative determination. If your name is Telford Porter, maybe teleporting is on your mind a lot as a kid, and it’s enough to trigger the epigenetics.
Further, maybe if you’re an isolated kid in a vegetative state, your powers aren’t built on outside stimuli and remain nebulous to the point where you can just warp reality, like Legion. Maybe all mutants could warp reality if epigenetics didn’t get in the way.
How does that explain someone like Nightcrawler, who was born looking the way he does? Or Beast, who was born with his body (not the fur, that came later)? Or kids like Leech and Artie?
@Si
The superhero prose series Wild Cards, edited by George R. R. Martin, explicitly operates on those rules, more or less. The various writers take it to the hilt too, using it as an excuse for nominally science-based powers that are even more ridiculously specific and culture-based than Marvels’, like a person who gets superspeed whenever she puts on rollerblades or a unicorn-guy who goes into a Hulk rage whenever a virgin makes physical contact with his horn.
The series kind of relies on the premise and it works well enough for those stories, I guess, but overall I’m not fond of the approach and wouldn’t want Marvel to adopt it. It basically casts anyone with a terrible, burdensome power as somewhat responsible for their own sorry state, since the power got shaped by their own mind. “You got turned into a grotesque snake-man, huh? Well, serves you right for being a herpetologist, pal!”
Relatedly, it seems like mutant powers emerging at puberty with rare exceptions has mostly gone out the window given the number of kids on Krakoa. Also, that many kids’ parents were cool with them going to live on a non-stop rave island with a bunch of well known super-terrorists?
“Maybe all mutants could warp reality if epigenetics didn’t get in the way.”
I was having a similar thought the other day when reading about some of the stuff Storm is doing in another title (Black Panther, IIRC).
Without spoiling that story, I was thinking that maybe all mutants (or at least Omega-level mutants) have powers that are converging on high-level telepathy/telekenesis/reality manipulation. They’re all starting from different angles, but as their powers grow and mature over time, they end up like Legion or Proteus or Nate Grey. Except with the maturity to temper those powers.
That would even go some way toward explaining various powers Magneto and Professor X manifested in the Silver Age.
“How does that explain someone like Nightcrawler, who was born looking the way he does?”
Epigenetics has that covered. Your genes can express a certain way because of something one of your parents experienced, even something your mother experienced while pregnant, even if it didn’t affect her own genes.
I mean, there’s bound to be some characters that just don’t work in that way, there always are. But on the whole I like the elegance of “all mutants are reality warpers with different lenses”.