Whether you love Deadpool 2, hate it, or haven't even seen it yet, I think we can all come together to agree on one thing: Josh Brolin is freakin' great.
After sharing a few sneak peeks of his initially villainous character, Cable, on Instagram over the past handful of months, the superhero sequel finally introduces us to the time-traveling gunslinger. Just like in the comics, Cable sports a hefty scar and cybernetic eye in Deadpool 2, where we see him and Ryan Reynolds's Merc with a Mouth clash a few times before they find common ground. This time around, Cable travels back in time from the future to kill a younger version of a mutant who murders his family decades later. Overall he brings depth and pathos to Cable, just like he did while voicing Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.
Before we even knew that the Deadpool sequel was officially a go, the first movie's postcredits scene strongly hinted that Cable, Deadpool's buddy from the comics, would eventually show up. At first there were rumors that other high-profile actors like Russell Crowe, Kyle Chandler, and Liam Neeson might step into Cable's XXL boots, but Marvel Studios eventually narrowed it down to Brolin. The 50-year-old actor has been in everything from The Goonies to Sicario and No Country For Old Men and brings the perfect steely intensity to the character. Not to mention, he already knows his way around the MCU thanks to playing Thanos.
The character of Cable is an important one for any Deadpool fan. In the comics, Cable — neé Nathan "Nate" Christopher Charles Summers — is the son of X-Men's Cyclops and a clone of Jean Grey, and his birth is orchestrated by supervillain geneticist Mister Sinister as a way to defeat Sinister's former master, Apocalypse (aka the same big bad we met in 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse). He develops powers of telepathy and telekinesis and comes into contact with X-Men favorites like Charles Xavier while leading the X-Force team of New Mutants. When Cable finally meets Deadpool, the two don't exactly get along, but eventually they come together in the 2004 comic series Cable & Deadpool, which lasted for 50 issues, as well as 2015's Deadpool and Cable: Split Second.
While there's still no word on whether or not we'll get to see Deadpool and Cable team up again in a third installment of the franchise, we're keeping our fingers crossed.
