(Nathan Dayspring)
age unknown telepath/telekinetic
no nationality member of X-Force
widower
Go backOf those who consented to pose for me, Nathan took the longest to persuade. Frequently when I went looking for him, he wasn't there, and he didn't tend to turn up again until I'd become distracted by something else. I don't suppose this was anything but deliberate, and why he changed his mind and consented to let me photograph him remains a mystery to me.He wasn't in Westchester often, but when he arrived, it wasn't always with X-Force. It was some time before anyone explained to me that he comes occasionally to visit Scott and Jean Summers, his genetic parents. I questioned how Scott and Jean could have a child older than they are, but the subsequent explanation of temporal mechanics was a little beyond me. Certainly, there seems to be as much wariness as affection between them, and Nathan almost inevitably retreats out of the house within a few hours or days.
X-Force, under Nathan's co-leadership, operates in the vague realm between precision military vehicle and biblically-structured family. There were days when I expected someone to come through herding goats. (There were no goats, though 'Berto DaCosta did offer to tell me several dirty jokes about livestock if it would make me feel better.) Nathan is often absent, and, except in battle, tends to walk softly and share power fairly equally with Domino. It took me some time to realize that the two of them were lovers, and even now I tend to notice their independence more than their occasional moments of intimacy.
I took this photo in San Francisco while travelling with X-Force at Sam Guthrie's invitation. The safehouse we stayed in was a restored warehouse, partially destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906 and rebuilt later. The upper loft is less a gymnasium than a meditation chamber, to which I doubt I would have gained access without invitation. For nearly two hours, I watched Nathan move through various martial arts forms, both armed and unarmed. His body in motion is a fusion of darkness and light -- flesh and the metallic manifestation of the techno-organic (TO) virus with which he was infected as a child and which ultimately forced his first temporal displacement. The TO half of his torso is more startling than any of his range of scars.
"In house", you get some sense of Cable as father. His experience of clan-structured life draws his attention to individuals and their interactions. Occasionally, I saw him intervene; more often, I saw him step away and allow things to take their course, particularly in the case of the relationship between Shatterstar and Julio Richter, which cemented itself during the time of my project.
Nathan: You get a sense sometimes that the world is made of tangible ghosts. A lot of the people I think of as dead haven't actually been born yet. And a lot of what's dangerous in this time isn't visible. I think sometimes that people choose to see mutants as monstrous because it removes the possibility that there might be something more frightening than we are.
Sinclair: Do you think that the number of mutants who participate in militias like X-Force contributes to that perception as well?
Nathan: I think it gives people an excuse for the perception. The sense they have of this kind of team is pretty limited -- it covers the earth-shaking battles, but not the interior structure. This is home for the kids, and in a couple of cases it's their only home. A lot of what we do is violent, but it lets them work out some of their frustrations. It's easy to build up a lot of rage towards people who exclude you, and I'd prefer that they didn't loose that on people in the streets.
Sinclair: You think they'd do that? That's not the impression I get from the kids.
Nathan: [sighs] I'm not talking about their being naturally malicious. But everybody's got a breaking point. Can you imagine what ordinary Americans would do to Ric and Shatty if they tried to live with a nuclear family and go to high school? Neither of them is obviously a mutant, but they've both got tempers, and you only get to slip up once. And when you add their relationship into it . . .
Sinclair: Does it bother you?
Nathan: That they're lovers? Not really. The taboo against it isn't one I was raised with. As best I understand the thinking behind it, there are a number of Christian and pre-Christian prohibitions stemming from the perceived unclean nature of the body, and most of those are irrational. What it says about countries that encode that kind of hysteria into law is fairly disturbing, I think. I'm vaguely surprised that they [Rictor and Shatterstar]'ve managed to put together something like a stable relationship without a model to work from, but that's not a complaint.
Sinclair: What about you?
Nathan: If I could keep them from emulating me, I would. You get to a certain point in the work we do and your obsessions take over. I haven't got any illusions that what we do isn't violent, and it isn't something you should do forever, or it'll make you less than you might have been, otherwise.