Cabal

CABAL

Membership: Alberto Cassini, B’lial, Devin, Helspont, Hightower, Johnny Feh, K’nar, M’Koi, Pike, Providence

Base of Operations: Earth-50

First Appearance: WildC.A.T.S: Covert Action Teams (Image) #1 (August, 1992)

History: (WildC.A.T.S: Covert Action Teams (Image) #1, 2) - Helspont founded the Cabal, a group of Daemonites and quisling human allies dedicated to paving the way for an invasion of Earth by the Daemonites. Jacob Marlowe, aka Lord Emp, founded the WildC.A.T.S., a team of Kherubim to oppose them. Alberto Cassini sold out the Cabal, selling information about Voodoo, a woman who could see Daemonites possessing humans and exorcise them, to Gnome, who passed the information to Marlowe. Helspont had Pike murder Cassini and sent a Coda warrior and two Daemonites to the Hot Spot, the stripclub where Voodoo worked. The Cabal operatives and the WildC.A.T.S. fought over Voodoo, with the battle ending when the fatally wounded Coda warrior set off an explosive on her body, blowing up the Hot Spot. Helspont checked in with B’lial, a Daemonite mole posing as vice president Dan Quayle. Void warped them away from the explosion and they regrouped at Grifter’s safehouse at Quantico. Grifter and Zealot informed Marlowe that the Cabal was using their mole B’lial and the U.S. government’s resources to construct a dimensional gateway to the Daemonite homeworld in a project called Reunification. Marlowe said he’d need Voodoo to exorcise Dan Quayle of the Daemonite possessing him, and Voodoo said she had no idea what she’d landed herself in. Zealot explained that the Kherubim and Daemonites had been at war for eons, and the WildC.A.T.S. and Cabal were from groups stranded on Earth long ago. Thirty years ago the Daemonites scored a major victory, and without Voodoo’s help they’d win the war for Earth. The WildC.A.T.S. went to S.D.I. Astronomics, where Dan Quayle and the Cabal were set to receive the Orb of Power needed for Project Reunification from NASA. The WildC.A.T.S. dealt with the Cabal members, but Dan Quayle introduced his bodyguards, the government sponsored superteam Youngblood.

(WildC.A.T.S: Covert Action Teams (Image) #3, 4) - The WildC.A.T.S. and Youngblood clashed, with Spartan trying to explain that Dan Quayle was possessed, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Pike noticed that some of the WildC.A.T.S. were absent from the fight and took coda warrior Devin to the Astronomics control center, where Helspont and M’koi were opening the gateway to the Daemonite homeworld with the Orb. The rest of the WildC.A.T.S. appeared and attacked them. Gnome, who’d been playing the WildC.A.T.S. and Cabal against each other, broke into the Orb’s containment facility with the help of the Triad. Youngblood beat their opponents, but knew something was wrong when Dan Quayle pulled a handgun and prepared to execute Voodoo. Shaft tried to stop him, but Quayle shot him, with the bullet grazing Shaft’s head. Voodoo exorcised B’lial from Dan Quayle. The Cabal fended off the WildC.A.T.S. long enough to open a stargate with the Orb, and an armada of Daemonite warships poured forth. Youngblood and the recovered WildC.A.T.S. fought Helspont. Voodoo tried to exorcise him, but found her powers ineffective because he was using an Acurian host, not a human one. Spartan, willing to fight to the end, removed the relay switch, causing an explosion that blew him up but shut down the main control system, shutting the stargate. Helspont was furious that 30 years of work and planning on his part came to nothing, but vowed to snatch victory from defeat by claiming possession of the Orb. He opened the reactor core to find the Orb missing. Gnome and the Triad revealed themselves, with Gnome showing that he had control of the Orb claiming to rightfully belonged to him, and him alone. He blasted Helspont, critically injuring him. Void warned him that the Orb’s powers had become unstable, but he simply blasted her with it. Jacob Marlowe ordered him to drop the Orb, and Gnome reminded him he owed him a favor, which was to stay out of his way. Marlowe was fine with breaking his promise, shooting off the arm Gnome was holding the Orb with. The arm and Orb fell into a reactor and Gnome dove in to try to save his precious Orb. The Orb caused the reactor to go critical, and Youngblood, the Cabal and Triad all fled the facility. Marlowe lent his power to the weakened Void, allowing her to teleport the WildC.A.T.S. to safety. They celebrated with champagne, but Voodoo said she wasn’t in the mood for a victory lap because Spartan had to sacrifice himself to save the day. Marlowe showed her one of Spartan’s cyber-synthetic bodies, and said his mind and memories were currently being downloaded into it.

(WildC.A.T.S: Covert Action Teams (Image) #17) - The Daemonites replaced Maul on the WildC.A.T.s with a mole named Mr. White to disrupt an energy conference called to undue the ecological damage the Daemonite possessed Dan Quayle had caused. Once White was found out the only clue Marlowe had as to who had taken Maul was that the Cabal was involved, so he split the WildC.A.T.s into teams to assault Cabal strongholds in Morocco, NYC and the Florida Keys. Spartan and Zealot attacked the Moroccan base commanded by Johnny Feh, and after Zealot threatened him with a sword Feh was ready to talk. Warblade broke into the NYC restaurant that the Cabal used as a money-laundering front and fought with Pike while Grifter went solo against the Cabal’s Florida Keys compound. An information broker informed Void that a government computer system had information on where Maul was being held, so she tested the limit of her abilities and entered the computer system, learning that Maul was being held by Stormwatch on Skywatch. Void teleported the WildC.A.T.s away from their missions and teleported into Skywatch, teleporting Maul out. Feh knew he’d be marked for death by the Cabal because he was ready to talk. Pike recalled a recent trip to Arizona where he’d taken peyote with a shaman and had a vision in which he killed one of the WildC.A.T.s. He’d hoped Warblade would be his victim, but remained confident he would make his vision a reality.

Comments: Created by Jim Lee & Brandon Choi.

Cabal was originally published by Wildstorm Comics, an imprint of Image Comics, which DC acquired the rights to in January, 1999.

Cabal's appearance in WildC.A.T.S: Covert Action Teams (Image) #1 was reprinted in Millennium Edition: WildC.A.T.S: Covert Action Teams #1. Their appearance in WildC.A.T.S: Covert Action Teams (Image) #1-4 was reprinted in Absolute WildC.A.T.S and republished by DC Comics in a digital format, WildC.A.T.S: Covert Action Teams (Image) #17 was reprinted in James Robinson’s Complete WildC.A.T.S.