Regarding the creation of Cable... by Walt Simonson

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  bamfbamf Posts: 718

  November 2015

  6/22/91
  Dear Don and Maggie,
  
  I guess you could entitle this letter “The Reallio Trulio Version of How Marvel Comics’ Famous Character, Cable, Came to Be!” (or at least, it’s one more version!)
  
  Peter David’s BID column is one of my favorite entertainments in the CBG. I read with interest and amusement his recent column proposing the WACKO theory of comic book character creation. And in the end, it was of more than passing interest because he reflected on the creation of Cable and speculated some on how it had happened. I thought then about writing a letter to CBG to correct a few of his comments but hadn’t really gotten around to it when another issue arrived (these things seem to arrive with depressing regularity; don’t you folks ever miss a deadline?) and I read Jim Valentino’s letter, commenting on Peter’s original column and on Cable’s creation. This prompted a variety of thoughts and I finally decided that the only way to get them organized was to write them down. I see now that Peter has a letter in the most recent issue commenting further on Jim’s comments so this letter should enable us all to further flog the dead horse!
  
  Like Jim, I was pretty close to one of the folks actually working on the New Mutants during the time in question. (I’m assuming Jim knew Mr. Liefeld at the time and was hanging around with him then.) And this is as good a time as any to state my own biases in the matter. For those who don’t know, I was then (and remain now) married to Louise Simonson, who was the writer of the New Mutants at the time of Cable’s creation. I don’t think Weezie would ever get around to writing a letter like this; mostly she enjoys doing whatever she’s doing and raking over the coals of the past doesn’t interest her. I don’t think I’d be interested either except that this particular discussion about Cable never seems to quite die away. And although I realize that this letter isn’t going to lay any ghosts to rest, at least I will feel when I’m through that Weezie’s side of the story will have had an airing. Which up to now, it pretty much hasn’t had.
  
  This may be counterproductive in the long run and I have no interest in getting into any sort of shouting match with anybody, especially not about Cable whom I have never drawn and have very little interest in. But geez, I must be about the only pro around who hadn’t written some sort of angry or provocative or thoughtless letter to CBG and I feel I’ve been letting down the side. Besides, I’m married to the woman, I’m certainly much crabbier about all this than she is, and I’m tired of seeing folks like Jim and Mr. Liefeld claiming credit for Cable while slamming Weezie at the same time. Somehow, they can’t do one without doing the other. Jim notes that XXXXX and in a past interview, Mr. Liefeld has said XXXXXX, presumably with an eye to demonstrating that Weezie couldn’t possibly really actually no-foolin’ have had anything substantial to do with genuinely creating Cable. God forbid.
  
  I don’t propose to enter into the discussion, so often played out here in the letter column of CBG, about whether the writer or the artist is more important in comics. I’m not much of a philosophical hair splitter and these discussions are mostly too rarified for me (although, of course, they provide highly entertaining, provocative, and voluminous contributions for the CBG letter column--keep those cards and letters coming, folks!). But because the Cable creation question seems to be couched largely as an “the-artist-did-it” answer, the writer vs. artist issue inevitably becomes part of the discussion. I will note that for me, comics are a combination of words and pictures. That’s words and pictures, not words or pictures. Personally, I find I need both air and water to live. I can get by on less water in the short run but without water, a short run is exactly what I’d have left. That’s enough for me. It seems silly to try to decide which one is less essential and I don’t propose to do it here.
  
  In this particular matter, it is important to note that it is my view that editors can also make essential contributions to comics. I don’t bring this up as a debating point; I don’t think anyone would seriously debate it (although in the cases of certain editors, I could see some serious arguments developing). But I mention it here because in this version of Cable’s creation, I’m going to suggest that Cable, as an entity in print, was in fact a three way creation between the editor, writer, and artist. I say “as an entity in print” because once a character actually gets into print, he takes on a life of his own. I thought Peter David gave a rather brilliant analysis of Cable’s present place in the Marvel Universe and much of it depends on what happened to Cable after Weezie left the New Mutants. But once the creators, whoever they may be, send their creations spinning off into the space of a work-for-hire universe, the creations are ever after beyond their creators’ control and develop lives of their own. So it was with Cable. Consequently, I want to limit my discussion of origins to Cable’s initial appearances in the New Mutants while Weezie was writing him, not to what happened to him afterwards. I also want to stress that all this stuff is what Weezie and I together remember of something that happened some years ago now. But since we’re no farther from the event that either Jim or Mr. Liefeld, I think this version is at least a reliable as theirs.
  
  Mostly, the creation of Cable began indirectly. Weezie was the writer of New Mutants, Mr. Liefeld was the penciller, Bob Harras was the editor. Bob had told Weezie that he wanted the New Mutants to have a new adult leader now that Professor X was no longer in the book (he was over hanging out with the X-Men most of the time by then). Weezie remembers not wanting to do that especially but as Bob was the editor; it was his decision. At that time, Bob was writing SHIELD and wanted Weezie to use some robot he had created in the SHIELD comic as the new leader of the New Mutants. Weezie definitely did not want to use the robot. Her idea was that a leader for the New Mutants should be someone who would be in sharp contrast to the character of Professor X. Professor X mostly sat around, thought deep thoughts, and fretted about putting the New Mutants in harms way. She wanted a kick-ass, take charge kind of guy who would treat the team as a squad of soldiers, sending them out into battle.

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  bamfbamf Posts: 718

  November 2015

  At the same time, Bob had also suggested creating a new bad guy for the New Mutants as well, a character who eventually developed as Stryfe. One day, Weezie received a bunch of character sketches from Bob. I remember looking them over in Weezie’s office with her and the two of us were dazzled by the apparently effortlessness with which Mr. Liefeld could toss this stuff off. We think (at this late date) that there were sketches of good guys and bad guys in the batch. But I wouldn’t swear to it now. But Bob had noted on one of the designs for the bad guy that he thought that this design would make a nifty good guy. The working title for the good guy character was Commander X; as far as Weezie was concerned, this was never a finalized title, just something so she would haven’t to keep saying “the good guy character” all the time. Weezie’s memory of what happened is that she got a call from Mr. Liefeld after he received the plot complaining about the name. Her recollection is that she told Mr. Liefeld that “Commander X” wasn’t necessarily the final name; she thinks that it said so on the plot. In any case, when Mr. Liefeld suggested that they should call the character, Cable, she had no problem with that. (She thinks that Stryfe was also Mr. Liefeld’s choice; he wanted to name the characters and she saw no reason why he shouldn’t. As most artists who have worked with her can tell you, she generally works pretty hard to keep them happy).
  
  Weezie decided that Cable should be a time traveler from the future, a tough no-nonsense, take charge, kind of leader. He would be mysterious, a character with many questions but few answers. He was not initially conceived as Scott Summers son from the future although the decision to send Scott’s baby into the future had already been made by Weezie in her storylines. It was left to someone else, possibly Fabian, to draw those two story threads together and make Cable Scott’s son. Or whatever has happened to him. But given the state the storylines were in when Weezie left the book, that was certainly a logical storyline development.
  
  And so Cable was born, as a visual with a sketchy history and a personality, out of an editor’s directive, a wealth of character sketches for Stryfe, Mr. Liefeld’s name, and Weezie’s thoughts about what such a character should be like. And that’s as close to a Cable origin as anyone is likely to get. Like most good characters, he has taken on a life of his own in subsequent development that has added new layers of material to his biography.
  
  In the end, it seems to me that the most telling point about the creation of Cable as a character is the continued discussion itself. Weezie and I can’t believe that this long after the event, it’s still a bone of contention! But it is curious and I suppose it’s a measure of the character’s continued popularity. After all, folks don’t walk around claiming responsibility for the Human Snow Thrower or the Evil Can-Opener! This alone suggests that that somehow, nobody’s entirely satisfied with the notion that Cable was a one-man creation. Nobody questions that Frank Miller created Electra. Nobody questions (at least not to me) that I created Beta Ray Bill. Nobody questions that John Byrne created the Next Men or Alpha Flight (and John was working with a writer of some note when Alpha Flight first appeared). Yes, the costume was Mr. Liefeld’s, yes the name was Mr. Liefeld’s; isn’t that all there was to it? Apparently, there is something unsatisfying about that answer.
  
  This letter has provided as accurate a tale of Cable’s creation as I could make it. He was a character who began life in a particular fashion and ultimately has been worked on by many hands and whatever he has now become has been committee work. Again, I refer to Peter’s analysis of the character and his niche at Marvel. Nice work.
  
  And I sure as hell hope this is the longest letter I ever have to write to you guys!

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  bamfbamf Posts: 718

  November 2015

  another reason why Liefeld sux

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  Hex Posts: 944

  November 2015 edited November 2015

  bamfbamf said:

  another reason why Liefeld sux

  ...and another reason Walt Simonson is awesome.
  
  Thanks for sharing this.

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