X-Cutioner's Song - Behind The Scenes Backstory

Behind The Scenes Backstory

In 1991, the X-Men franchise had reached a popularity level unheard of at the time, with the release of the high selling X-Men (vol. 2) #1 and X-Force #1, as well as the contributions of popular artists Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld and Whilce Portacio to the main X-Men books. But by 1992, the bubble suddenly burst when Portacio, Lee and Liefeld all left Marvel Comics to form their own comic company, alongside several other high profile Marvel artists and editors. This hurt the X-Men franchise considerably, as Marvel Editor Bob Harras had only just removed longtime X-Men contributors Louise Simonson and Chris Claremont from the X-Men books in order to give complete creative control over the line to Jim Lee and the other artists. New writers and artists were quickly drafted to replace the departing fan favorite artists, most notably writers Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza and artist Greg Capullo.

At a writer's retreat held by the X-Men writing staff in 1992, the writers began to plan what direction the X-Men were going to be going in now that they had lost the artists who were a key aspect of the franchise's popularity. A massive crossover had been decided upon prior to the formation of Image Comics and it was decided by the new writers to continue with the plan as a means to keep attention on the X-Men books at the time. The subject of the crossover was quickly chosen in regards to the crossover having the X-Men face their biggest enemies at the time (Stryfe, Apocalypse, and Mr. Sinister) and to reveal the origin of the incredibly popular X-Force leader Cable.

A year earlier it was heavily implied that Cable was Nathan Christopher Summers, the infant son of X-Man Cyclops and Madelyne Prior. Meanwhile, Stryfe revealed that he had the same face as Cable (a plot point that was totally independent of Jim Lee's arc on X-Factor, and one that was conceived by Fabian Nicieza after being instructed by Liefeld and Harras to come up with a "shocking twist" for the last issue of New Mutants). As fans had picked up on these plot threads, Fabian Nicieza pushed for the reveal that Stryfe was the timelost Nathan Summers and that Cable was the heroic clone of the missing Summers child.

During the planning of the crossover, Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza wanted to feature the return of Magneto, believed to be dead at the time, during the storyline, mainly to provide fans with an added shock moment and to add to the impact of the story regarding having the X-Men and their allies face down against their worst enemies in a single crisis. Peter David sarcastically proclaimed that Magneto should remove Wolverine's adamantium skeleton upon his return. While the plan to make Magneto's return was dropped from the storyline, David's suggestion would be used when the writers brought Magneto back the following year as part of the "Fatal Attractions" crossover.

There is a long-standing rumor that X-Men editor Bob Harras forced Lobdell and Nicieza to change the ending of the story to remove what was supposed to be the main drawing point of the storyline: Cable's origin. However, Nicieza has recently confirmed that this was not the case. The full details of the origin Cable (and Stryfe) would be held back until 1994, when it was revealed that Cable was in truth Nathan Christopher Summers and that Stryfe, not Cable, was the clone.