THE CREATORS: Fabian Nicieza and... well, initially Patrick Zircher, and then an array of fill-in artists before apparently settling down with Reilly Brown.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2006: Cable keeps trying to change the world; Spider-Man and Captain America guest star; a loose crossover with the "Blood of Apocalypse" storyline in X-Men; Cable conquers an obscure country from a miniseries nobody bought; a Civil War crossover arc; more fighting in Cable's new country; and Deadpool is haunted by psychic ghosts.  Boy, a lot happens in this book.

Remarkably, Cable & Deadpool is now approaching its third birthday.  Back when it was launched, that seemed almost inconceivable.  Not only was it a bad time for new books generally, but both Cable and Deadpool had just finished shortlived and utterly unsuccessful solo titles.  Alright, strictly speaking Agent X wasn't a Deadpool book, but it was close enough.

Just to put it in perspective, Marvel launched an awful lot of new X-books in 2004, and almost all of them failed.  The only survivors are New X-Men (which doesn't really count, because it was a flat relaunch of New Mutants), Astonishing X-Men (hardly surprising) and Cable & Deadpool.  The dead comprise District X, Excalibur, X-Men Unlimited, Gambit, Nightcrawler, Jubilee and Rogue.

Although never exactly a massive hit, Cable & Deadpool has unexpectedly hung in there.  To his credit, writer Fabian Nicieza has avoided taking the easy route of inventing a contrived status quo to justify keeping his mismatched leads together.  Instead, he's built the series around the intriguing concept of Cable attempting to change the world by positioning himself as a pacifist messiah, with Deadpool perpetually on the fringes as either a foil or an antagonist.  It's never quite clear whether Cable really does have all the answers, or whether he's just developed alarming delusions of grandeur.  Of course, this is precisely why Deadpool - who is certainly mad and has no delusions of grandeur - works so well as a contrast.

It's not a perfect comic.  It seems incapable of holding down a permanent artist, and while the array of fill-ins have been thoroughly competent, that still means it lacks a clear visual identity.  And Fabian Nicieza still entirely shaken his weakness for writing stories with staggeringly and unnecessarily complex plot mechanics, albeit that he's finally toned down on the impenetrable macguffins.

But it does have a clear authorial voice, a unique set-up, and a willingness to totally abandon any sort of conventional superheroics in favour of a strange mixture of action thriller, political conspiracy and demented psychodrama.  And it's usually funny, to boot.  Cable & Deadpool deserved to survive the culling of its contemporaries, and for once, a deserving book has actually been rewarded.

Though it's secure for a good few months to come, it's never a certainty that this title will make it through another whole year.  But it's proved remarkably resilient so far.

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