Updated: Guide to Cable

It’s time for another update to a long-standing X-Guide! It’s another guide where I re-wrote every word and rebuilt every link from scratch to make it clearer than every before how to follow the story of one of the most-complicated X-Characters. Welcome to my all-new, all-different Guide to Cable!

Guide to Cable

This Guide to Cable didn’t exist when I first launched Crushing Comics back in 2010.

At the time, Cable’s 1993 series wasn’t particularly well-collected and his 2008 series was just wrapping up, so the bulk of his collected editions were actually from the run of Cable & Deadpool from 2004 to 2008. At the time Deadpool hadn’t been associated with the X-Men for well over a decade (this was just before Uncanny X-Force was announced!), but he had several well-collected series to his name.

Faced with a decision between an under-collected X-Character and well-collected non-X-Character, it made sense to package the pair of them together thanks to their shared series and intertwined origins. Thus, the Guide to Cable & Deadpool was born.

Then the 2010s happened. Deadpool got more popular than ever, spawning multiple comics, a line of omnibuses collecting his every issue ever, and a pair of movies. Eventually, the Deadpool bits of the guide were strangling the Cable parts. Plus, my guides were leaning more into the “every appearance, ever” direction, and that’s very hard to do with multiple characters on one guide page.

Thus, in 2016, my Guide to Cable was born. I was glad to have made that call in 2017, when Cable scored his first solo series in nearly a decade in the ResurrXion relaunch of the X-Men line. I dutifully updated it to reflect his new series, first penned by Ed Brisson, then by the writing team of Thompson & Nadler.

Then, just as I got the guide relatively tidy, Cable died. He had “died” a few times before, but this time the death seemed more permanent because he was immediately replaced with a teenage version of himself!

Back in 2018 we still weren’t 100% sure that Teen Cable (who I affectionately refer to as “Table”) was really who he claimed to be! That didn’t stop me from keeping the guide up to date with older collections, but I was undecided on if this new Cable should be tracked in the same place.

The Age of Krakoa not only held the answers to that question, but it also included a stellar Table series – Cable (2020), helmed by Gerry Duggan & Phi Noto. Month after month, its issues were some of our favorites on This Week in X. It told a complete and heartfelt story with Table at the center, tying a bow on his confusing status quo in the Marvel Universe.

This renewed Cable guide tracks every appearance from Cable’s initial infection with the transmode virus through his appearances in X-Men Red (2022). It now boasts a more-detailed table of contents, links to buy and read digitally, a “Where to Start” primer, a clearer map of his Pre-History, a new oversize section for his messily-collected 1993 series, and a complete account of his appearances in the Age of Krakoa.

It’s been a nearly eight-hour labor of love to bring my Guide to Cable up to the current standard of Crushing Comics. It’s come a long way since it used to be a few sections of the Guide to Cable & Deadpool. I hope my revisions make it easier to use than ever before!

Let me know in the comments which of my 200+ guides you’d love to see me update next. I’ve already got a vote from reader Caleb for a return to revising the X-Men Era Guides, which would make me SO VERY HAPPY. Let your voice be heard!