Is there a character that embodies comics from the 90s more than Nathaniel Summers, a.k.a.Cable? He’s from the fuuuture (badass!) He’s got one glowy red eye (oh yeah). He’s constantly being ravaged by a techno-virus (what?!?!) which he keeps from killing him with his telekinetic mutant powers (Frosted tips and silly putty!). His mother is a clone (I really really really really wanna zig-a-zig ah!) And he’s got a metal arm (Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on Arsenio Hall). It also follows that his origin is convoluted as hell, which has us curious as to how exactly it’s going to be handled in the upcoming Deadpool 2.
Back in April, it was announced that Josh Brolin would be playing Cable in the follow-up to the surprise hit of last year, and as recently as two weeks ago we got our first look at the No Country For Old Men Star star in full garb as the famous time traveller. I, like most man children, am completely on board with the slightly tweaked aesthetics. It’s a faithful adaption of his threads from the comics with a little more grit. In terms of his backstory, there’s simply no way to implement all of it, or even most of it, in a theatrical release (not they should have to.) One of the many benefits of the irreverent tone established in Deadpool is the free pass it affords itself to not get too hung up over things like character development. Director David Leitch had this to say to screenrant regarding his approach to Cable’s origin in the film:
“Look I think, besides all the Deadpool, sort of film universe Deadpool, you have to kinda be selective of like how you approach these characters because there’s a canon of work so massive that you could never put it all on screen,” he said. “So we’ve been very particular, what we’re going to put in, and what we’re going to leave for potential future if its goes that and uh, I think you’ll like it. It’s all in the same spirit of the canon, and also in the spirit of iike what, Deadpool the movie is.”
Not much is known about Deadpool 2’s plot but it can be safely assumed that Cable’s backstory from the funny books is going to be altered drastically if addressed at all. I can’t imagine Madelyne Pryor is going to be involved, maybe they’ll just have Cable be the son of Jean and Scott and skip over all that cloning shit. In my opinion the filmmakers are better off leaving Nathaniel’s backstory out entirely for the sake of the already tortuous timeline of the X-men film series. It bums me out Deadpool is still tethered to that leather loving shithouse of a franchise, but at least the first outing made zero attempts to bind itself to that world canonically out of a few meta jabs.
Deadpool 2 hits theatres June 1, 2018.
