Hope Summers and the current direction of the X-men

[Askani's Flame]

Because with Rachel they couldn't have done the messiah trilogy, with Rachel they couldn't have done that, Rachel couldn't have done AvX neither, because they wouldn't be able to say that she couldn't control the Phoenix, because that would be hilarious, so in the end Rachel has the power and the story to do what Hope did, but with her nothing of that story could have been done

Exactly this.

Hope's relevance was written in stone the second they decided they needed her as the plot device to restart the mutant gene. Once it was accomplished, everyone ceased to care about her (sans Cable). She's just a messed up brat with a gun. Not really appealing to write anymore.

[captain Qball]

Well after her choosing the Avengers in AvX, Cyclops probably felt a little betrayed. But more importantly, in his mindset she was there for a job and she did it. By the time he got out of prison he found out she was running around with Cable, which is as safe as anywhere. And wolverine always just wanted to stab her, so it's probably good she's not around the school.

Being one of the few Hope fans, I do hope someone uses her in a proper way someday. I have hope for Spurrier but it's really too early to see if he's got anything planned.

What are her hobbies? What are her flaws? What does she dream about?

This is interesting because we are in an era that doesn't really give the characters downtime. These questions could be asked of any of the New Xavier students and have no answer. Even the stepford girls have only physical change just for the sake of iteself, no motivation.
But for Hope - she likes cleaning and prepping her guns. She's stubborn and determined to a fault, and wants to be with Cable. There was a time when she dreamed of just being a normal teenager, but she realized that isn't her.

[Cmbmool]

So why didn't Marvel just killed Hope at the end of Avengers vs X-men instead of letting her live and be a Cable lite again ?

[Darth Phoenix]

So why didn't Marvel just killed Hope at the end of Avengers vs X-men instead of letting her live and be a Cable lite again ?

Marvel is going to prove Bishop right by having Hope cause a mass trama so they can kill or limbo her.

[cranger]

So why didn't Marvel just killed Hope at the end of Avengers vs X-men instead of letting her live and be a Cable lite again ?

Cable has been written as an ex-soldier who wants to call it quits but is stuck forever taking one more mission to ensure a better world for his daughter.

[Mutant God]

I think she should become Lady Stryfe, trying to kill any time traveller

[maxi_miceli]

Exactly this.

Hope's relevance was written in stone the second they decided they needed her as the plot device to restart the mutant gene. Once it was accomplished, everyone ceased to care about her (sans Cable). She's just a messed up brat with a gun. Not really appealing to write anymore.

The only two that really cared about her were Cyclops and Cable, and even if Cyclops is fucked up enough as to still care about the rest of the X-men, even if he really shouldn't, he is not fucked up enough o still care about Hope after what she did to him, or at least I hope so

So why didn't Marvel just killed Hope at the end of Avengers vs X-men instead of letting her live and be a Cable lite again ?

To explore Cable's human side I guess, kinda like romantic relationships are used to explore Scott's

[Anduinel]

Exactly this.

Hope's relevance was written in stone the second they decided they needed her as the plot device to restart the mutant gene. Once it was accomplished, everyone ceased to care about her (sans Cable). She's just a messed up brat with a gun. Not really appealing to write anymore.

I think a lot of readers stopped caring long before AvX. The overall arc just made too big a deal out of Hope's significance, then stretched it out for far too long without any answers before a lackluster climax in a crossover that did none of the characters involved any favors.

[Bafflement]

She's always been an awful character, and the writers are starting realise it. Only real use for the character now is as a villain.

[ariwl1]

Because these days every writer has to leave his stamp on the X-Men and create a slew of new pointless characters - no matter if the older ones would've been perfect for the job. It's all ego. Why use a character someone else created, when you can make you're own version of Jean Grey, write a whole arch around her and then write it on your CV. Stuff like this started getting more prominent when Marvel, like the rest of the media industry, stop hiring permanent staff and switched to contracted freelancers. Now reputation and clout is more important then ever.

Hope's problem is simple - she has no real personality outside of the thing she was created to do. What are her hobbies? What are her flaws? What does she dream about? If she wasn't the "mutant messiah" what kind of person would she have been? Like most Mary Sue's her motivation for existence stops being relevant once the world stops revolving around her.

The worst part is, they modeled her after Jean Grey, so she doesn't even have a unique look.

Saying all that - a really good, creative writer could fix this. It's simple - give her a break for awhile, let other characters take the lead in the books she's in, stop letting her be the motivation for everything that happens around her and take the time to developed her as a person and not a plot device.

Pretty much all of this. She was originally designed to be a reincarnated Jean Grey, but the audience figured that out too quickly so they made her an original character instead. So they ended up with a teenage homage to Jean whose key personality traits are your typical redheaded temper with a dash of Cable's militarism. She was told all her life she was special with only the vaguest of details, and now that she's fulfilled her destiny she has no direction at all except to cling to Cable, which makes sense since he's the one thing her life she seems to value. A committed writer could get some good material out of this as well as push her along into growing up and becoming her own person, but it sounds like no one's doing it on the admission that the majority of the fanbase doesn't really give two bits about her.

[Beezzi]

Well after her choosing the Avengers in AvX, Cyclops probably felt a little betrayed. But more importantly, in his mindset she was there for a job and she did it. By the time he got out of prison he found out she was running around with Cable, which is as safe as anywhere. And wolverine always just wanted to stab her, so it's probably good she's not around the school.

Being one of the few Hope fans, I do hope someone uses her in a proper way someday. I have hope for Spurrier but it's really too early to see if he's got anything planned.



This is interesting because we are in an era that doesn't really give the characters downtime. These questions could be asked of any of the New Xavier students and have no answer. Even the stepford girls have only physical change just for the sake of iteself, no motivation.
But for Hope - she likes cleaning and prepping her guns. She's stubborn and determined to a fault, and wants to be with Cable. There was a time when she dreamed of just being a normal teenager, but she realized that isn't her.

Oh I totally agree, the lack of character details isn't unique to Hope. We need to go back to a time when characters were filled in with tiny details and not just covered in clumsy strokes.

You see I want Hope to have hobbies and dreams not associated with her lack of a childhood or with guns. She needs interests, likes and hates outside just her immediate situation and Cable...kinda like Colossus painting or Jube's bubblegum habit.

Look I think there's hope for her(no pun intended), she just needs to find a writer who'll give her the time she deserves. She's part of the MU now, so Marvel should find a better way too use her. I'm glad to see there's readers who still support her.

[Phoenetik]

double post. sorry.

[Phoenetik]

the only thing that could have saved this Jean Grey-clone would have been to actually reveal that she actually is Jean Grey reborn. How the writer intended it to be in the first place. Yes, we already would have known this but in the end the whole Phoenix-nonsense would have made a little bit more sense this way in AvX! and it would have made a great contribution to the X-Men history and especially to the lovely convoluted Summers/Grey family myth: Cable fostered his own mother in the future after she fostered him in the future. It was revealed that the Phoenix created Hope, so in the end we could argue that Hope is actually somehow Jean's daughter or a new genetic clone...

I love how Hope simply vanished the moment that teenage-Jean Grey got back to the present. I would have been quite pissed if I would have cared for this character for so many years...but I did not and I think nobody else did actually...

And now they are rebranding her in X-Force into a totally new and different character!!! seriously...so why not simply reveal she is teenage-Jean Grey...wait, we already have one of those.

I think it is hilarious how the X-Men totally forgot about her. People died to save her. Cyclops trained her for hours and now nobody give a crap where the mutant Messiah is or what she does. Hope who?

[Rochedalaix]

She was a plot device character now that the plot is over she is worthless AvX would have been better if she just restored the X-Gene, but kept the Phoenix Force and left the planet.

[FluffyCyclopsRLZ]

Hope was quite literally born as a MacGuffin. The brat should consider herself lucky there's still someone out there (Cable) who cares.