As Cable sets out to prepare for his role in X of Swords, he inadvertently leads Cyclops and Jean Grey into a deadly cosmic haunted house.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Cable #5, by Gerry Duggan, Phil Noto and VC’s Joe Sabino, on sale now.
With the stakes of the Dawn of X crossover event “X of Swords” set, the mutant nation-state of Krakoa has selected ten champions to represent their community in a duel against ten opposing champions from the rival mutant nation of Arakko for the fate of their respective worlds. Among the Krakoan champions chosen is Cable, a significantly younger iteration of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor’s time-displaced son. And as Nathan Summers prepares for the coming contest of champions, he and his family find themselves trapped in a cosmic haunted house linked to Cable’s newly acquired sword in Cable #5.
Following a cryptic hint by the Omniversal Majestrix Saturnyne, who will preside over the tournament from her realm in Otherworld, Cable leads his parents Cyclops and Jean Grey to an abandoned space station, the Peak, which was formerly operated by S.W.O.R.D. As the Summers family ventures deeper into the station, they discover the outlines of the personnel on the walls, with only ash from an unseen incident left in their wake. As Nathan uses his sword as a spark plug to reactivate the station, Jean meets with a S.W.O.R.D. operative warning her that they shouldn’t have restored power before he ejects himself into to cold vacuum of space as Jean realizes what the team is up against by reading his mind seconds before his death.
At the heart of the station is a massive portal to an alternate dimension that brings in a sentient virus known as the Vescora. Taking on looming, shadowy shapes, the Vescora had previously invaded the station and killed off the personnel who used their final moments to power down the station and drove them back to where they came from. Confronted with this extra-dimensional invasion head-on, Cable theorizes that Saturnyne attempted to warn them of the impending invasion before he is corrected by Cyclops noting that Saturnyne may have been trying to take some X-Men off the board ahead of the tournament.