and here it is. the closing chapter of the Messiah trilogy in the X-books, billed as the return of Hope Summers in the 616 universe and determination of her role in the future of the X-Men. she was born during Messiah Complex, and spent the rest of her life so far surviving in multiple timelines in the company of her foster father, Cable (whose own trials as a time-tossed baby she's echoing), and dodging her would-be murderer, Bishop. having Lucas Bishop turn into a caricature villain may have made sense with the X-writers, but it always bothered me. he just simply turned into an unkillable and unlikeable cockroach whose sole purpose in life was to put a bullet into a little girl's head. my fondest memory of Bishop was in a '90s sort of way, a cop out of his time, colorful, scarved, long flowing curly hair, and also single-mindedly out to find the X-traitor that presumably betrayed his boyhood heroes. his struggles to fit in were somewhat endearing. past that, he's been yo-yoed around the X-universe, and now he really struggled to find his place. i can get his being a cop for Mutant Town and being the resident mutant detective (remember him trying to find who shot Emma Frost into itty bitty diamond bits?). but shacking him up with Deathbird? being a flat out government stoogie during Civil War, putting him at odds with rest of his friends? and now a bald headed angry stereotype, like if Michael Clarke Duncan suddenly became this raving mass-murdering lunatic? good thing for me he's stranded in 6700 AD (but am sure there's a storyline being written as i type this, bringing him back to unleash holy hell on his former friends).
but back to Hope.
the first mutant born after that crazy stunt pulled by the Scarlet Witch ("oh hey, am crazy, i hate my kind, let's just wipe out everyooooooooone!"), Hope seems like the idea born out of "hey, we need a Jean Grey back, how do we do that?" well, first they send Rachel up into space to be part of the new Starjammers (speaking of which, how come no one's been talking to each other - imagine all the stories missed? Gabriel's probably dead, and Alex doesn't even bother to tell Scott.). now we get a new red-haired young telepath/telekinetic who's sure to rile up Emma, for starters. Cable, by virtue of his raising Hope, is sure to keep her under his wing (hey, watch those young mutant boys in Utopia go after this new bombshell). Cyclops, de facto leader of all the mutants (probably annoying the hell out of Xavier and Magneto), has faith that Hope will be the, well ... savior of the beleaguered mutants. Bishop believed otherwise. if that's true, Cyclops would be doing some kind of twisted Kool Aid commercial, shown below:
but back to Hope.
the first mutant born after that crazy stunt pulled by the Scarlet Witch ("oh hey, am crazy, i hate my kind, let's just wipe out everyooooooooone!"), Hope seems like the idea born out of "hey, we need a Jean Grey back, how do we do that?" well, first they send Rachel up into space to be part of the new Starjammers (speaking of which, how come no one's been talking to each other - imagine all the stories missed? Gabriel's probably dead, and Alex doesn't even bother to tell Scott.). now we get a new red-haired young telepath/telekinetic who's sure to rile up Emma, for starters. Cable, by virtue of his raising Hope, is sure to keep her under his wing (hey, watch those young mutant boys in Utopia go after this new bombshell). Cyclops, de facto leader of all the mutants (probably annoying the hell out of Xavier and Magneto), has faith that Hope will be the, well ... savior of the beleaguered mutants. Bishop believed otherwise. if that's true, Cyclops would be doing some kind of twisted Kool Aid commercial, shown below:
well before and after Necrosha, writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost have been (not-so-quietly) assembling all of the old X-villains in the pages of New X-Men and X-Force. despite the annoying style of resurrecting comic characters, i like the fact that they put in touches where the new generation of actual readers can learn through the reaction of the new generation of characters. here we see Pixie making an observation of a Right soldier.
the Second Coming crossover will also deal with the repercussions of the (re)formation of X-Force as a mutant black ops team, and this will presumably split the X-ranks. right in this issue, we get X-23 staking a Sapien Leaguer in the head with a claw during interrogation. the pro-life Nightcrawler takes exception to this. i expect lots of yelling and screaming and punching in the coming days, and that's within the X-Men.
sidebar: the Simster thinks Kurt has the highest odds of not making it through the summer alive.
and there might still be a higher body count. i wasn't really sold when he first appeared, and not even when they brought him back, but now i feel there isn't any better villain out there who fits in this whole storyline than Bastion. Scott Lobdell, take a bow.
they've always been able to beat this Nimrod/Master Mold combo before, but they need to ground him to a fine dust this time around. or else there's no hope.
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X-Men: Second Coming
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