Here I Was Wondering What To Post About. . .

. . . and the Internet gifts me with another trailer for Deadpool 2! Right here! This time with more Cable! Ehhhhhhhhh. That's not super-fantastic, but they make fun of him, in between shots of him kicking ass, so that helps. And I think he had a gun with a dial on it. Does the dial go to 11? It has to, right? They couldn't pass up the opportunity, could they?

This is going to seem really stupid, but I hadn't considered that Cable is probably the antagonist*. I assumed he was coming back from the future to grudgingly team up with Deadpool and smash authoritarians, but it looks more like he wants to kill Deadpool. Because Deadpool's responsible for the future being terrible! Cable liked his green compression sleeve, and is angry Wade made them add the CGI metal arm. Or something more serious, maybe.

I wonder if they're going to touch on the absurd nature of Cable's family tree and upbringing. 'Well, my mother was a clone of my dad's dead ex, except she was really hibernating in an energy cocoon. My mom tried sacrificing me to a demon. Now, let me tell you about techno-organic viruses. . .' Then the audience suffers mass seizures. Probably best to skip it, then. 

Granted, I'm going off Deadpool's description during the reenactment. Maybe Cable isn't the villain. Playing the odds, Deadpool is more likely to commit criminal acts. Deadpool is not the most objective reporter, but his method of presentation cracks me up.

I'm worried the film is going to throw too much in and end up a mess. There'll be a bunch of potentially fun, but only half-formed, ideas and concepts. That's a common concern with sequels. I'm still excited for this movie. Waiting another four months is gonna be a pain.

* Suddenly, Gerry Duggan nuking Wade and Nate's friendship from orbit in that last story makes a little more sense.

Better Revenge Through Blackmail

Stryfe expects Deadpool to kill four people for him. One was Cable, and Wade found a loophole of sorts by killing a Cable who was at the end of the line anyway, rather than the younger, shoulder pads and big firearms Cable we all know and, well, not love, but, tolerate? Politely ignore?

The second target was Irene Merryweather, a reporter who was Cable's Chief of Staff during the time he had a floating island operating as an open nation. Wade stabbed her in the heart. The third target is Evan Sabahnur, who might become Apocalypse. Wade thinks he has a workaround for that one. We'll see.

Considering that Irene is someone Wade would probably consider a friend (it's questionable if she'd agree), and Evan is someone Wade cares about a lot, I've been thinking Stryfe is picking these targets to fuck with Wade. Not Cable, mind you. He wanted Cable dead because Cable always gets in his way, plus the usual existential bullcrap that goes down between a clone and the original he's cloned from*.

Wade fulfilled the letter of that request, if not the spirit, and Stryfe, somewhat surprisingly let it go at that. Well, he threw Wade out of his zeppelin HQ, but he didn't immediately go try and kill Wade's daughter, which is a restrained response by Stryfe's standards.

But maybe Cable was the only one he ever really wanted dead. Once he has the heart, and once he's seemingly accepted Deadpool won't kill the Cable he actually wanted dead, did he have any other goals in mind? If Wade succeeds, that's it, Cable's dead. What's accomplished at that point by killing an old acquaintance or a possible future for? If the answer is "nothing," why not make Deadpool, who did try to betray Stryfe, suffer by killing people he cares about? Their deaths wouldn't mean anything to Stryfe other than they hurt Wade (and killing Irene would also probably hurt Cable).

Because I'm not sure of the end goal otherwise. Irene did work closely with Cable for a time, but I don't think she's shown up in any of his other various attempts at ongoing series since he left Cable/Deadpool. Unless Cable goes back to trying to change the future by showing people how to make the present better, their lives are on different trajectories now. He seems to be back to running around with guns shooting people in the face, which she may report on, but they aren't likely to be hanging out much.

Killing Evan would prevent him from becoming Apocalypse, which would stop him from standing between Stryfe and any world-conquering goals he has, but eliminates someone who might, if you're lucky, kill Cable. If Evan's gone, would there be another kid down the line who might become Apocalypse? Although if that was the case, maybe Stryfe wants Evan gone because Wade and the X-Men have actually succeeded, and the kid was never going to become Apocalypse. Stryfe wants that bastard around, so Evan has to go.

Gerry Duggan's been gradually isolating Wade. His team of mercs are gone. He's off the Avengers. His daughter and her foster family hate his guts. His wife ran off with friggin' Dracula. The public hates him, SHIELD's after him, he and Rogue are about to have an ugly falling out, so that probably blows any credit he had with the X-Men.

But one of the things about Deadpool, with his constant cycle of putting together some kind of life for himself, then blowing it to hell, is he's accumulated a surprisingly large circle of friends who seem to stick by him. They may not show up for years, but they're around, going back to Weasel and Blind Al. Bob's one. Sandi, Outlaw, and Agent X, to varying degrees. Taskmaster on a good day. Duggan added several as well, but has been peeling them off a little at a time. Ben Franklin moved on to the next plane, Mike the Necromancer died. Wade shut Preston's brain down, and has her stuffed in a crate in his crappy hideout. And now Duggan's going after characters from those earlier runs. Rick Remender brought in Evan during his time on Uncanny X-Force. Cable and Irene Merryweather became friends with Wade during Nicieza's Cable/Deadpool.

I'm not citing that as a complaint. Sure, I'm not a fan of how he wrote Cable and Deadpool, but Duggan at least seems to have a plan here. There's a goal beyond simply wrecking toys other writers put in there (I think/hope). If the idea is Stryfe is feeling a little pissy and bitter, and wants to accelerate Deadpool's freefall as payback, he might try and make Wade take a torch to those relationships which have somehow held up through all of Deadpool's many, many past, missteps.

Right now, I figure these moves are part of some plan  and I just don't know my Cable backstory well enough to see it. But if the fourth target turns out to be Weasel, then I'd say I was right.

* Also, he needs Cable's heart to make more clones? I don't quite get why Stryfe would want more of himself around, or why he needs Cable's entire heart for that, but that was Cable's theory.

An Old Man's Heart Has Something Left To Give

I should have figured this out an issue earlier, but the solution to Deadpool needing to kill Cable finally occurred to me. It's the Older Man Cable, the one waiting by the phone in case his younger self calls. He's at the end of his run, and if Wade kills him, then he has killed Cable, right? It gives him a heart to present to Stryfe, so maybe Stryfe will drop his guard long enough for the current version of Cable to get the drop on him.

As an aside, I think Stryfe made a mistake choosing Cable as the first target. Give Wade the other targets first, leave his husband until the end as a kicker. Given Wade's mental state right now, Styfe probably could have gotten him to kill people he didn't know without too much trouble. After all, Wade didn't object to the idea of killing people, but the idea of killing Cable, specifically.

That assumes Stryfe ever had more than one person he wanted Wade to kill. He might have said he had four because if he said one, Wade immediately assumes it's Cable and get his hackles up. Or he just thought that whole, "I gave you four lives, so you take four for me," was too good to pass up. I'm not sure where a clone of the son of Cyclops and a clone of Jean Grey got such a dramatic streak.

I do want to see Deadpool meet the older Cable. I'm curious how an older, more mellow Cable would regard his and Wade's relationship looking back over its entirety. If he has regrets for how he handled things (he should). If he hates Wade, pities him, misses him.

Brainstorming Cable's Death

Right before Deadpool trapped him with an MRI, then hacked off his arm, Cable said everyone had a plan to kill Deadpool, and we were going to see his. But let's face it, it would involve dismemberment, and then some combination of acid, concrete, and dumping the remains at the bottom of the ocean. That's everybody's plan to kill Deadpool, except for Marvel, who plan to do it by putting him in too many books and making everyone tired of him.

What I was wondering is, what the people's plans to kill Cable? We haven't seen the end of Wade's yet; I'm hoping it involves more than simply beheading or shooting him. Granting that those are Wade's two favorite ways kill people, he can be more creative than that.

I would suggest going back in time and simply making sure little Nathan Summers Askani Boyardee is never born. You'd think it'd be easy. All it involves is keeping Scott Summers from having sex, and how hard can that be, right? Based on X-Men history, turns out it's surprisingly difficult. Even without Mr. Sinister being the creepiest fan fiction writer ever ("I'm going to introduce a new character who looks just like Jean, but isn't, and Scott will fall in love and marry her and they'll have a baby, and then I'll abduct the baby!")

So that's out. How about a post-hypnotic command, something to exploit Cable's love of pouches? Force him to make sure everything is evenly distributed between all his pouches. What will he do when he has 37 bullets, and 15 bags of trail mix, but 117 pouches? While he's on a run to the store for more junk to even it out, you run him over with a car.

Put a reflective surface in front of him, see if he'll smash into it thinking it's Stryfe, and kill himself like birds do sometimes.

Tell him he loses all his guns in the divorce settlement with Wade and let grief do the rest.

See if you can convince Younger Cable that his older self has been turned to evil by showing him edited highlights, and let them go at it (preferably in a building you filled with explosives, just in case).

And so on.

What are your ideas for inventive ways to kill Cable?

Movie Casting Gossip Is Scary, Right?

So Tim Miller, who directed Deadpool, won't be directing Deadpool 2. He had been having creative differences with both the writers, and perhaps more crucially, Ryan Reynolds, and it all came to a head.

The final straw seemed to have been Miller wanting Kyle Chandler for the role of Cable. My first reaction was to not have any idea who that was, though I suspected some generic, bland, big guy action type. Jai Courtney or someone like that. But no, Chandler was the head coach on Friday Night Lights, or more relevantly to me, he was the main character in Early Edition, the show about the guy who got tomorrow's newspaper and tried to change the bad stuff he saw in it. And he was in Wolf of Wall Street, but neither of those roles exactly screams, "Cable!" at me.

But I don't know who does, really. He's supposed to be a big, old guy, though I guess also reasonably attractive, at least by whatever standards Deadpool has. He usually carries huge firearms and shoots a lot of stuff. And he's supposed to be playing it serious, so you need someone who can maintain their dignity while running around with a glowy eye and a metal arm, so Wade can jab at him.

At the same time, Cable's whole deal is he's come back from an awful future to try and avert it. Sometimes this involves trying to shoot people in the face so they can't do bad shit, but other times it involves trying to do things to make the world better. Encourage the sharing of ideas, offer up what future technology he thinks he can without getting the planet blown up, help a struggling country establish a democracy and care for its citizens to show it can be done. So he has to be a somewhat hopeful character (or a self-deluding one), to try and do all that. To believe people can change, or listen to their better impulses. Deadpool is kind of the perfect test case, really.

And being a time traveler, Cable will sometimes play that game of manipulating people because he's convinced he knows what's best for them, rather than just trying to convince them to do it willingly. Either because he doesn't figure he has the time, or simply because he's thinking big picture, and manipulating them is a necessary evil. And despite being this seemingly big grumpy guy, he has a sense of humor. A lot of it seems to stem from watching people try to outmaneuver someone who already knows what they're doing, but some of it seems to come from people who genuinely surprise him.

So, an actor capable of playing a hardass, stereotypical grim action hero, but also sort of messianic, but also kind of a sneaky jerk. I have absolutely no idea who fits that, assuming they even try to cram all that in there. Might not be room for it all, since Cable is still likely to be a supporting character in Deadpool's movie. But as I think I said back in May, I am actually curious to see Cable in a movie, which is not something I would ever have expected.

If I find myself excited at the prospect of Venom appearing in another Spider-Man movie, that's when we should get really concerned. I may be having a seizure at that point.

Yes, I'm Still Thinking About The Deadpool Movie

It has to be some measure of how much I enjoyed the film that I'm actually excited at the prospect of Cable appearing in the sequel. Assuming that's actually something that's going to happen, and given there are actors actively campaigning for the role, I guess it is.

Admittedly, I only enjoy Cable when he's around Deadpool, but half the time I'm infuriated at his vaguely patronizing attitude towards Wade. But I'm curious to see what they'd do with him, how they'd get him into the movie in the first place. Will he already be in the present? Will he time travel in partway through? Will Wade travel into the future? How happy will Wade be to play with future weapons, like laser rifles that don't require ammo (that he would just forget anyway)?

I was wondering how they were going to build Wade and Nathan's peculiar friendship in one movie, considering how long those two were full-on antagonists, then grudging allies, then actual buddies and whatever else they might be. But movies pull off that antagonists to buddies stuff all the time, like Lethal Weapon, or Tommy Boy, so it's easily doable. Although Deadpool/Cable kind of runs a wider gamut, since they were actively trying to kill each other, and I'm not going to rule out them being presented as a couple in the film (certainly expecting Wade to make several suggestive remarks).

I'm assuming the X-Men defeated Apocalypse in the recently released X-Men film*, which is a bit of a shame, since he's frequently the reason Cable's running around in the present anyway. But I suppose it's always possible that Apocalypse didn't actually die**, and he's back causing trouble, and that's why Cable showed up, to finish the job.

* Which I might get around to seeing one of these days. I haven't really loved any of the X-Men films, and I still haven't seen Captain America: Civil War, even though I did love each of the first two Cap movies, so it isn't exactly a priority.

** I've come to expect superhero movies to kill their bad guys. I don't really like that they do it, but it does happen a lot. But maybe Apocalypse didn't die, even though Jean incinerated his physical and astral form, thank you Wikipedia.

The Summers' Family Tree Can Be Oddly Compelling

The teen versions of the original five X-Men have been in the present day for a few years now (our time). Has anyone done anything with Cable dealing with this? It seems as though bringing the teen version of his father forward in time, while leaving it open-ended whether he ever goes back, thus raising the question of whether he ever falls for Maddy Pryor and a young Nathan Christopher Summers is born, would be of some importance to Cable.

Not that I expect anyone at Marvel to pay any attention to such things anymore, and certainly not to apply any sort of logical consistency to it if they do pay it any mind.

But beyond that, it could be interesting. I've heard Greg Rucka did some good work having teen Cyclops spend time with his dad in the present, bonding over being space pirates. Scott got the chance to reconnect with a father he thought was dead, and Corsair got a chance to actually be a good dad. Older Scott and Cable have had a pretty solid relationship since Scott learned the truth about Cable (and I actually wonder what Cable's made of the decisions his father's made over the last five years).

But they were both grown men by that time. I'd be curious what younger Scott would make of his future self's ability as a father, and whether it would cause him to question his own capabilities. or maybe he'd look at everything Cable survived, and his general dedication to trying to make the world a better place (admittedly usually by shooting things with large guns, but not always), and take that as a good sign.

I also wonder what Cable might want to impart to a younger version of his father. I don't mean in terms of warning him about a specific danger at some point in time; Cable's done enough time travel to know that sort of things is probably useless. But what would Cable talk to Scott about in regards to friendship, or leadership, idealism, whatever? Cable's worn a lot of hats, tried a lot of different approaches. Had friends become enemies, enemies become friends, died, been reborn, gained powers, lost powers, on and on. What things would he would he see his dad as lacking that he could possibly give him, and could he manage it? Or would he even try at all? Maybe he'd just want to go camping with a teenage version of his dad and his space pirate grandpa.

Have Cable and Corsair ever interacted? Scott must have mentioned at some point he was married to Maddy, and they had a son. Corsair would presumably have asked where his grandson is, and I'm guessing Scott would explain it all. Corsair lives a weird life, he can handle techno-organic viruses and time travel. But I don't know if Cable's ever met him. I kind of suspect he wouldn't like Corsair much, would resent him for not being there for Scott, if even if he knew Corsair thought his son was dead for a long time.

Forcing Myself To Give Cable Credit

So several examples of powerlessness, eh? If I'd been thinking clearly, I'd have remembered Asimov did a story that was similar. There were elves, or fairies, that look insectile, and one of them was a mutant, who could use human mental energy to power electrical devices. It planned to use a writer of mystical stories as a power source, and was drawing off his mind to use the writer's wife as a hostage. When it sent the writer to get some books on engineering, it tried to sue his son to maintain control. Except kids apparently no longer believe in fairies, so it didn't work, and the kid killed the fairy/elf thing with a book. Whoops.

Couple of years back, there was Cable/Deadpool #35. You might recall that as the issue where Cable had hooked Deadpool's subconscious to the Infonet, so that Wade was being tormented by all the people he killed. The plan, as Cable explained it, was that it would put Wade in a state of mind to come ask Cable for help. Given that Cable wasn't even sure what was going to get tapped into, I'm not certain what sort of help he was planning to provide. I'm guessing guidance as Wade tries to find a new path.

Much to my glee, the plan appeared to backfire. Wade got sick of the voices, and started shooting up his favorite bar. Fortunately for the bar, Cable showed up before Wade had to throw his grenade at something less worthwhile, like the pools tables. At the end of the issue, Wade is not making any steps to ask Cable for help, which was fine and dandy by me. Cable had been playing up the "I'm from the future, so I know what's coming down the pike, I've got the answers" a bit much in previous months, usually at Wade's expense*. Seeing something not go as he planned it was a welcome change, and so I chortled at Cable.

Except, it seems to have worked. Considering what happened afterwards, Wade fumbled about trying to revive his merc career by abducting potential employers, got shrunk by the Rhino, rescued Agent X (and try to find more Pym Particles), and then had to save Sandi and Outlaw from T-Ray**. After that, he gets into situations where no one is necessarily forcing him to act, but he still opts to help. He wants to rush to Providence and help Cable, he goes back to that HYDRA base to rescue Weasel, but tries to do so without getting into a pointless scrap with Wolverine. It doesn't really work, but he made the effort. Wade even agrees to share his soul with T-Ray. Or he agreed to share T-Ray's soul with T-Ray, one of the two.

So I guess Cable's scheme actually sort of worked, though his country being attacked really pushed things along. Still, I guess that means I can't chuckle at Cable for this after all. Curses.

* The fight in France where Wade was a bit overzealous in trying to arrest Cable, and ultimately got fired from the CSA, for one, and the Rumekistan sabotage attempt where Wade basically got tossed out of the country for another.

** I could not get into T-Ray. Every issue he showed up, it was as though the book was a runner that got shot in the knee. Just one knee, so it was still limping along, but impaired.

Don't We Need A Custody Hearing?

I was flipping through the last chapter of Messiah Complex yesterday, and thank goodness that's over. Hopefully Peter David can get X-Factor back on track. Wait, that wasn't what I wanted to discuss.

Cable has the baby. Cyclops wants the baby. Cable is holding a gun on his father, and things are getting kind of emo, and I'm squinting and trying to decipher Bachalo's art, and Xavier steps out and tells Cable to give Cyke the baby. He says that Cyclops leads the X-Men, and so he has to speak for all of them.

All of who? All the X-Men? Is Cable an X-Man anymore? Not too long ago, Cyclops was convinced Cable might be their enemy and sent a heavily redundant team after him, but now Cable is supposed to hand over this baby he's been protecting to Cyclops, because Scott speaks for them? Sez who? Cyclops is the guy who once bailed on his wife and kid to go run around with back-from-the-dead Jean Grey, so I think that has to count as at least one strike against his judgment, and against him getting to play Solomon. What strikes me as really odd is, Cyke ultimately gives the baby back to Cable and tells him to go. In other words, Cable should proceed as he had planned to originally, so was all the talking and pointing of firearms really required?

On the plus side, at least someone stopped looking at the kid as some prize to be won, or a threat to be eliminated. The Purifiers want to destroy it because they hate mutants, Bishop wants to kill it to save his future, the Marauders, well Sinister, wanted it for whatever eugenics program he was planning to start up (come on, it's always something like that with Sinister). Mystique wanted to save Rogue, the X-Men wanted it for, some reason beyond just protecting it (because they're the X-Men, and all mutants must be under their care? Are we sure the kid wouldn't be less likely to be the target of attacks if it was with Sinister? He'd be harder to find?)

Cyclops seems to feel the child has the best chance of actually being a child if she stays with Cable. I'm less certain of that myself, but cheers to Cyclops for making his decision based on that. Did I just give a cheers to Cyclops? I'm not feverish, but I certainly must be sick. I better go lie down.

What's He So Worried About?

Hey, just because Cable/Deadpool didn't make me laugh doesn't mean it can't make me think. I've been trying to figure out why Cable is so concerned about getting his powers back. I thought the whole point of being able to tap into the Infonet, and using the gravimetric sheath was a way for him to replicate his lost powers, and that seemed like something he was very interested in accomplishing. Now he's actually getting his powers back, and he's worried it's going to bollix up everything he's worked for. Why?

Having his powers shouldn't change the message he's been trying to spread, that if people stop struggling against each other and work together, they can achieve great things. After all, he had his powers when he started that mission, and it was going pretty well when he had his technological substitutes, so I can't see how getting his powers back is going to jeopardize this.

Best guess, the techno abilities he came up with, as nifty as they were, were extremely limited in what they could do compared to his true telepathic/telekinetic potential. With those old power levels restored, Cable's worried he's going to stop trying to show people there's a better way, and start trying to force them down the path he wants. He's going to be inside too many people's heads, "hear" their suffering, and decide there's no more time to waste waiting for the world powers to believe in him. Which is pretty much the opposite of what he wants, but with the power at his fingertips, it may be too tempting an opportunity to pass up.

Other thought: Cable doesn't want his powers back, because he thinks he's being manipulated right now. This is something he mentions himself in the issue, that it feels like his rejoining the X-Men was orchestrated so he'd have to regain his powers. Which seems a bit meta-textual; maybe Cable's picked up some of Wade's fourth-wall awareness? The question then becomes, who would want Cable to go back to being possibly the most powerful mutant on Earth? Possibly someone who wants people more scared of mutants again, in the hopes it could. . . cause. . . strife? Oh crap, they better not be bringing back Stryfe. Don't do it Marvel. No more clones! Ever!

Back on topic. So I'm thinking Cable is scared that having his powers back will make him much more forceful, less sneaky than he was being previously, which is gonna make his big plans go up in smoke. Personally, you'd think his awareness of these fears would defuse that problem, especially since he seems to think that it's going to cost him Domino somehow. I'm guessing that goes back to when Cable told Wade that Domino doesn't trust Cable because he's screwed up everything he's ever tried to do. But again, I'd think Domino would work to help keep Nate grounded, seeing as I don't think she actually wants to "lose" him, anymore than he wants to lose her. Come on Aksani-Son, believe in the power of love! Hmm, I've used that line before. Well, it's still a good line so to hell with it.

Anyway, it just seems to me that Cable needs to trust in the people who care about him to keep him grounded, to believe that they'll keep him from going too far, which shouldn't be that hard, seeing as his whole "messiah" shtick is predicated on the ideas that people can change and help each other. So forget the power of love, Cable just needs to believe in the inherent goodness of the human spirit! Hmm, this could be harder for him than I thought.

Those are my thoughts; what are yours? And is anyone else annoyed by this "autosaving" feature? It's just bugging the hell out of me for some reason. . .

Edit, 8:35 p.m.: I also updated the template layout, in case you're wondering why the blog looks a little different. I wouldn't have bothered, but this way you can actually get all the posts for a particular label, instead of just the 20 most recent, so that's something at least.

How Much Does Intent Count For?

I've had this one on a backburner for awhile, so let's see how it goes. This arose from Cable/Deadpool #35 and Ms. Marvel #10, and it deals with a connection between the Rogue/Carol Danvers relationship and the Cable/Deadpool situation.

Carol made it pretty clear that she isn't over what Rogue did to her, however many years ago Marvel says it was. Rogue absorbed not only Carol's powers (though Rogue seemed stronger and more resistant to injury than Carol and lacked the energy powers. Weird), but her memories, and the emotions that went with them. Even after Xavier helped restore Carol's memories, she had no connection to them. Rogue effectively took away Carol's life up to that point. She did it because she heard Mystique and Destiny talking about how Carol would one day seriously harm Rogue, and so Rogue decided on a preemptive strike.

Then you've got Cable. He links Wade's subconscious to the infonet, in effect torturing Wade with visual and auditory imagery of the people he's killed. His reasoning was it would force Wade to examine his life, and eventually come running to Nate for help in reevaluating his life. In terms of psychological damage it doesn't even begin to compare with what Rogue did to Carol. On the other hand, Cable can't claim that he did it out of self-defense. He did it because he decided that Deadpool needed to examine his life, and that was that. It's kind of a dick move, you know?

I think my original intent was to ask which person you think did a worse thing, or made a greater transgression, Rogue or Cable, but I don't think that's much of a question. I suppose, I just found it interesting that these two situations of someone messing with another person's mind popped up in the same week.

Savior or Satan?

This does have a point, so don't fret about that.

It may not be a good point, but there is one.


So I'm reading Cable/Deadpool this week, and I've reached the point where a few citizens of Rumekistan have found Cable lying facedown and shot in the street. Good thing Wade felt bad about leaving him in the sewer or they'd have never found him, huh? Not that would have mattered much.

The people start carrying Cable to a hospital, hoping that someone will be able to aid their fallen leader, and I start getting an odd sense of deja vu. The whole thing reminded me of that Superman episode "Legacy" where Supes having gotten free from the mind control Darkseid placed him under proceeds, as Chris Sims might say, to wreck Darkseid's shit. At the end Darkseid is lying beaten before the people who he's crushed for so long. Rather than rejoice that they're, as Superman says "free", the people rush to help their dark god, carrying him to someone who can help.

Given Cable's tendency to come off as being damn near all-knowing, and seemingly always being fifteen goddamned steps ahead of everyone else, while simultaneously possessing ludicrous power, and his attempts to unify people, it was kind of a weird moment.

Then yesterday another comparison came to me, that being the elevated train scene in Spider-Man 2. Spidey saves the train from going off the rails, and then the people save him from falling off himself, passing him back above them to a safe place to lay him down. It matches the emotional aspect more accurately, with the people showing concern and gratitude for someone who saved them, but Spidey's never really been a member of the "I know better than you" camp, so character-wise, it kind of falters.

I think the two things neatly encapsulate Cable. Is he a hero, someone who's going to save Earth from all the death and hate that he's seen in his life? Or is he a greater monster (or just misguided) bringing people together, making it that much easier for them to be crushed under one heel?

Very Sneaky

I need to backtrack to last week's books for a bit, talk about Cable/Deadpool #33.

At the beginning of the issue, the waste fusion facilities are damaged and look like they might explode. Then they do explode. Fortunately, Cable has arrived (with Deadpool in tow), and uses the ol' gravimetric powers to shunt the fallout from the explosion into the atmosphere, so nobody gets hurt.

Oddly, I'm not here to discuss the possible ramifications that dissipating cloud could have on the world at large. I'm actually wondering how Cable did it. He "bodyslides" in close enough to the time of the explosion that Deadpool couldn't do what would come most naturally to him in that situation: get the hell out of there. And Cable supposedly has to shut off his gravimetric field to bodyslide, with the tradeoff being it takes time for the field to kick back on, usually in the range of a couple of minutes.

But there he and Wadey are, right in the middle of it, and Cable is most definitely using his gravimetric field, or else everyone would be dead. So I've concluded that the whole thing about his powers taking time to reactivate is a total load of bull. He's taking the Thanos tactic, and spreading disinformation to give himself an advantage. Now people who want to get rid of him think he has a weakness, when in reality he doesn't.

He even takes the charade to the point of getting smacked around by Deadpool in #32 (their brief skirmish in France), just to further the idea that it takes time for his abilities to kick back in. It's risky, but clever. He just hadn't taken time to worry about a situation where there wasn't time to "wait for his gravimetric sheath to kick back on".

I just wonder whether anybody noticed.

Fun With Space-Time!

I know I've said it before, but the connections that the brain can make are fascinating. Or maybe frightening.

So I'm watching Korgoth of Barbaria on Adult Swim last night. Near the end, the title character utters the phrase, "Balls of the Gods!" This got me thinking about Cable/Deadpool #31, and Wadey's commentary as he slid between Hercules legs: 'Fighting a dude in a skirt. My advantage. Hmm... Godly endowments. His advantage.' Of course, the even more apropos line was 'By the curly hairs of Zeus I shall smite thee!', but I think my brain may have blocked that out.

I'd like to pause briefly here to praise Cap for his patience, and not simply letting Hercules beat 'Pool into a messy paste-like substance, no matter how many times Wade tried to tranq dart him in the back. On with the topic.

So I'm reading the rest of the issue, and I get to Cable's conversation with El Presidente, where Cable keeps telling him about what this whole Registration thing is going to lead to, and how people will look back on this time with less than kind eyes. But it was his comment how the next time they meet, the President 'will be watching his successor six times removed as he signs a treaty of surrender.'

The thing that struck me is, isn't Cable falling into the Waverider/Armaggeddon 2001 trap here? I remember that Waverider showing the heroes their possible futures made it so they could never occur. So by Cable telling the President about these future events, isn't he altering things so they may never occur? I know he's trying to prevent the huge war, but isn't he risking the surrender treaty part never happening as well?

Had Cable figured by that point that nothing would deter the president from his present course, so there was no harm in letting him know the eventual fate, as sort of a last ditch scare tactic?

Is it a situation where Cable has done so much freaking time travel, that he knows how to avoid problems like that? Or is it a matter of Marvel's ideas of time travel versus DC's?

Things I Think About #16

I found out from Len a couple of weeks ago, that Avi Arad, the head honcho at Marvel has three favorite characters. They are:

Cable
Namor
Thor

Now Cable's got an ongoing book, and had another one before this. Namor's been in a bunch of different titles and if they ever get around to that book they were going to do about that "Secret Scoiety" we saw in New Avengers, he'll be playing a role there as well.

But what about Thor? Sure, Thor:Blood Oath wasn't bad, but it's off in its own little continuity. So what I'm waiting for is when Arad walks into the Marvel offices and asks "Where is Thor? Why isn't he in any of these books?" Then I'd love for someone to turn to Quesada and say "Joe, you want to field that one?"

So, let's make some guesses? How long until Thor is back in the mainstream Marvel Universe?

I'll say that it happens in the aftermath of Annihilation and Civil War. So that'll be what, end of the year, early 2007, something like that? Ladies and gentlemen, place your guesses.

Friday Comic Discussion

Yeah, I know I should be working on my "Best of" posts, I swear I'll have another tomorrow. Just got a lot of comics to go through. But, I spent about three fun hours today, talking comics and the like, I wanted to share some of the ideas/questions with you. Plus, I need to do something relaxing, Ninja Gaiden is kicking my butt. Stupid infrequent save points.

In the Inferno storyline, Limbo starts bleeding into the Earth plane. Demons walk the Earth. Where was Doctor Strange?

Nate Summers (Cable) was going to be a sacrifice to permanently merge Limbo and Earth. This seems to give him some sort of mystical connection, why has that never been explored in all the hundreds of books dealing with Cable?

Why do all the X-Men (except Shadowcat) just seem to accept Emma Frost as co-leader of the Institute?

Why would Scott Summers start cheating on Jean with Emma, other than because God of All Comics, Grant Morrison, decided he should? Hell, I don't even like Cyclops, but I respect him enough to know that infidelity isn't his style, other than that time with Psylocke, which was purely physical, and they never actually did anything.

Did Joe Casey leave Uncanny X-Men because he couldn't handle being second fiddle to Morrison's X-Men?

Was the Spider-Man versus Firelord story (Amazing Spider-Man 269-270) a good story or not?

Would it be a good idea to make all of Marvel's 'Malice' characters the same? So instead of Sue Richards developing an alternate personality called Malice from the manipulations of Psycho-Man, it was the result of the same Malice that possessed Polaris.

Was Doctor Strangefate of the Amalgam Universe the most powerful hero of all time?

Why is Wolverine, a character with 12-inch blades that cut anything jutting from his hands, a hero? Shouldn't he be a villain?

Could Doctor Strange beat Zatanna (Clearly this was a Doctor Strange kind of day)?

How funny would it be if Dr. Fate's helmet landed on the kid that picked up the Blue Beetle scarab?

Exactly what kind of lighting is necessary for Tim Sale's art to look good (Prompted by complaints about a Batman figure meant to mimic Sale's art in Batman: The Long Halloween)?

Why hasn't Cable at least offered Wolverine a job in his group, as his personal assassin?

When is Thor coming back?

Why can't Iron Fist join Luke Cage on the New Avengers?

How does the yellow sun reacting with his Kryptonian physiology give Superman four different kinds of super-vision?

At what point did the German word 'uber', which frequently means 'about' (though it can also mean 'above' or 'over') become American slang for, well whatever the hell it means in slang?

Is the word "forte" supposed to be pronounced with the 'e' or not? Hey, we're a highly educational bunch here at Marvels and Legends.

If you have answers to any of these, or just general feedback, well you know how to comment. I'd appreciate any insight you can bring.
The Master of the Mystic Arts thanks you!