Cable

Anybody got a quarter we can borrow? Cable travels back through time from a dystopian future to help the X-Men as an enhanced telekinetic mutant. That's the most generic Cable bio ever, but outside of toys based on specific stories, what more could you say about him? This is easily the most in-demand figure from Series 12, and it's not really apparent why; the preorders sold fast, he's nearly impossible to find in stores (Walmart and Target may not be carrying these, but GameStop and FYE are), and even online shops are out of stock. Only explanation that I can come up with is I guess people just really like Cable? If you know better, tell us on the message board. We've had a few Cables from Hasbro already, both in a classic design and one more modern, but this look is new. Yes, it's technically what ToyBiz's Marvel Legends Cable was wearing under his big brown shoulder pads, but that was 20 years ago, I think we're okay for an update. [patented OAFEnet Fun Fact: those shoulder pads were the first Marvel Legends thing ever sculpted by renowned voodoo warlock Paul Harding, helping out Dave Cortes, who did the rest of the figure --ed.] This one uses the same arms (well, "arm") and leg as Hyperion, with a new torso. We're absolutely certain it's new, because there is an amazing piece of engineering going on here. For this costume, Cable wears what are basically big yellow suspenders holding his belt up, something that typically doesn't work too well on an articulated figure: sculpt them on and they look broken when you move the chest joint, make them separate and they don't stay where they should, make them separate but glued on and they're in danger of breaking for real... it's not an easy thing to work with. This figure makes the suspenders a separate piece that fits into notches on the torso. They don't actually connect to his belt, though, instead just looping under the torso above the waist; the belt then has short little bits that stick up from the top and line up in front of the chest piece, so it looks like it's connected. The belt is held in place by a notch in the small of his back, so it turns with the torso, and the chest part can move along with the upper body when you hinge it forward or back. That's so clever! Like, we praise the innovation of Hasbro's War Machine shoulders a lot for finally coming up with a way to make action figure shoulder armor look good, and this suspender idea is right up there with that. Whoever's responsible should be proud of themselves. We may not know who did the body, but we do know at least a few parts of it. For instance: the arm is by Dennis Chan. Yes, it's basically just the normal Hercules arm with new horizontal lines etched in, but hey, that's one of the benefits of working digitally. Does that mean he did the original Hercules where those molds came from? Eh, probably not; the sculpts become Hasbro's property, so they could easily pass the files along as a starting point to whoever needs them at the time. And if they didn't, then he did a great job matching the existing sculpt. So this is less complex than some Cable arms we've gotten over the years, but it looks better than others, and suits the design perfectly. And we still get that big, pumpkin-sized shoulder! The head was done by Paul Harding, who took a cue from the 2018 Deadpool Legends Cable by giving it a three-dimensional energy flare sparkling out of the left eye. The look on Cable's face is extremely grumpy, as you'd want it to be, and he's sculpted with the scarring over his right eye, and even some stubble on his chin. Dang, Paul, way to pack in the textures! Cable's costume is vibrant yellow and fairly bright blue, with a dark silver for the mechanical arm. The black X's are painted cleanly on their red backgrounds, and there's a bit of darker pink paint on his face to help accentuate the five o'clock shadow. His wristbands and thigh pouches are all new sculpts that slip onto the figure, while the knees had to be new to do his pads. The only place the paint comes up a little short is the upper shin: that was molded in blue and then painted, and the coverage just isn't thick enough to make the yellow match what's around it. Surprisingly, this Cable is slightly shorter than the last ones Hasbro released. In a time when everything always needs to be bigger bigger bigger, this is a good thing! The others were oversized, but this one is much more in scale with other characters. He's still tall, looming large over characters like Cyclops, but he's a more realistic version of "tall." Thumbs up, Hasbro, more of this, please; just because you did something wrong in the past it doesn't mean you need to do it wrong forever. The figure moves at the ankles, shins, knees, thighs, hips, waist, chest, wrists, elbows, biceps, shoulders, neck, and head, and features either one fist and one open hand, or a pair of hands designed to hold his guns. The guns, sadly, are less than impressive. They're the same ones we've seen before, having originated with the last Cable, but they're only the small handgun-sized ones, nothing "big." To really perfect the look, Hasbro should have given him the gun that came with Forge. Cable includes the left leg of the Series 12 Build-A-Figure, Zabu. Part of the reason this figure became so popular was that Cable ended up wearing this costume in the awesome first season of X-Men '97, but nobody knew about that until after the toy was already out, so that's not the thing that was driving the demand. This costume (or at least something like it) debuted in July 1995's Cable #23, and had a ToyBiz action figure by the end of that year. Ah, but that costume was less symmetrical than the one this toy is wearing; see, symmetry became very helpful in early 2000 when the suit was adapted for Marvel vs. Capcom 2. That's right, this is quite specifically a videogame figure! And that's why we said he should have come with Forge's rifle: the game's sprites used that exact gun for his "Viper beam" attack. Sure, they increased the size, but it would have been a neat Easter egg. Cable isn't a figure that looks really exciting when you just see photos of him or look at him in the box, but he's really well made once you open it up and start playing. -- 08/26/24