It was 25 years ago when Rob Liefeld‘s creation Cable debuted in New Mutants, with a teaser appearance in New Mutants #86 and the first full appearance in New Mutants #87. New Mutants #86 had a cover date of February 1990. Liefeld turned to Instagram to discuss the history and reminisce about the creation of the iconic character whose success would help Liefeld spawn dozens of more in the “X” universe.

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Time Flies! It was 25 years ago this month that the mighty #Cable stormed the X-Men office of n this debut in New Mutants #87! The editor that hired me asked me to come up with a new "teacher" figure for the book. I submitted Cable and fought to keep his name Cable despite suggestions of Commander X (yes!) from the writer and the editor's request to call him Quinn(ugh) All in all, it worked out for the best and swung the door wide open for the rest of my creations that would soon follow, Deadpool, Domino, Kane, Shatterstar, Feral, Warpath(name) Bridge, Reaper, Stryfe, Fourarm, Tempo, Grizzly, Gideon, Zero, Lady Deadpool and many more! I'll post my Cable development sketches later today! #robliefeld #xforce #marvel

A post shared by Rob Liefeld (@robliefeld) on Jan 23, 2015 at 9:39am PST

Even cooler, Liefeld shared some of his early sketches for what Cable might have looked like.

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Celebrating 25 years of CABLE, here is my original character sheet from 1989. Lots of notes and input. Thank you for his longevity! #cable #xforce #robliefeld creations

A post shared by Rob Liefeld (@robliefeld) on Jan 23, 2015 at 7:32pm PST

Here’s hoping he continues this throughout the year to peel the curtains back for a few of his other well-known creations.