Irene Merryweather was a reporter for the "Inquiring Eye", researching a story on the Hellfire Club. Fearing that she might uncover something, Donald Pierce ordered Irene to be silenced and sent some Hellfire Club mercenaries after her. Cable came to Irene's rescue and decided that she would be the perfect person to chronicle his adventures.

This lead to Irene traveling with Cable, and meeting his associates (Domino, G.W. Bridge, Blaquesmith and Madelyne Pryor). It was during this time that Irene wrote her first new story for the Daily Bugle, after getting information on a Black Ops S.H.I.E.L.D. mission in Hell's Kitchen. When Cable renamed himself Soldier X and disappeared, Irene started to worry about him. Her work suffered as a result, but one year later she received a message from him. He sennt her his diaries and confided in her.

When he returned as Cable, she interviewed the would-be mutant Messiah. She though Cable's power was getting to his head and called him on it, even bringing a gun to her office to protect herself from him, should he go insane. When Cable secretly used a virus to turn everybody on Earth pink, only to publicly restore them later to normal, he was lauded as a hero. Irene was fired though for bringing a gun to work. Without a job, Irene moved to Providence, an island-state created by Cable to be an utopia. She took over administrative duties in the city and basically ran the whole city when Cable was on his missions. Irene even learned to put up with Deadpool, Cable's new associate, who often expressed a romantic interest in her. She didn't return his feelings, seeing as Deadpool was an idiot.