Monday, May 23, 2016

The Summers' Family Tree Can Be Oddly Compelling

The teen versions of the original five X-Men have been in the present day for a few years now (our time). Has anyone done anything with Cable dealing with this? It seems as though bringing the teen version of his father forward in time, while leaving it open-ended whether he ever goes back, thus raising the question of whether he ever falls for Maddy Pryor and a young Nathan Christopher Summers is born, would be of some importance to Cable.

Not that I expect anyone at Marvel to pay any attention to such things anymore, and certainly not to apply any sort of logical consistency to it if they do pay it any mind.

But beyond that, it could be interesting. I've heard Greg Rucka did some good work having teen Cyclops spend time with his dad in the present, bonding over being space pirates. Scott got the chance to reconnect with a father he thought was dead, and Corsair got a chance to actually be a good dad. Older Scott and Cable have had a pretty solid relationship since Scott learned the truth about Cable (and I actually wonder what Cable's made of the decisions his father's made over the last five years).

But they were both grown men by that time. I'd be curious what younger Scott would make of his future self's ability as a father, and whether it would cause him to question his own capabilities. or maybe he'd look at everything Cable survived, and his general dedication to trying to make the world a better place (admittedly usually by shooting things with large guns, but not always), and take that as a good sign.

I also wonder what Cable might want to impart to a younger version of his father. I don't mean in terms of warning him about a specific danger at some point in time; Cable's done enough time travel to know that sort of things is probably useless. But what would Cable talk to Scott about in regards to friendship, or leadership, idealism, whatever? Cable's worn a lot of hats, tried a lot of different approaches. Had friends become enemies, enemies become friends, died, been reborn, gained powers, lost powers, on and on. What things would he would he see his dad as lacking that he could possibly give him, and could he manage it? Or would he even try at all? Maybe he'd just want to go camping with a teenage version of his dad and his space pirate grandpa.

Have Cable and Corsair ever interacted? Scott must have mentioned at some point he was married to Maddy, and they had a son. Corsair would presumably have asked where his grandson is, and I'm guessing Scott would explain it all. Corsair lives a weird life, he can handle techno-organic viruses and time travel. But I don't know if Cable's ever met him. I kind of suspect he wouldn't like Corsair much, would resent him for not being there for Scott, if even if he knew Corsair thought his son was dead for a long time.

2 comments:

thekelvingreen said...

It's frustrating when such a clear story possibility gets overlooked. I'm still baffled that they did nothing with the Vision being on the same team as his own children in Young Avengers; they even did stories about the twins trying to find their mother, but the Vision didn't get involved at all. Yes, it wasn't the same Vision, but he had the same memories, so you'd think it would have come up at some point.

CalvinPitt said...

That's so strange, 'cause I know they did stories about Wiccan and Speed trying to figure out if Wanda was their mom, so you'd think, yeah, he's your dad, boys, want to chat? They even used Master Pandemonium in those stories, if I remember right. And that kind of family melodrama is something superhero comics love to get into, so that's a surprising miss.