While Ryan Reynolds continues to be amazing in Deadpool 2, playing the role he was born to play (No, Hannibal King wasn’t it, but that was close) and leading the sequel to a huge box office debut, the supporting characters were also a highlight. From top to bottom the film was made better by the people in Deadpool’s life, and two of my favorites were Josh Brolin as Cable and Shioli Kutsuna as Yukio, Negasonic Teenage Warhead’s girlfriend an a character we thought was the X-Man known as Surge.
Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick talked with CBR about those two characters specifically, and they don’t seem to know shit about either one of them. Or at least they don’t seem very familiar with them as comic book characters, and in the case of Cable they’re playing coy for no apparent reason. But let’s start with Yukio, who the writers say isn’t a screen version of Surge at all. Instead, they say she’s the same Yukio we saw in The Wolverine, a film that has (sadly) had its continuity wiped out by X-Men: Days of Future Past…
Reese said, “She’s a super-minor character. The character’s name is actually Yukio, an assassin — but who’s an adult assassin, so we just aged her down. She’s such a minor character, we thought we could pretty much get away with anything.”
Er, minor character? Yukio? Nah, Zeitgeist was a minor character. Yukio is not. Forget The Wolverine, in which she was still a huge character, anyway, in the comics she is actually integral in Logan’s life. She’s not only a longtime friend that has helped Logan take on The Hand numerous times (she’s also very close with Storm), but Yukio was the one who watched over Logan’s adopted daughter since he’s a super negligent parent. Minor, my ass. Yukio was also powerless, while Surge has electric powers similar to those seen in the movie.
As for Cable, Wernick and Reese don’t even seem to know if he’s a mutant or not? Well, why wouldn’t he be? In the comics he has the gift of telepathy and telekinesis, both of which go a long way in keeping the techno-organic virus in his arm from spreading.
“I think it is a little of an open question. We’re going to explore Cable more moving forward, we just didn’t want to overload it,” Reese explains. “We did have versions of the script where he was using telekinesis, and it just became — suddenly he was Force-hurling stuff, it felt like Star Wars. We just decided to dial it back. Let’s keep it about technology. Let’s not overwhelm the audience.”
When asked whether Cable’s ability to call recall his weapons was a sign of his telekinesis, Reese replied with “But even that feels like it’s a technology means, as opposed to maybe he’s using his mind to do it. It’s just a fine line to making him complex and interesting and not overloading an audience with crazy backstory, and the techno-organic virus, which we’ll get into hopefully in the future, and those kinds of things. We’re kind of riding that line.”
“It could be a little overwhelming, I think, for a mainstream audience, so we wanted to keep it simple and relatable,” Wernick concluded. “You’ve got this time traveler from the future who’s trying to save his family, I think was the core of who Cable was in a Deadpool 2 movie. Moving forward in X-Force, my guess is that will be explored further and better, and we’ll get more backstory as to who he is and what his powers are.”
Deadpool 2 makes a couple of jokes about “lazy writing” and I think this shit actually qualifies. How would it be overwhelming to have Cable be a mutant? It’s not overwhelming for literally any other character in the movie. They go a whole scene, and make it an open question, whether Domino’s good luck powers are actually powers or not. But for Cable, who doesn’t even need to use his powers openly, it’s somehow “overwhelming”. Get outta here. His powers are not part of his insanely convoluted backstory.
So, what? Is X-Force going to be about Cable’s mutant powers? That sounds like a very boring story so let’s hope not. But if it isn’t, why tease it? It’s not that interesting, man. To me these explanations are completely unsatisfying and makes me like the film just a tiny bit less. It’s still great, but just shut up now. It’s over, making tons of money. Shut up and soak it in. Hate to think what would happen if they were asked about Shatterstar.
