Cable Reloaded gives readers a peek at Cable’s private journal — and it hints at some of the ups and downs Krakoa might soon be going through.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Cable Reloaded #1, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
Thanks to his history as a time-traveling commando who spent most of his life growing up in a post-apocalyptic future, Cable has always had the ability to subtly reference or tease potential developments in the future. There are even arguments to be made that he predicted some of the biggest twists about Krakoa, such as imprinting memories and personality into effectively clone bodies — which is exactly what the Five do when they revive someone, and what Cable did in Cable and X-Force by Simon Spurrier, Rock-He Kim and Jorge Molina.
Cable Reloaded #1 by Al Ewing, Bob Quinn, Java Tartaglia, and VC’s Joe Sabino hints that Nathan Summers does in fact know more about the future of Krakoa than anyone is letting on — and may have just teased the eventual arc of the mutant nation.
Cable Reloaded frequently has fun with Cable’s knowledge of the future and added perspective of seeing the present day as a visit through history. He positively fanboys out over getting to team up with Rocket Raccoon from the Guardians of the Galaxy (who is apparently considered something of a legend in the distant future of the Marvel Universe), and his knowledge of someone like Abigail Brand seems to be largely informed by his future ventures. Now returned to his original, grizzled incarnation after being briefly replaced with a younger incarnation of himself, Cable has a grimmer, hardened view of the world that the younger Nathan Summers never truly had.
Cable’s personal log delves further into his views on the subject, and notes how thanks to his recent time spent on Krakoa as a teenager, he feels like returning to the present has a strange element of reverence. During this time, he notes that the present-day is what history will go on to refer to as the “First Krakoan Age.” This carries a lot of implications, suggesting that Krakoa will go through multiple eras and will survive into the future to usher in at least a second age — if not many more. But for that to happen, the First Krakoan Age must come to an end — which it already looks like it’s heading towards, with the schemes and plans of Mystique set to try and burn the whole nation to the ground in the upcoming Inferno.
There’s another hint in his journals that further suggests things might not stay rosy for the X-Men forever. Cable notes that history considers the First Krakoan Age to be the era where mutants “conquered” death. But Cable disagrees — arguing that while the Five and their resurrection capabilities were enough to counter death, it wasn’t a genuine overcoming of the phenomenon. Cable suggests that if Dormammu were to win the Last Annihilation and actually make his way to the Sol System (and Krakoa), the mutants would quickly learn that death is still very much capable of taking them in brutal fashion. Coupled with his determination to keep all of his teammates alive instead of encouraging them to readily sacrifice themselves in the line of duty, it seems Cable is hinting resurrection won’t always work for the X-Men.
Losing the capabilities of the Five would come as a huge blow to Krakoa, which has largely come to accept and embrace the ability to be resurrected. Some mutants, like Quinten Quire, have even used it to effectively transform their bodies into ones more to their liking. Cable’s musings might just be those — but they could be a hint at what kind of chaos awaits them in the near future.
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