Logan: Who is Nathan Summers?

Mild Spoilers for Logan Ahoy! Like, literally just the scene before the movie. Guys, this barely counts as a spoiler, you’re fine.

Before the main feature of Logan begins, we get a short scene, a tease if you will, of Deadpool. It’s basically Ryan Reynolds and team saying, “Look, we know Cable hasn’t been cast yet and no production start date has been announced and people are freaking out about the director and all that still – CHILL, it’s all good.” In the teaser, a hilarious 3 minutes that manages to send up Deadpool and a surprising other superhero at the same time, you may notice something written on the side of that phone booth (see, we’re trying not to spoil it for you here).

It says, “Nathan Summers cumming [yes, in that dirty spelling] soon.” Now, vulgarity aside, some more casual fans may have been confused. Nathan Summers is the civilian name of Cable, the mutant time-traveling telekinetic supersoldier also created by Rob Liefeld who will fight alongside Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool in Deadpool 2. That’s the short version. Here’s the long version, as simplified as possible, for the most “comic booky” character in all of superhero comics.

Nathan Christopher Charles Summers (Dayspring Askani’Son – yes those are all his names) is the son of Scott “Cyclops” Summers and a woman named Madelyne Pryor, who in turn is a clone of Jean Grey. He carries two middle names, one for Scott’s father Christopher, and one for his surrogate father Charles Xavier. The Dayspring and Askani’Son parts come from his life a couple thousand years in the future.

When little Nathan was still a baby, his mutant powers manifested – something that usually happens in puberty, and an early indicator that he was in fact the ultimate mutant some thought he would be. He was infected by Apocalypse with a techno-organic virus, though, and sent into the far future to be saved. In that future, he was raised by the clan Askani (led by Nate’s alternate-tiimeline genetic sister, don’t worry about it), as well as the time-traveling souls (seriously, don’t worry about it) of Scott and Jean, who despite not carrying him was his genetic mother and cared for him as such. Let’s keep this short and fast-forward. Nate got married, had a kid, had an evil clone, and fought Apocalypse a lot, all eventually leading him to the past on a mission to save mutantkind.

And that’s where he meets the mutants of the modern era, as Cable, the cybernetically-armed and eyed mutant supersoldier from the future. He linked up first with the New Mutants, taking control of the team and converting them into a proactive paramilitary group called X-Force, and over the years eventually revealed his identity to his “parents” (in quotes because that includes Jean), befriended the Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool, at one point defeated the techno-organic virus and ruled an island nation, you know, all the stuff your average timetraveling mutant does. He’s been here, there, and back again, stared in the mirror and seen evil stare right back.

So that’s your crash course on Cable, and here all you did was googled “Who is Nathan Summers” because you were confused about the reference. How will they handle all of this utterly insane backstory in Deadpool 2? Probably hilariously, that’s how.

Logan – with a short Deadpool 2 teaser in front of it – is in theaters now.

More Logan and Deadpool News:

Logan Director Says Film’s Theatrical Cut Is The Director’s Cut

Did Logan Provide the Perfect Cable Movie Origin?

Deadpool 2: Stranger Things Star David Harbour in Running to Play Cable

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