For today’s Mezco Showdown, It’s a battle for the future of mutant kind! It’s the song of the X-cutioner, in the days of future Ages of X past as we pit Nathan Christopher Charles Dayspring Askani’son Summers against his most dangerous foe– a video game version of himself. How future-y!
Our first Mezco Cable got here right around Christmas, and I have been super excited to review him. But Robo beat me to it. You should check that out here, though, if you would like a breakdown. I’m going to kind of just cover the broad strokes for the sake of differences
https://vimeo.com/381252068
The costume choice seems to be a combination of his more armored X-Force suits, but it bears strong similarities to some very cool artwork. I’m not sure where this is from, but if you do, feel free to add that in the comments.
This suit give Cable his usual bulkiness, with a futuristic chestplate and some mean chunky boots. This becomes more important in the comparisons, but those pieces bump him up in height– maybe not enough for everybody’s tastes, but just about right for me. He’s likely the thickest “regular” body so far, and he comes in about half a head taller than the Cap/Punisher guys.
This armor is actually not as restrictive as you might think, but it is armor, and so it makes jumping jacks and some rifle holdiing poses a bit difficult. His base body is surprisingly poseable, so you can get some good stuff out of it. Here’s the thing though; Cable looks his best standing around menacingly with some big sci-fi guns. And that’s what you really need him to do most of the time. He luckily does come with those sci-fi guns, so we’ll talk about those in a sec, as they are the same for both figures.
Now, the Previews Exclusive Cable goes much more streamlined, wearing a blue and yellow X-uniform. This uniform popped up in the first X-Force series and my first memory of it was in Cable’s own book, maybe isue 15 or so? Around 1994. But we all know and love it most from his OP-d as all hell appearance in Marvel vs Capcom 2. As such, that made this version my favored going in. The costume IS very similar to Cyclops, but they aren’t the exact same pattern, and thankfully Cable is on a thicker build. In fact, the boot treads might be the only shared part, with even the shins being a little bigger than Scott’s. I really like the yellow harness and leg drop holster, but I feel like he might have benefitted from the thigh bands like the regular version had, just to busy him up a bit. And oddly enough, I think I do like it better without the trunks.
I didn’t talk about the light-up features yet, but it needs to be pointed out these figures actuallly use very different setups for those. The standard Cable has light-up armor as well as the light up eye, and the electronics are all housed in his upper chest. The PX just has the eye feature, and that is housed in a neck cylander, just like Cyclops. Both work just fine, but the clever panel and extra glow are just so cool on the regular one. It’s really no fault of the PX, because they gave him such a dramatically different look, but there you go.
Remember where I said the size of the standard Cable was just fine for me? Well, the PX didn’t quite get off that easy. Yes, he is on a bigger body, and yes, he does have some proprietary parts, but unfortunately that reduced bulk and height of the armored parts makes him only slightly bigger than your average X-dude. And sadly that does diminish my appreciation a little, because even in MvC2, he’s a big dude. I suppose that might have been negated had they just used the same parts from the original painted in the X-suit colors, but they went to the trouble of making this one unique, so it’s sort of a no good deed goes unpunished kind of deal.
Both Cables come with near identical loadouts, with standard hand assortments, and a plain and snarling face- all work with either light-up. PX Cable does come with a spear, which is really a nice piece, and a more striking (heh) weapon than the standard’s fighting knife. Both come with a pistol, plasma rifle and grenade launcher. Y’all know I’m not a huge fan of sci-fi weapons (thanks a lot, GI Joe,) but I appreciate that these feel more used and functional than most tend to be. The rifles have removeable cartridges in them, and the detail paint makes these seem more real hardware than most space guns.
So, I have to confess, this one took me a little by surprise. I mean, sure, the standard version was really impressive out of the box, but I have such strong ties to the style of the PX one. Cable helped me hold my own against lots better players in the game, and his arrival in the toy Biz Marvel Legends line was a major moment for me.
But when we talk purely toys, which is the point here, there really isn’t much the PX can do that the regular future soldier can’t do better and bigger. The styles are of course very subjective, but since we are trying to talk value, this is an easier call- you really do get more for your money with the good old standard release.
