When X-Men fans think of X-Force, Nathan Dayspring Summers (aka Cable) is one of the first names that comes to mind. He was a founding member back in 1991 and has always been pivotal to the team and the franchise. Even when he wasn’t on the main roster, he’d somehow find a way to join a mission or two thanks to his knowledge of the future via his ability to time-travel. However, things aren’t so clear for Nathan Summers this time around.
In the newest installment of one of the premier mutant teams, Nathan sees that the first mutant President of the United States of America is assassinated. Normally, Cable would return to the past with enough information to prevent the tragedy.
Sadly, he doesn’t have a clear memory of the event. Something is disrupting Belle (his AI) and forces Cable back to the past without any knowledge of things to come. All he has are three names written on his arm (Archangel, Hellverine, and Boom) and a message that says, “One of us.”
At the end of the issue, Cable says that someone on this team will kill the future President. His solution is to “...use the missions to let the subjects clear themselves of a crime that hasn’t happened yet.” But who is the future leader of America that will unite mutants and humans? It’s none other than New Jersey’s own hero, Kamala Khan. Unfortunately, Cable doesn't tell his team that their job is to protect Ms. Marvel or that she will be President until they meet her.
Back at the base, Akihiro tells Nathan that he (Cable) could have mentioned what their assignment really was. Cable tells Akihiro that X-Force needed to be in the mission for themselves. Not because of its importance. And while Tabitha (Boom Boom) defends Nate to Hellverine, saying that Nate always does things for the right reason, Nathan doesn't inform X-Force that one of them is destined to assassinate Kamala.
The names on Cable’s arm represent the people he needed to get on his team and who the assassin is. But there’s something else that Nathan may not have considered. He hasn’t thought about the part that says “one of us.” For all any of us knows, Nathan is the assassin.
Did Cable do it?
In many time-travel movies, a person meeting themselves has consequences. Now, Cable’s met himself before, but the events of Undeadpool (also written by Tim Seeley) during the X-Men crossover, Age of Revelation, may have messed him up so bad that he ends up murdering Kamala while the Technarchy was influencing him. The distress of seeing himself assassinate someone may have been too traumatic for him to handle.
This is just a theory, but I bet Nathan Summers wrote the names of the only people he knows who will join his team and stop him before he does something unthinkable. Cable has always thought rationally, especially when it comes to stopping himself. Plus, at the end of the issue, Nate's former teammate and girlfriend has a sniper rifle pointed at Cable's head, hinting that Nathan is wrong.
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