The Dour Resurgence of Cable, <em>Deadpool 2</em>’s<em> </em>Antihero
The gun-toting cyborg, played by Josh Brolin, is a product of the forbidding, over-the-top comic-book storytelling that dominated in the early 1990s.
This article contains spoilers for the film Deadpool 2.
“There are five kinds of mutants,” the comic-book character Cable says in New Mutants #99 (1991), one of his earliest appearances. “The mollifiers. The abusers. The used. The hunted. The hidden. I am trying to create a sixth kind. The survivors. I am trying to prepare you all for a bleak future.” In the world of early-’90s superhero comics, this was what amounted to a cheerful pep talk. Created in his grown-up form by the writer Louise Simonson and the artist Rob Liefeld, Cable was a mascot for the medium’s gritty, techno-punky moment, and he looked the part, sporting a glowing eye, a metal arm, and a face marked with scars.
