The story of Nathan Summers truly begins, and ends with En Sabah Nur, the mutant known as Apocalypse. A servant of Apocalypse, by name of Mr. Sinister, who was a brilliant geneticist, began to chafe under his masters iron rule, and sought to find a way to remove him from power. He started by gathering the genetic material of literally hundreds of mutants, over the course of years. Feeding the genetic material into his computers, and allowing for selective mutations, he found that a mutant over great power would come from a union between Jean Grey, and Scott Summers. Knowing from his previous run ins with the X-men, that obtaining a child from this union would be near to impossibly, Sinister decided to manufacture a union. Unfortunately, Jean Grey was believed to be deceased at time, forcing Sinister to clone her from the remnants of his stored genetic samples. The result, a perfect genetic copy, was Madelyn Pryor. Hiding her telepathic and telekinetic gifts from her, he introduced her to Scott Summers. Because she looked so much like her genetic twin Jean Grey, Scott’s true love, they married and shortly, Madelyn was pregnant.
Nine and a half happy months later, their little baby boy was born, and christened Nathan Christopher Charles Summers, in honor of Scott’s father and his mentor. Scott left the manor with Madelyn, and they traveled to Anchorage, Alaska, Scott’s hometown, to raise their little boy. Shortly thereafter though, things went to hell in a big way. It turns out that Jean Grey was not dead after all, and came back to find Scott had left the mansion behind, and was in love with, married to, and had a child with her clone. Upon discovering this, Scott abandoned Nathan and Madelyn to return to the Mansion to be with Jean and a new team of the original X-men members, called X-force.
With Madelyn alone with a baby, Sinister sent his team called the Marauders to take the baby and kill Madelyn before she was discovered to be a clone. Unfortunately, Madelyn survived the attack, leaving 1 year old Nathan to be captured by the Marauders, and taken away to Mr. Sinister’s base of operations. While Madelyn made it to the X-mansion and took shelter under the care of the X-men, Nathan was left on be experimented on by Sinister, while he did this, he erased all government systems of all trace of both Madelyn and Nathan, erasing their lives. Scott tried to find them but could find no trace of them, believing that Madelyn ran away and changed her name.
Roughly four months later, Madelyn was captured by Sinister, and made painfully aware of who and what she was, a clone… a copy of a person, and not a real person at all. This revelation drove her insane, and awakened her latent mental abilities. Renaming herself the Goblin Queen, she vanished with Sinister's blessing, to wreak what havoc she could. But she reappeared a month later, and kidnapped her own child, and attempted to open a portal to the demon realm of Limbo, using her son as a sacrifice. It was only through a combined effort of both the X-men, and X-force, that the Goblin Queen was thwarted, and Madelyn was killed by Scott in the fight. With Nathan safe, or so they thought, Jean and Scott was taken home to the X-mansion. Unfortunately is was only a few weeks later that Apocalypse came knocking,
Disguised as Scott, Apocalypse exposed baby Nathan to his blood, infecting the child with the Techno-Organic Virus. The real Scott came in at that moment, and Apocalypse fled, laughing. At first Scott didn’t know what to do, as he didn’t see anything wrong. But then the virus began to take over, starting on Nathan’s left side, in his arm. At that moment a member of Clan Askani appeared in a flash of light, and explained to a stunned Scott that his son was infected with the techno-organic virus and would die within the hour unless he gave the baby up. She explained that she was from the far distant future, 2,000 years to be exact, and that the technology in her time could save the child’s life. Thinking it the only way to save his child’s life, Scott agreed, and handed his son to the mysterious robed woman. She vanished a moment later, along with his nearly 2 year old son, never to be seen again. Or so Scott thought.
Reappearing back in the woman’s own time a future ruled by Apocalypse, just a moment after she left, Nathan was immediately stripped and placed into a high tech incubation unit, to slow the onset of the virus. During this time, genetic material was harvested from the baby and used to create a clone, code named Stryfe. The clone was to be a failsafe in case the virus claimed the infant’s life after all. Unfortunately only an hour after the clones’ creation, the facility was attacked by the forces of Apocalypse, and the clone was stolen.
Once the baby Nathan was stabilized, Mother Askani (a time jumping Rachel Summers from another timeline) called the souls of Scott and Jean Summers, newly married in their own time, forward in time to occupy previously prepared bodies of their distant descendants, who wanted the honor of hosting their souls. With their new lives in the future, Scott and Jean, or rather Slym and Redd as they were now called raised Nathan with the hopes of him becoming humanities savior against Apocalypse. They trained him in the use of his telekinetic powers to start with, to help stave off the slow but constant spreading of the techno-organic virus within him. They succeeded, but the virus had already taken spread to over half of his body, his left arm, shoulder, pectoral muscle, and most of his abdominal muscles as well. Half of his pelvic region and his entire left leg were entirely infected by the age of ten. As his powers grew and matured, they taught him more and more, though even with his naturally brilliant intellect, his studies proved difficult, as he had to concentrate all day every day with his telekinesis to stave off the virus. He was schooled in high levels of mathematics, history, and taught the social sciences of the 21st century. Physical and theoretical sciences of all kinds were taught as well, medical training and electrical engineering as well. He was taught the martial arts, of a great very many varieties. He was taught to use the weapons of that era and the ones before by historians and the trained soldiers of the underground.
By the time he was only 16, Nathan was a master combatant, having fought and killed and survived hundreds of battles and skirmishes against Apocalypse’s forces. Then came the final battle. Apocalypse made himself known, to seek out and destroy the soldier that was decimating his forces. Apocalypse and Nathaniel fought fiercely, with all of Nathan’s considerable mental powers and combat training and experience brought to bear. The virus rages on while his attentions were otherwise occupied and when the dust settled, Apocalypse lay seemingly dead, and the virus had claimed the left side of Nathan’s face. His left eye had solidified into the same organic steel alloy that comprised the rest of him.
With the threat over, Scott and Jean’s souls were returned to their own time. Nathan’s eye was removed and surgically replaced with a top of the line replacement, which bonded with the organic steel of his body, and began to glow, manifesting a dormant gene inherited from his father Scott. Mother Askani died, and Nathan was left in the care of the Clan Askani who had helped raise him. They began to teach him about the prophecy of his arrival and it was theorized, that since the clan had access to time travel, they could conceivably send the adult Nathan back in time to before his birth to prevent the apocalyptic future from ever happening. But even as the greatest minds of Clan Askani were slaving over the details and logistics of such an operation, Nathan chose to life the life he already had.
It was during this time that he met and fell in love with Aliya, from the clan JenScott, so named in honor of Scott and Jean. Together they chose an orphan from among the masses, to raises as their own. The boy, named Tyler, was kidnapped in an assault by Nathan’s clone Stryfe. Aliya was killed in the attack. Driven half insane, Nathan fell back on his long years of combat experience and military expertise to wage war against Stryfe and his forces. Six months went by, full of skirmishes against Stryfe and his own brainwashed son Tyler. Eventually, Stryfe took a building full of hostages to force Nathan to stand down, Tyler acting as a lieutenant under Stryfe. During the conflict, Nathan was forced to shoot his own son to prevent the hostages from being hurt. Stryfe escaped, as did Tyler, who survived the attack.
Unfortunately, Apocalypse was only badly hurt in his final battle with Nathan, and sought to remake a future without the living weapon. He took Stryfe and hurled himself back into time to rewrite history as he saw fit. When Nathan arrived at the facility Apocalypse had used, it was too late; all record of his jump had been erased. Remembering the theories and final mission from Clan Askani, about using time travel to prevent this future, Nathan used the machinery to throw himself back through time, to follow Apocalypse back through the ages and stop him.
Arriving on Muir Island, of the coast of Scotland in the late 20th century, Nathan first encountered Moira MacTaggart, a mutant researcher who had created the facilities there. Renaming himself Cable, a pseudonym referencing the link between past and future, he set out into the world, determined to find and stop Apocalypse and his ‘brother’ Stryfe. Unfortunately, Cable arrived about 7 years after the two had arrived, and found that they had already set up power bases and strongholds in various places around the world. He put together a mercenary team under the pretenses of cashing in on war, but he used to the team to find and assault the hidden bases used by his enemies.
This new merc team, called the Wild Pack, later to be renamed as the Six Pack, found and assaulted Stryfe’s main base first, trying to cut the proverbial head off the beast. Though it may not have been proverbial where Stryfe was concerned. The team was shot to hell and back, and fled to the four winds. Cable returned to the future to get repairs, and filled in the Clan on his Progress in the 7 months since he had left. While his cybernetic body was repaired, Cable read up on his 20th century, seeking potential allies in his fight. His researched turned up two facts in particular. First, the mutant known as Sam Guthrie, AKA Cannonball was popping up in history well into the 23rd century, which raised mental flags, alerting Cable to the possibilities of Sam being an External, a subspecies of truly immortal mutants. Second, he traced his own lineage back, or tried to… only to find that his biological father was non other than Scott Summers. He found the one trace of his existence in the 20th century that Mr. Sinister had not managed to destroy, a copy of his birth certificate, filed away with government records a century after Sinisters death. Naming him Nathan Christopher Charles Summers, son of Scott Summers and a woman named Madelyn Pryor, born January 2, 1999 In Salem Center, Westchester County, New York.
Once he was fully repaired, Cable traveled back in time again, this time seeking out and finding Sam Guthrie, befriending and mentoring the young mutant, eventually becoming something of a father figure to him. Cable joined Sam in rescuing MLF captives along with the X-men, and then traveled back with them to Westchester, where Cable found a team of young mutants called the New Mutants. Cable took control of this team, along with Sam and organized them, training them to be a strike force called X-Force. While on mission with X-Force it was finally revealed that Sam was indeed an External, as he was killed in a fight with the dinosaur-like mutant Sauron, and was healed and alive moments later.
Months later X-Force was labeled a criminal outfit by SHIELD and the US Government, and following a clash between the two, Cable was surprised to see his ‘son’ Sam leave the team to join the X-men again. During a visit to the X-manor, Cable was in place to help stop his ‘brother’ Stryfe’s assassination mission, targeting Professor Charles Xavier. Cable was able to prevent it, but failed to prevent Scott and Jean’s kidnapping. However he followed Stryfe and his captives to Stryfe's base on the moon. The two ‘brothers’ fought fiercely, falling into a time rift created by two equally powerful minds trying to destroy one another. While Cable survived, it is believed that Stryfe did not, however no body was ever recovered.
It was then that Cable returned to the present, to X-force, and revealed to everyone who and what he was, as well as what his ‘brother’ Stryfe was, in fact a clone. Shortly thereafter, Onslaught was created and under his influence, Cable all but lost his psionic powers, and the virus began to consume him again. It was only through a miracle provided by the young Franklin Richards that his virus was pushed back. After Onslaughts defeat, and the return of his powers, Cables condition restabilized itself as he was able to use his powers once more to slow and nearly halt the spread of his infection.
Cable later learned from journalist Irene Merryweather of a plot by the enigmatic Hellfire Club to obtain Apocalypse's power. Cable was too late to prevent them from unleashing Apocalypse's Harbinger on the world, but he managed to defeat it with the aid of the Avengers. Realizing that the culmination of his destiny was near, Cable asked Irene to chronicle his life. Soon after, Cable learned that he was one of the Twelve, mutants supposedly destined to usher in a golden age for their kind. Apocalypse had intended to use the Twelve to boost his powers to allow him to alter reality and had them captured. Cable was forced to watch his father Cyclops sacrifice himself to stop Apocalypse, appearing to kill himself in the process. Returning to the states, Cable joined the X-men in his fathers honor. After learning that Cyclops was still alive, Cable and Jean tracked him down to Egypt. Jean used her mental powers to forcibly removed Apocalypse's essence from Cyclops' body, allowing Cable to seemingly destroy it. With his purpose in life apparently complete, Cable returned to his mercenary ways, eventually forming the Underground resistance movement to oppose the clandestine Weapon X Project. A failed infiltration attempt of the Neverland mutant concentration camp saw Cable’s team captured and the knowledge of Neverland wiped from their minds.
Cable later found himself at odds with the mercenary Deadpool over the One World Church and their planned use of the Façade Virus to transform the world's people into blue-skinned beings like themselves in the hope of bringing about peace on Earth. It was during this time that Deadpool tried to infect Cable with a Techno-Organic embryo to boost the efficacy of Cable’s existing virus, but the two canceled each other out, permanently halting the spread of Cable’s virus at long last. His powers free from the constant strain of holding back the virus, Cable was able to stop the merc with a mouth and his employers from completing their plans.
