The Man Comes Around In Cable #11

The future keeps coming back when you’re a member of the Summers family, and there’s always a weird reason why. Old Man Cable is back, brought back to help Young Cable defeat Stryfe and safe the kidnapped mutant babies. It’s time to prepare one last assault on Stryfe and his army – and everyone’s invited. It’s Cable #11 by Gerry Duggan, Phil Noto and Joe Sabino.

Ian Gregory: Armaan! Thanks for joining me on this, the penultimate issue of Cable. Now that you’ve joined in the 11th hour (literally, I suppose), what have your thoughts been on the series so far?

Armaan Babu: I have been having a lot of fun with it! I’ll admit: Cable, not my favorite character, especially the new, young version, but this series has been turning me around on that issue by issue – and this one has been the most fun yet. I’m happy be filling in for Ritesh this week – let’s get started!

Heading 1 – old cable is back think of something witty

Ian: You’ve certainly picked a heck of a time to join – in this issue alone, we’ve practically tripled our allotment of Cables. I like that this issue leads with The Five discussing the ethics of resurrecting Old Cable, and their odd place within mutant society. Hope is right that the “Helmet Bros” really can’t do anything to them, which gives the Five a kind of bizarre super-immunity in the Krakoan legal system. They really lean into the kind of Terminator-style return for Old Cable (born scowling, as is his way), which I like given Cable’s blatantly obvious Terminator-ripoff roots. I’m glad that this actually paid off with a Krakoan resolution (that is, testing the limits of the Resurrection Protocols) rather than just having an old Cable time-travel into the story. What do you think about the way he’s brought back in this story?

Armaan: It definitely looks like the Five – and Hope, and particular – are leveraging their position as much as they can to get Cable back. This isn’t just a case of bringing a clone back – something that we’ve seen is against resurrection protocols in both Hellions and New Mutants. It’s also bringing back a future version of someone who’s already alive.

I’ve always found it strange how accepting people were that Kid Cable was allowed to kill the Old Man with no repercussions whatsoever, but in hindsight it’s probably because everyone assumed he’d come back somehow anyway. Whatever the weirdness and politics surrounding his return now, it’s all worth it for that one moment of Old Man Cable reuniting with his daughter Hope. A beautiful moment perfectly captured by Phil Noto.

Ian: That is a great moment, and I’m really happy to see Hope taking a more active role in this story. I like that Old Cable is kind of like a storm: he comes back to life, bodyslides away, and gets moving with a plan already in place. This whole series has been about elaborating the differences between the two Cables, and we get to see it in action here. However, Young Cable doesn’t seem terribly bothered by the Old Man taking control like he would have in the past. Instead, he’s grown into a more confident person, and someone who has his own support system. 

Part of that has been letting go of the righteousness that drove him to murder himself; as Old Cable says, “I never met a timeline I didn’t #@%# up for my benefit.” Old Cable has a handle on something that Young Cable has been working on all series: how to let himself do things for himself. Young Cable is constantly worried about his duty, always sacrificing his personal relationships for the sake of his mission or commitment to the timeline (and even talking about letting himself die to bring back Old Cable), but here the Old Man shows him that it’s okay to play a little fast and loose with the rules if it means keeping you and your family happy.

Armaan: Ha, I’m not sure Old Man Cable is the best influence for our impressionable Young Cable, but he’s definitely someone who can help the kid be the truest version of himself. While the Cable-Cable bonding is great, the Old Man isn’t just back here for a reunion – he has work to do, and it barely takes him a briefing before he’s ready to put his plan into action. It’s time to get the band back together for an assault on Stryfe – because at least somebody cares about the mutant babies.

Hot Boy Summers

Ian: As we’ve predicted, it looks like Cable’s ensemble cast is all getting together for one last battle – what the War Wagon data page seems to call “The Summers War in the demon lands against Stryfe.” The Old Man gets a ride from Magik (handing a marker over in the process), Young Cable grabs Domino (yay!), Deadpool (oh…) and his family. He also makes a stop-over at the Cuckoos and convinces Esme to join him – surprising, especially since she had broken up with him just a few pages before. I’ve not been totally compelled by the Cuckoos sub-plot in this book, not the least because Cable is supposed to be dating all of them, but Esme seems like the only one to get consistent screentime. 

I like that Cable as a series has made good use of the large number of characters who have been wrapped up in Cable’s stories in the past. However, I worry that as they all come together, there’s not really going to be any time for them to interact in a meaningful way. 

Armaan: With a double-Cable feature and some Stryfe action in the next and final issue, it does seem like the end is going to be Cable-centric with everyone more or less there as set dressing. This late in the game, I think that works – there’s not a lot of room for any other characters to get major beats. While there have been some great character moments in this series, Cable was always going to steal the spotlight. I’m just amused that this time it’s Old Man Cable stealing a bit of it from his younger self.

Duggan does give people just enough time to remind you why each character is so much fun. Even Deadpool’s shut up before he can cross the line from being silly to annoying. Seeing the Summers family come together like this though – I would love a House of Summers spinoff or something. If any family deserves it, it would be them.

Ian: I think you’re right that expecting too much character work at this stage is just unfair to the series. And Cable has consistently shown us these characters in a domestic setting that most other series avoid, which has been one of its strong points through the whole series. I think maybe this party-building sequence would work better if we hadn’t seen Kid Cable do essentially this in the last two issues already – it feels like he’s already gone on several tours around Krakoa talking to all the side characters, and here they are doing it again. The pacing of these past few issues has been a little odd to me. The past two issues have been building up to the return of Cable, but it feels a bit like very little has happened in that time. This story probably stands out because it’s got some actual catharsis, and isn’t just building up for a final confrontation.

Finally, I really like the Jean we get in this series, who’s always stepping up for her family and isn’t afraid to psychically coke out Deadpool just so he’ll stop being annoying. Jean has historically been a very nebulous character who people have struggled to write with any consistency, so at least Duggan has settled on an engaging version of the character in this story. Hey, why isn’t Storm here? Did you know she has a kid with Cable? Actually, don’t look that up. You’re better off not knowing.

Armaan: I know just enough to know I’m happy not knowing any more. Let’s just take follow Old Man Cable’s lead and focus our sights on Stryfe and his plan – something I am both fascinated with and highly amused by. 

What Could Possibly Go Wrong with Cloned Babies?

Ian: This question was raised by Mark Turetsky about this issue: has Stryfe ever been written as a silly kind of villain? He’s definitely silly here, even in just his six lines of dialogue, but that did get me thinking. Stryfe is typically a serious villain, a major threat to our heroes and to the timeline in general. Definitely in the 90s, he was briefly a major threat to the enter team, and he was meant to be taken seriously even if he did demonstrably silly things like torture Scott and Jean by running them through intricate object lessons about abandoning him as a baby (complete with horrifyingly off-model android baby) (ok, I’m serious about this, it’s in Uncanny X-Men 296, which is Part 9 of “X-Cutioner’s Song”).

The fact is that Stryfe is a goofy looking fella. He’s got armor made of knives. He’s a clone who’s convinced he’s not a clone. He calls himself Stryfe. I don’t think anyone has actually taken Stryfe very seriously since his first appearances, and Duggan’s probably making the right move by casting him as a megalomaniac with planning issues. I like that Stryfe is sort of an improviser here – he’s got a long-term plan going involving the sacrifice of babies, then audibles into cloning himself to infiltrate Krakoa, then makes a switch back to the mutant baby sacrifice spell when the clone thing doesn’t work out. In the past, Stryfe has had these ridiculously intricate plots to capture Cable and his parents, so I like the reveal that what’s really going on is Stryfe has a lot of big ideas he’s adjusting on the fly, never quite executing any of them as he imagines.

Armaan: I feel that Stryfe works best when he’s unintentionally hilarious. Originally, it was because the writers didn’t intend for him to be as funny as he was, but Duggan appears to be fully aware of how difficult it is to take a man like him seriously. Overly complicated plots that could and should go wrong in hundreds of different ways? That, to me, feels as trademark Stryfe as Doctor Octopus’ metal arms or Doctor Doom being arrogant.

And what a plan it is. Stryfe is here trying to restart the classic Inferno event, and he’s got all the right ingredients – a hell dimension, babies to sacrifice, cloned Summers, a techno-organic virus and most of all, the burning need for vengeance. Sure, half the babies are cloned, that might as well be a thing. 

If I didn’t know better, I’d say this is somehow going to tie into Hickman’s upcoming Inferno event, but despite the scale of things, it all feels too silly to imagine things will have lasting consequences outside of this title. 

Ian: It does feel more like a coincidence that this lined up with whatever the new Inferno is going to be. However, I do like this take on Stryfe. As you said, it’s the kind of vision you have of him in your head anyway, and I do wish he had more than just a single issue of relevance. Stryfe is a tricky character because you can never really get rid of him, but he’s also tremendously boring most of the time. If Duggan has found a way to make Stryfe interesting (with these overlapping plots and unwarranted self-confidence) then I want to see more of that.

Oh hey! There’s also an old Space Knight in this issue? I kind of forgot about that since it does seem like he’s here to just take the Light of Galador out of play following the end of the series.

Armaan: Y’know, the first real interaction the two of us had was a tabletop X-Men game where you played Cable, wielding the Light of Galador, you’d think this subplot would’ve had us both paying more attention. I have no idea how this subplot is going to be wrapped up in the final issue, but I have a feeling there’s more to this story than simply taking this story out of play. 

Then again, given the light-hearted tone of this series I’m really not expecting too much more from the finale beyond epic, double-spreads of action, humorous references to more complicated continuity, and gunfire. So. Much. Gunfire.

X-Traneous Thoughts

• The War Wagon Deployment Log is a real treat in how it mixes obvious jokes (Secret War Wagons is both very clever and very stupid) and hooks for possible stories – the mention of a corrupt Time Variance Authority is especially relevant given Old Cable’s shoutout to them in the issue.
• Fascinated with how Jean telekinetically peels and eats her apple. More mutant versions of mundane things, please.
• While you’re at it, Marvel, I (Armaan) would also like a data page filled with who has whose markers – these seem like very important plot points to keep track of!
• Also, I’m still giggling about “Helmet Bros”
• [Ed. note: As someone who owns a page of Cable and Hope hugging, I’m living right now]
• Krakoan reads: IT NEVER ENDS

Armaan Babu

Ian Gregory

Ian Gregory is a writer and co-host of giant robots podcast Mech Ado About Nothing.