So this is how X-Force #5 ended.

Cable goes explodo. In days gone by this might have been of note, but the comic book reading public is blasé these days. I remember watching those old black and white adventure serials like King Of The Rocketmen and was repeatedly annoyed by how they'd get out of a cliffhanger showing death and destruction by inserting an extra scene showing the heroes getting off the train before it hurtled to the ground and destroyed. So that's what I was expecting here. Some kind of extra scene to show how Cable managed to get out of being exploded.

In X-Force #6 you don't get one. Cable is dead as they come.

Until this happens.

Bring on the Russian equivalent of Basil Exposition.

So there we have it. Cable isn't life, he's Memorex. And even before you've known it?

Cable isn't Cable. He's a constant clone of himself with downloaded memories so as to keep himself alive from the disease that is killing him. And, indeed kills his copies every day.

Nice speech, Cable. You know, it feels like this should have been an Original Sin spinoff in part, exposing deep dark secrets. Though maybe it's just a little too similar to Nick Fury and his LMDs…

Of course, while this may sound like wild science fiction speculation, another school of thought is that this is exactly what happens to each and every one of us every day, our consciousness, our soul, what makes us, us, recreated from scratch every time we wake, a brand new us, with the memories of our old selves. And every time we sleep, we die.

Cheery thought, hey? Courtesy of X-Force writer Si Spurrier there. Who also has a collection of Six Gun Gorilla out, which I also liked in another bleak, why are we all here kind of way…

UPDATE: Rob Liefeld is keen to claim the original credit…

Love that they are doing my original concept!! Finally! RT @bleedingcool: The Truth About Who Cable Is. (SPOILERS) http://t.co/Se10mnlQtL — robertliefeld (@robertliefeld) June 26, 2014

Circa New Mutants #100, i told Editor Bob Harras that STRYFE is the original and CABLE is an army of clones. He was mortified, "no, no…!" — robertliefeld (@robertliefeld) June 26, 2014

Was told fans would reject Cable if he was a clone. I argued that he would be more sympathetic…. Shot down. And here we are…. — robertliefeld (@robertliefeld) June 26, 2014