CABLE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“A powerful mercenary, Cable uses telekinetic abilities and combat expertise to get the job done.”

I started off my last Cable review by making fun of his box-bio’s hefty simplification of the character’s complex backstory.  For this one, I’m willing to cut Hasbro a little slack, since the character was presented in a much more simplified form in Deadpool 2, his appearance in which is one of the primary reasons he got this figure in the first place. Despite his lessened presence in the franchise in recent years, he gotten no less than two separate Marvel Legends releases in two years.  I’ve already looked at the first, and now I’m looking at the second.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cable is figure 3 in the Sasquatch Series of Marvel Legends, joining Deadpool and Domino in the loose DP2 theme of the assortment. He’s based on a more classic look than the last Cable.  It’s a costume that was prominent on a few covers in the ’90s (though less so the actual interiors; that’s just how ’90s comics do), notably the cover to X-Force #1. It was also the look Cable was sporting on his first action figure, and in the X-Men cartoon.  It’s about as quintessential as you get for Cable looks.  The figure stands just over 7 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  Like his predecessor, this Cable figure is built on the Hyperion body, though the actual pieces shared between the two are pretty minimal.  For the most part, this guy uses the Nuke variant of the body (so, he’s got the cargo pants and combat boots), but he gets a new head and arms (which are all distinct from the prior Cable figure, it should be noted), as well as an overlay piece for his shoulderpads/belt/suspenders, and another for his collar.  The head is the star part here, of course, and it manages to capture the spirit of Liefeld’s illustrations without really getting into the drawbacks behind them.  I particularly like how they’ve captured his glowing eye; that’s a nice touch.  The overlay piece is a little loose for my tastes, but it looks nice, and it means that Cable’s finally got shoulderpads!  Yay!  Cable’s paintwork is a good match for the palette that goes with this design, and the application, though sparse, is all clean.  Cable, being all about the guns, naturally includes three of them.  The biggest of them is an original design, and looks exactly like the sort of thing Cable would be brandishing on a cover in the ’90s.  There are also two smaller guns, which, fun fact, are both scaled-down Nerf guns.  The larger of the two is the Doomlands Vagabond, while the smaller is based on the Barrel Break.  They’re both nice gun designs, and they fit the style of the character quite well.  Thanks to our resident Nerf-expert Tim for helping identify the exact models!  I certainly hope this trend of scaling down Nerf guns continues.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had a moderate interest in this figure.  I’m not the world’s biggest Cable fan or anything, but the fact that this is the design from the cartoon really gave me a reason to track him down.  Of course, he’s the most demanded in the set by far, so I missed him several times.  I eventually found him at Cosmic Comix, who got a case in a few weeks ago.  He’s a goofy figure to be sure, but that’s sort of the point.  I love him for what he is, though.