Nathan Summers' birth was carefully orchestrated by the geneticist Mister Sinister. Sinister planned to use Nate as a weapon against his former master Apocalypse, but Apocalypse learned of this and had Nate captured and infected with a deadly techno-organic virus. Later, with the aid of his mercenary ally and sometime lover Domino, Cable reorganized the New Mutants into the strike team X-Force.