HOPE SUMMERS

Publication Date: 29th Apr 2021
Written By: Monolith and Ruth.
Image Work: Douglas Mangum.
Biography

Biography page 1

The birth of the girl who came to be known as Hope Summers was a miracle.

Hope’s story starts some time before her birth. When the Scarlet Witch decreed “No More Mutants,” almost all mutants save a few hundred were depowered by this reality-altering spell. [House of M (1st series) #8] Even worse, no new mutants were being born any longer. It seemed to be the end of the mutant species – an action begging for a reaction. The Phoenix Force, a cosmic entity representing evolution itself, did not like being thwarted. In order to reintroduce the X-Gene to the human race, the power of the Phoenix orchestrated the existence of a new mutant birth, a mutant messiah engineered to kickstart mutant evolution. And so, the impossible happened about a year after the tragedy of M-Day when Cerebra registered a mutant birth in Cooperstown, Alaska. [X-Men (2nd series) #204]

When local firefighter Louise Spalding became pregnant and chose to have the baby on her own, many parties were already aware of her decision. The mutant race and their enemies were no strangers to time travel and precognition. Reverend William Stryker and his Purifiers had access to the future Sentinel called Nimrod, a prophet who foretold the coming of their Anti-Christ. [New X-Men (2nd series) #20-36] Mister Sinister also knew of the mutant’s coming and assembled the Marauders and Acolytes to deliberately blind the X-Men from future knowledge in the days beforehand, ensuring he had the advantage when that fateful day came. [X-Men (2nd series) #200-203]

The X-Men arrived in Alaska to find the town ablaze with many locals (especially the children) dead. Sinister's efforts to blind the team had been successful. The Purifiers knew the new mutant would be a newborn, and attacked the local hospital. Louise Spalding was among the many dead in their assault, as the Purifiers murdered infants in their cribs and everyone who got in the way of their holy quest. The Marauders were equally brutal on their path towards the hospital, and the two forces collided. “Baby Girl Spalding” was not among the casualties, however. Cable of the X-Men had survived the Marauders' earlier attempts to target him. He had foreseen the birth of this new mutant and retrieved the baby first. With his own squad heavily infiltrated by the Marauders, though, Cable kept the X-Men in the dark about his actions and intentions.

Cyclops of the X-Men believed the baby to be important for the reconstruction of the mutant race. He created a group of mutants willing to kill if necessary – X-Force – to find Cable and save the child. Unfortunately, the baby was abducted by the Marauders when they intercepted Cable trying to fix his time travel equipment at Forge’s Eagle Plaza. Mystique of the Marauders had been forewarned by her late lover Destiny that the mutant messiah would be born, and the child would be able to cure their foster daughter Rogue, who was suffering from a fracturing psyche thanks to her powers. She turned out to be right, and Rogue’s mind was cleared of the many psyches which pressed upon her merely by touching the child.

The battle over the mutant messiah took place on Muir Isle with the X-Men, X-Force, Cable, Marauders, Acolytes and the Purifiers’ creation Predator X descending on the location. The X-Men discovered their efforts had been hampered because one of their own had turned against them. Bishop, a mutant from one hundred years in the future, wished to kill the child, for in his timeline she had been responsible for a catastrophe leading to the X-Gene being outlawed and concentration camps for mutants. Cable, on the other hand, was from thousands of years in the future, and believed the mutant messiah was ultimately good for the mutant race, despite the hardships of Bishop’s time. Knowing that the child would be a helpless target so long as she remained, Cyclops gave the child to Cable to take into the timestream until she could choose her own destiny. Cable promised to return with the child once she was suitably grown and disappeared into the future. [Messiah CompleX crossover]

Cable and the baby first jumped to 2043 to get their bearings. His mechanism allowed jumps through time, not space, so he still had to travel normally through a post-apocalyptic dystopia to get from Muir Island to America. However, Bishop had acquired his own time machine and gave chase to Cable and the child. During the battle, Bishop managed to damage Cable’s time machine. The damage allowed Cable’s time machine to only jump further into the future, not back into the past. From that point on, Cable and the child were cut off from the X-Men. [Cable (2nd series) #1-5]

For the next two years, Cable raised the girl while on the run from Bishop. He made allies who seeded the timeline with legends, traps and false trails to obscure his movements through the decades. Cable finally found them refuge in the hidden community of New Liberty, protected from the outside world by a force field, which had only been re-discovered in his 40th century time. There Nathan became a farmer and settled into a quiet life with the child. He met a local woman named Hope, who was at first disgusted at what she considered his inability at raising a child. Eventually Hope and Cable fell in love and married. Hope became the adoptive mother of “Little Girl” as Cable refused to name the child, much to Hope’s chagrin.

When Little Girl was about four years old (a headstrong child that doted on her adoptive father) the U.S. Army marched on New Liberty. Actually genetically-altered human/cockroach hybrids, the soldiers intended to do the same to the people of New Liberty and captured Hope and the other townspeople. Cable’s first instinct was to flee with the Little Girl, but her love of Hope (and his) convinced him to return and save his wife. Cable began teaching his attentive daughter about military tactics and controlling their environment as he made a plan to save their friends. Little Girl helped him draw the cockroach people into a trap as she detonated the explosives he had hidden on his signal.

They saved Hope and fled New Liberty, drawing the remaining cockroach people away so that their neighbors could close the force field again and be safe. Cable discovered Bishop had radically altered the timeline, destroying the sustainability of entire continents to narrow Cable’s mobility through the timestream, and the cockroach people were one of the consequences. They managed to stay on the road for about a year, but eventually during an attack by militia Hope was killed in front of her daughter. After burying his wife, Cable and the child moved on and they decided she would take on Hope’s name to honor her. [Cable (2nd series) #6-10]

Cable and Hope allied themselves with the free remaining humans against the hybrid cockroach subspecies. Cable trained Hope in combat and survival, and she picked up other skills and knowledge from the rebel soldiers they camped with. Two years after the death of Cable’s wife, the humans had arrived at the solution of unleashing a bio-weapon at the cockroaches, despite the high odds that this would kill the humans as well. Cable and Hope were unwilling to take the risk and timeslid into the future to avoid the consequences of the bio-weapon blast. Sure enough, both sides were wiped out, leaving only desolation hundreds of years after the bombs’ devastation.

Hope wandered the wastelands with Cable for some time, occasionally skipping decades or centuries forwards in the vain hope of finding the land restored and fresh food or water. Hope’s survivalist training continued during this period, especially after a dehydrated Cable became too weak to stand and passed out. Hope had learned her lessons well – she remained calm, assessed the situation and foraged for potable water to save her father’s life. During this trek, Hope was finally old enough that Cable shared with her the existence of mutants, and that she was destined for something greater. Cable told Hope she would know deep within herself when the time was right to fulfill her destiny. In the deserted remains of the X-Mansion, Cable and Hope found a hidden supply shelter and restocked on food and weapons. They also found a time capsule message from Cyclops, Cable’s father. Hearing Scott’s pride and trust in him for the mission to protect Hope reinvigorated Cable’s determination, and the pair skipped forward in time again. [Cable (2nd series) #11-12]

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