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 t
heir 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?
2 comments:
Cable is one odd guy. He wants to be a hero, do the right thing, help people be free and live together in harmony. Unfortunately, his approach comes from an environment where people treated him as a messianic figure, where he could never do the right thing, and where no one could ever hope for freedom or harmony.
So he comes off as a militant madman, which isn't surprising. His playbook is The Art of War, which he studies... religiously.
I've noticed a lot of parallels between Cable and King Arthur. If there was an Arthur, he was most likely some sort of warlord, conquereing his neighbors in an attempt to create a greater peace for the entire region. Thus, Cable, at best, is some sort of twisted warlord, trying to create peace over the Earth. Take that as you will.
Cable was a sketch Rob Liefeld did and that the editors named. The they threw him in the book and thought up his origin later. Because of all this, Cable's been a little bit of everything to everyone depending on what the story calls for. Recently, and I'm a little biased for the Warren Ellis 'X-Man' issues, Cable's got that messiah complex, the power to be a force for social (maybe religeous?) change, which would be an interesting thing t see in a mutant book considering how evolutionary it all is, but he's just bogged down by the shoulder pads, guns and ridiculousness.
len!'s got a better point than me. =)
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