{"id":6957,"date":"2021-07-28T20:55:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T19:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6957"},"modified":"2021-07-29T13:56:52","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T12:56:52","slug":"cable-12-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6957","title":{"rendered":"Cable #12 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>CABLE vol 4 #12<\/strong>
\n“Shakespeare in the Zark”<\/strong>
\nby Gerry Duggan & Phil Noto<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> A close up of the older Cable’s face. This is a companion piece to the cover of the previous issue, which features the other half of the young Cable.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> The opening quote – “Cable, you’re relieved of your duty” – is what the younger Cable said when he killed his older self in\u00a0Extermination<\/em> #1. This issue completes the exercise of reversing all that, as the young Cable goes back to his own time to pick up his life as it ought to have proceeded, while the older Cable resumes his place as… well, Cable.<\/p>\n

This is the final issue of\u00a0Cable<\/em>, though there’s a “Last Annihilation” tie-in oneshot to follow.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.<\/strong>\u00a0Cable Classic and Stryfe fight.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Maybe I’ll keep you alive until Krakoa burns.”<\/strong> Stryfe might be anticipating that\u00a0he’s<\/em> going to burn down Krakoa, or he might be aware of how Krakoa turns out. Certainly Destiny’s instructions to Mystique in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #6 were to “burn that place to the ground”, hence the title of the upcoming\u00a0Inferno<\/em> miniseries.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGE<\/strong>\u00a05. <\/strong>Kid\u00a0<\/em>Cable and Cyclops fire on Stryfe.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cyclops is still trying to encourage Cable to rise to the challenge of the situation, paternal to the last.<\/p>\n

Note that the damage to Stryfe’s helmet exposes his glowing left eye, thus helping to make his similarity to Cable more visual.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.<\/strong>\u00a0The cavalry arrive.<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s Prestige, Esme of the Stepford Cuckoos, Hope, Deadpool, Marvel Girl and Domino. I’m assuming you don’t need\u00a0Deadpool’s\u00a0Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles<\/em> references explained.<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.<\/strong>\u00a0Esme and Deadpool.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Guns are so human.”<\/b> Esme\u00a0was<\/em> using her gun on the previous page. Presumably she thinks of guns as “human” because mutants ought to fight using their powers, or at least with mutant technology. Issue #1 started with Wolverine destroying Kid Cable’s gun in the Quarry. (“That a joke? Bringing a ___ human idea like that into our dojo?”) This series has made a point of keeping Cable away from guns in favour of swords. With the natural order reasserting itself, we’re back to guns in our\u00a0Cable<\/em> comics.<\/p>\n

“The ‘Four In One’ has a nice ring to it too.”<\/strong> The Stepford Cuckoos are sometimes called the Five in One, though it’s not a term that comes up that often these days.<\/p>\n

PAGES 8-9.<\/strong>\u00a0Esme reads Stryfe’s mind.<\/em><\/p>\n

Since this is Stryfe’s mind, the opening two panels appear to show an infant Stryfe being held by Apocalypse, who tells him to “Prove your worth.” I think the dialogue is new, but Apocalypse’s retrieval of baby Stryfe was shown in flashback in\u00a0Cable<\/em> vol 1 #8.<\/p>\n

Everything else seems to be new, and basically just illustrates that Cable and Stryfe have fought each other in all manner of time periods, of which the present day is just one.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-11.<\/strong>\u00a0Esme understands now.<\/em><\/p>\n

In other words, now that she’s seen the history of battle in Stryfe’s memories, she realises that young Cable can’t simply skip all that and remain on Krakoa, presumably because (1) someone has to deal with Stryfe, and (2) the knock-on effects for the timeline of removing so many events are too dangerous.<\/p>\n

“You were a mission.”<\/strong> Esme explains that the Cuckoos were originally asked to keep an eye on Cable in order to make sure that he wasn’t a disguised Stryfe – though they were satisfied on that point almost immediately, so Esme’s relationship with him was understandable. That would explain why the Stepford Cuckoos suddenly started showing an interest in Cable and asking to be set up on a date with him in\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> #3.<\/p>\n

PAGE 12.<\/strong> Esme is upset.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a bit heavy handed. The basic idea is that Esme (or rather, all the Cuckoos) broke up with Cable rather than watch him go back to his own time and play second fiddle to his drama, but now she’s quite upset about losing him. I’m not quite sure why Jean tells Esme to “take a breath then … help the boys finish this”, since Hope and Rachel are still fighting too.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-16.<\/strong>\u00a0Stryfe is defeated.<\/em><\/p>\n

This Stryfe is middle aged, so we seem to be meeting him at an earlier point in his personal timeline than his debut in the Liefeld era (when he looked like Cable Classic). Everyone apparently turns a blind eye to Stryfe’s appeal to the Krakoan amnesty, though Cable says that he does have other bodies in the future. (That rather suggests he’s got an independent resurrection method, but okay. Maybe the idea is that he can transfer his consciousness just before death; various villains have had that gimmick before.) Stryfe does have a point – if you’ll take Apocalypse, why not him? – but Krakoa also doesn’t look kindly on duplicates and clones, besides which he isn’t native to this timeline.<\/p>\n

PAGE 17.<\/strong>\u00a0Cable Classic deals with the Galadorian Knight.<\/em><\/p>\n

This subplot turns out to be just a rudimentary exchange to tie up the loose end of the Light of Galador. The last Galadorian, whoever he may be, is transformed by the Sword’s energy to become the start of a new mechanical lifeform. Cable still has the sword at the end of the issue, but it seems to be just a regular old sword now.<\/p>\n

Note though that the implication here is that a mechanical Galadorian race shows up in the future, which is not an encouraging thought from the standpoint of Hickman’s cosmology as established in\u00a0Powers of X<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PAGE 18.<\/strong>\u00a0Cable and Esme spend their last night together.<\/em><\/p>\n

Note that Esme takes Cable’s necklace (which he has indeed been wearing throughout this series).<\/p>\n

PAGE 19.<\/strong>\u00a0Cable bids farewell to the Summers family.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I call in the marker Logan owes me from our fight back in the Quarry.”<\/strong> Issue #1.<\/p>\n

PAGES 20-21.<\/strong>\u00a0Cable Classic gives Cable his equipment.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cable Classic declines to answer questions about how Krakoa turns out, but instead of citing the usual timeline-preservations reasons, he simply tells Kid Cable that if he wants the good ending, he needs to fight for it.<\/p>\n

Note, though, that Kid Cable tells us outright that he doesn’t know how Krakoa turned out. Cable Classic apparently\u00a0does<\/em>, which ought to be seriously alarming for Moira – in fact, he may know more than her about the fate of this particular version of Krakoa. The most Cable will say is that “the Krakoan Age changed everything for the better”, which is not a statement about how long it lasts.<\/p>\n

PAGE 22.<\/strong>\u00a0Flashback:\u00a0<\/em>The older Esme visits Cable Classic just before his death.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lucky Esme took that necklace so that we can recognise her. Apparently she also has time travel available to her in the future.<\/p>\n

The new material here fits between the panels of the flashback on page 11 of issue #4.<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.<\/strong>\u00a0Cable bids farewell to himself.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cable’s new cyborg arm has the Belle AI from\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em> and other stories. This is an apparent paradox: Cable gets Belle from his own older self. (Of course, you can rationalise it away pretty easily. Maybe this version of Belle gets destroyed at some point, and Cable gets her for real later on, for example.)<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong>\u00a0Kid Cable rejoins the battle in the future.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGE 25.<\/strong>\u00a0Stinger and Omerta have a second baby now.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stinger and Omerta’s baby was kidnapped in issue #2. It’s been returned to them with a second baby who has Cable’s signature eye. Presumably this is one of the clones that Stryfe created over the course of the series, but time will tell what personality this one has.<\/p>\n

PAGE 26.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: CABLE RELOADED.\u00a0<\/strong>That’s the tie-in one-shot for\u00a0Last Annihilation.<\/em><\/p>\n

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. CABLE vol 4 #12 “Shakespeare in the Zark” by Gerry Duggan & Phil Noto COVER \/ PAGE 1. A close up of the older Cable’s face. This is a companion piece to the cover of the previous issue, which features the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6957"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6965,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6957\/revisions\/6965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}