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If Cable was really from the future, his name would have been "Streaming." Or maybe "Torrent."
A lifelong soldier, Cable perfected
his fighting prowess when a technological virus suppressed his natural psychic abilities.
That is... not quite correct. He did contract a technological virus and it did limit his psychic abilities, but only because he was using said "abilities" (telekinesis and telepathy, inherited from his mother) to hold the virus at bay. And nothing at all about that had anything to do with his fighting prowess, which was developed the old-fashioned way: by being constantly exposed to war from the time he was just a few years old. If you lift weights every day, you'll get stronger, and if you're in the middle of a centuries-spanning battle every day of your life, you learn the ins and outs of combat.
It's been nearly a decade since there's been a Cable action figure - the last one being a Walmart exclusive with a new head and nothing else. This one also has a new head, with a big square jaw, sculpted(!) scars over his eye and lip, and tremendously intricate metal covering the left side of his face. Normally his face is fully human, with fake skin covering the metal, but his disease was progressing pretty aggressively at this point.
This figure is based on the art seen in Avengers: X-Sanction, a limited series which helped set the stage for AvX. He wears a normal shirt and jeans, but you can barely tell because of the
add-on bits that actually make it a costume: armor on the shins and knees, various pouches strapped to him, a utility belt, and a giant technological padded vest. Every bit of it is sculpted exactly as Ed McGuinness designed and drew it (other than the circle-X on his shoulder, which is meant to be a scar, not a tattoo), and it's mostly newly sculpted pieces - even his metal arm is new! No more reusing a ToyBiz sculpt for them! The left arm is slightly larger in every dimension than the right one, which is kind of odd. Is the techno-organic virus making it bigger? It's not like he's wearing exo-armor, his body is actually turning into robot parts.
Speaking of being bigger, Cable stands more than 7" tall, meaning the toy is a full half-inch oversized for Marvel Legends, and a full half-inch undersized to stand with Marvel Select. He and Steve Rogers can be buddies. The articulation is average for Marvel Legends, with joints at the ankles, knees, thighs, hips, waist, wrists, elbows, biceps, shoulders, chest, neck and head. The swivel waist is rendered superfluous by the balljointed chest, but the rest is nice. Due to the plates on the backs of his gloves, the hands can't flex back very far, which does cause some minor problems if you want him to hold his guns two-handed.
Hey, guns! Cable has two of them. Both of them were originally available with Forge, which makes a sort of sense: Cable has a love for overly large, ornate weaponry, and where else but Forge's lab is he going to find those in the modern day? His daughter also came with the big gun, but she didn't include the bullets, while Cable does.
He also comes with a piece of the Series 2 Build-A-Figure, Juggernaut. He's got the hips, which are kind of important if you want to build the full figure. And not just the hips, either: there's also a free-floating belt which you can foolishly lose before connecting the torso.
This isn't the best design Cable has ever had, but it's one that's never been made into merchandise before, and will give a lot of fans their first shot at a 6" scale version of the character.
-- 10/10/16
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