Hope Summers (character)

Hope Summers
Cable #21, featuring Hope as a teenager.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	X-Men #205 (November 2007)
Created by	Mike Carey Chris Bachalo
In-story information
Alter ego	Hope Summers (Spalding)
Species	Human Mutant
Team affiliations	X-Men
Notable aliases	Mutant Messiah
Abilities	Power mimicry

Hope Summers is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in X-Men #205 (Chapter five of X-Men: Messiah Complex), and was created by writers Ed Brubaker, Mike Carey, Peter David, Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost and initially drawn by artist Chris Bachalo during the X-Men: Messiah Complex event. She is the first mutant born after the events of House of M and Decimation.

Publication history

Messiah Complex

Main article: X-Men: Messiah Complex

Hope was born a year after the events of House of M; she was the first new mutant born since the Decimation (where the Scarlet Witch cast a spell to turn all the mutants into regular, depowered humans and to make sure no new ones were ever born, leaving only one hundred ninety-eight left on Earth). The moment she was born, Cerebra exploded, and shortly thereafter the hunt for her begun. Her town was attacked by the Purifiers, who had used information given to them from the time-traveling Nimrod warning them of her arrival. Although all the children in town were murdered by the Purifiers, Cable managed to save Hope. According to him, the baby was the Messiah meant to save both mutant and humankind. However, according to the Purifiers and Bishop, she will become the mutant equivalent to the Antichrist and kill a million humans in six minutes, turning humanity against mutants once again, thus leading into a new era of mutant persecution - and creating the very time-line in which Bishop was born.

The baby is kidnapped later by the Marauders. and delivered to Mister Sinister, actually Mystique in disguise. She takes the baby and makes her touch the comatose Rogue with intentions of waking her. Gambit quickly takes her away from Mystique, believing that she just killed her but he is amazed to see that the baby is all right and that it even cured Rogue. After a huge battle between the Marauders, X-Men, and Predator X, Cyclops decides that the baby would be better off with Cable, and allows his son to take her to the future. However, an adamant Bishop decides to track Cable and the baby in order to finally kill her and prevent his future from happening.

Panel from X-Force/Cable: Messiah War #1 (March 2009).
Art by Mike Choi.

Into the Future

During one of the first battles with Bishop, Cable's time traveling device is damaged, so he can only jump into the future, instead of the past, when he needs to escape Bishop each time he finds them. After several jumps into the future, it is revealed that Cable has taken her to the secluded safe haven of New Liberty in the future, where Cable marries a woman named Hope, who is like a mother to the mutant baby. Finding relative peace there, he raises her with Hope until she's seven years old. But then New Liberty is invaded by humanoid insects who called themselves the United States Army, later calling themselves humanoid Blattarians. Cable fights them and leaves New Liberty with his wife and her in order to make sure New Liberty doesn't fall. After spending months in the wasteland, the family is attacked by the president of the insects, whom Hope manages to save her family from by stabbing the insect in his weak spot, since she has been watching Cable fight. Cable questions the president where he finds out that Bishop, in order to find Hope in the future, has destroyed all the continents in the world and left them uninhabitable, except North America, in order to box them in, find her and kill her. Cable kills the president, and the family moves on. The family encounters a settlement, but are met with resistance. Cable takes care of them easily, but not fast enough, as her mother is shot and dies in Cable's arms while she watches. Hope sees Cable bury the closest thing she ever had to a mother and departs with him. After arriving at a church, the pastor asks the name of the child. In that moment, Cable decides to name her Hope Summers, in honor of her adoptive mother.

Messiah War

Hope Summers is the center of the conflict between the forces of Stryfe, Cable, and X-Force in the Messiah War storyline, which ran through Cable and X-Force. It is part of a three-part story that began with X-Men: Messiah Complex.. During the Messiah War, Hope is kidnapped by Cable's clone Stryfe who's in league with Bishop. She watches as Stryfe tortures Warpath until Cable, Wolverine and Elixir come to their rescue. In the following fight she survives along with the rest of the X-Force and Cable with Bishop losing an eye to Wolverine and having his time travel device damaged. When Cable and Hope are forced to time travel again, Hope resists because she wants to stay with X-23 and Elixir, with whom she had bonded during the events of Messiah War. She kicks Cable in mid-jump, stranding herself and Cable two years apart. They eventually reunite with Hope now an adult.

At the 2009 San Francisco Wondercon, it was implied by Matt Fraction that Hope is closely tied to Jean Grey and her resurrection.

Homecoming and X-Men: Second Coming

In the four part series 'A Girl Called Hope' Hope watches over Cable as he sleeps, and says 'I would come back from the dead to kill them' referring to anyone who would harm Cable, with the Phoenix Emblem reflecting in Hope's eyes again as she looks in the fire. As the short series closes it's revealed that Hope had actually slaughtered many of the evolved wolves in order to keep Cable safe. A recent promotional image for the event has been released depicting two versions of Hope--one angelic, emphasizing her role as a savior, the other as evil and surrounded by the Phoenix Force, depicting her as a destroyer.

Hope manifests various X-men powers such as Armor's psionic armor and Colossus's organic steel and kills Lang and Creed. With the assistant of the X-men, she eradicates Bastion and shatters the dome surrounding the city. At a celebratory bonfire, Emma Frost notices the flames around Hope take the shape of the Phoenix, and Hope momentarily takes on the appearance of Jean Grey, which triggers a flashback to the Sisterhood storyline where Jean freed her from Lady Mastermind's illusion. Seized with terror, Emma runs to Cyclops to warn him but before she can, Cyclops tells her that Cerebra has found five new mutants that have appeared around the globe.

Generation Hope

Hope is now the main character of her new ongoing series, Generation Hope where she attempts to find the "Five Lights", five new mutants that appeared after the Second Coming event. In Uncanny X-Men #526, Hope finds the first of the five lights in Canada attempting to kill herself by jumping off a building. Hope touches the girl, whose mutation is jump started (a power display similar to Sage's) and she develops an ability to fly. Introducing herself as Laurie, she also agrees to follow Hope.

Powers and abilities

In the beginning, Hope's powers were not explained. The only notable thing is that when she was born, she unleashed a massive psionic pulse that destroyed Cerebra. She also proved to be immune to Rogue's newly lethal absorption power and her touch erased all of the previous memories and abilities Rogue had absorbed, including those of the Hecatomb. She also cured Rogue of the Strain 88 virus.

During Messiah Complex when the Three-in-One tried to search for her when she was kidnapped by the Marauders, she was able to block and disrupt Cerebra from finding her.

In Messiah War, after mentally scanning her, Stryfe hints that she has the same powers he does (telekinesis and telepathy), and is potentially far more powerful than he is.

While she's a child, she's already an excellent hand-to-hand combatant by copying Cable's movements. Despite not exhibiting further powers, not even the ones displayed while an infant, Hope has become a keen observer and survivalist, able to find shelter and supplies.

Hope has finally shown some glimpse of the telekinetic powers at her command by stopping a bullet fired at her by Bishop and generating extremely powerful energy blasts that overloaded his own natural ability to absorb projected energy. She could also sense Bishop, suggesting some form of telepathy. However, although Duane Swierczynski has hinted that these powers could be something else entirely, he also says that he has a thing for women with red hair and green eyes who can move objects with their mind.

Images released by Marvel issue X-Men: Hope have indicated that Hope has a link to the Phoenix Force (The Phoenix Raptor manifests in her eyes). The exact nature and extent of this connection has yet to be explained.

Power mimicry

Hope Summers is born with the powers of Empathic Power Mimicry. The limits of her power have yet to be reached or determined. She does not need to physically touch them (as with Rogue). It does appears the Hope needs to be close to subjects to exhibit their powers, but its is unknown if her range is global. It is also not determined if once acquired the abilities are permanent or if they fade with time or distance from subject.

The powers Hope has demonstrated so far are: Power and Aura Absorption: from Rogue. She touched Rogue and survived without any damage and erased all of the previous memories and abilities Rogue had absorbed, including those of the Hecatomb. She also cured Rogue of the Strain 88 virus.[21] Telekinesis and Telepathy: from Cable. Using telekinesis, she was able to stop a bullet in midair, and she was able to sense Bishop's presence using telepathy.[22] Energy Absorption and Concussive Blasts: from Bishop. Absorbed and rechanneled a concussive blast at Bishop while he was hunting her.[23] Optic Blasts: from Cyclops. Organic Steel Transformation: from Colossus. Psionic Exo-Armor: from Armor. Cyrokinesis/Thermokinesis: from Iceman (or possibly Storm). Electrokinesis: from Surge (or possibly Storm). Geokinesis: from Magma (or possibly Rockslide).

References

• Hope Summers at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
• Hope Summers (Cable's wife) at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)