Known across the world as the Mutant Messiah, Hope Summers is born after M-Day as the only new mutant. Though unlike other mutants, her mutant gene is detectable at birth, making her a highly sought-after target by many groups with good but mostly ill intentions. But it’s Cable that finds and protects her. They go on the run through the timestream evading the time-traveling Bishop, who intends to slay her for destroying his Earth, and in the meantime, Hope learns warfare tactics and how to defend herself. When her mutant powers manifest, she can imitate the powers of any mutant or super human around her. She learns how to use her powers and eventually joins several mutant-protecting groups, including the X-Men and X-Force.
MUTANT MESSIAH
Born to Captain Louise Spalding, an intelligent, free-spirited firefighter, the baby that would later be named Hope is the first mutant born since “M-Day,” when an insane Wanda Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch, stripped the majority of mutants of their abilities. Psi-sensitive mutants, including members of the heroic X-Men, sense the baby’s mutant potential. Additionally, her mutant nature is so powerful that her very existence takes the X-Men’s mutant-detecting computer Cerebra completely off-line. The anti-mutant religious zealot group the Purifiers also detected her birth using their mutant-detecting technology. The Purifiers attack the Cooperstown, Alaska, hospital where the baby is born, slaughtering 266 townspeople and babies (including Louise) to slay the baby. Desiring the baby for his power schemes, mad geneticist Nathaniel Essex, AKA Mister Sinister, sends his Marauders assassination squad to Cooperstown to obtain her, and they conflict with the Purifiers. Neither faction finds the baby thanks to the X-Man Nathan Summers, AKA Cable, and Wade Wilson, AKA Deadpool, who secretly whisk her off to safety. Believing her to be a mutant “messiah” that would eventually save all of mutantkind, Cable takes the baby on the run to keep her safe from all the forces hunting her.
Learning his son Cable had the baby and believing he had turned traitor, X-Men leader Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, sends a strike team called X-Force to hunt Cable and procure the baby by any means necessary. X-Force locates Cable in Alberta, Canada, where he protected the baby from a Purifiers assault. Cable flees to Dallas, where he hopes to obtain, from mutant inventor Forge, the parts needed to operate time travel equipment. There, fellow X-Man Bishop, AKA Bishop, who believed the baby would somehow kill a million humans, bringing about his dystopian future (Earth-1191), attacks Cable. But the Marauders attack Bishop and takes the baby to Sinister. However, Sinister’s ally Raven Darkholme, AKA Mystique, attacks him and takes the baby. Hoping to cure her comatose foster daughter, the X-Man Anna Marie, AKA Rogue, whose touch had become lethal, Mystique presses the baby against Rogue. This act somehow cures Rogue while the baby remains unharmed by Rogue’s power absorption ability. Taking Hope from Mystique, X-Men founder Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X, gives her back to Cable and asks him to take her into the timestream for safekeeping. Before he could, however, a massive battle erupts between the Marauders, a mutant-devouring Predator X, and the X-Men, which ends with the Marauders’ defeat. At the exact moment Cable disappears into the timestream with the baby (at Cyclops’ orders), Bishop tries to kill her again.
PSYCHIC POWER DUPLICATION
Hope is an omega-level mutant that can psychically duplicate any superhuman power-signatures nearby at their utmost capacity, also known as a Pluripotent Echopraxic. However, she generates power levels that are potentially dangerous to people and the environment around her. Her full power catalog is unrevealed, but Hope can mimic telekinesis, psychic armor, optic blasts, the ability to emit immensely powerful force bolts from her hands, organic metal transformation, ice generation, seismic-wave manipulation, and “jump-starting” neophyte mutant development.
The firebird manifestation associated with the Phoenix Force appears in Hope’s eyes as early as five months old. In her teens, it fully manifests around her, suggesting Hope has a connection to the primal cosmic power. After her initial detection at birth, Hope somehow becomes undetectable by mutant-detecting equipment. While an infant, inadvertently drained a massive excess of psychic energy from Rogue, apparently without side effects from Rogue’s psychic draining.
Cable trains Hope in CPR, combat first aid, warfare strategy, survival tactics, and the use of a wide array of bladed and ballistic weaponry, hand-to-hand combat, and some gymnastics.
ENEMIES FROM DAY ONE
After “M-Day” when Scarlet Witch magically removed all mutants’ abilities, the first to have powers is an unborn baby. When Hope grows in the womb of her mother, psi-sensitive mutants and mutant-detecting technology across the world detect her mutant potential. As such, the anti-mutant group the Purifiers and Mister Sinister’s Marauders target Hope.
Fellow X-Man Bishop believes Hope is responsible for his dystopian future on Earth-1191, and follows her and her adoptive father Cable through the timestream to kill her. Hope and Cable survive many battles and escape Bishop numerous times, and finally Cable banishes him to the year 6700 AD.
She remains a target of evil groups and the Avengers, who either seek to control her or prevent her powers from harming others, respectively. Though when Scarlet Witch helps her undo the spell that made Hope the Mutant Messiah in the first place, she is no longer a target.
FAMILY TIES AND MUTANT ALLIES
After her mother Louise Spalding is killed, the messiah baby is raised by her foster father, Cable who believes she is destined to save both mutant and humankind. Cable, a harsh military-type father figure, teaches Hope warfare strategy and survival techniques. Cable’s partner and wife Hope Summers of Earth-80521 raises the baby with him up until her death, marking the moment Cable names the baby Hope Summers in honor of her foster mother.
At five months old, baby Hope displays a connection to the Phoenix Force, visible in her eyes and eventually around her body. It leaves her to possess five other mutants so that it can remake the world. After it possesses Cyclops and he becomes the Dark Phoenix, Hope with help from Scarlet Witch, accepts it back into herself and removes the Dark Phoenix from the force, and becomes the White Phoenix temporarily.
She has an on- and off-again relationship with the X-Men, becomes the leader of the reformed X-Force, joins the Mutant Liberation Front to protect mutants, and later joins The Five–a group of resurrectionist mutants on Krakoa. With Joshua Foley, AKA Elixir, Fabio Medina, AKA Goldballs, Kevin MacTaggert, AKA Proteus, Eva Bell, AKA Tempus , and Xavier’s help, they bring back mutants from the dead into cloned bodies by combining all their powers.
A DOOMED BUT HOPEFUL HISTORY
Cable and the baby arrived in the year 2043 AD of the alternate future of Earth-80251 and soon learned that Bishop had escaped capture by the X-Men, stolen a time machine from Forge, and followed them into the timestream, still intent on killing the baby. Tracking Cable, Bishop confronted him there five months later in the first of many battles over the baby, which left Cable’s time travel mechanism only able to go forward in time. Cable and the baby were taken in by a Good Samaritan, Sophie Pettit. With Pettit’s help, Cable located a cache of weapons and supplies stored in the remains of the Xavier Institute and used them to confront Bishop in New York City; Cable fled into the timestream when Bishop gained the upper hand in the battle.
Advancing 85 years into the future, Cable recalled the legend of New Liberty, a secret city hidden and protected behind force fields. Cable met and eventually married a New Liberty woman named Hope who teased Cable about only calling the unnamed baby “Little Girl”; Hope called her “Little Momma” instead. Two years later, the baby was now a very strong-willed little girl, often challenging Cable when he gave her directions. When the United States Army found and invaded New Liberty, Cable learned that humans in the outside world had mixed their DNA with that of cockroaches, becoming monstrous bug-men. Lured into position by Cable, “Little Girl” pressed the button that set off explosives that killed the cockroach army, her first act of war. Fleeing New Liberty, Cable learned the world outside of New Liberty had been devastated by Bishop’s weapons of mass destruction, who was now desperate to narrow the area where Cable and the child could flee. When approaching a settlement to find shelter, Cable, weak and weary from lack of sleep and food, reacted slowly to the settlement’s defenders, while gunfire killed his wife. Both devastated by her death, Cable and “Little Girl” ventured farther inland. In honor of her dead foster mother, Cable finally named the child Hope.
During two years serving in a rebel faction against the cockroach army, Cable began teaching Hope warfare strategy and survival techniques, becoming a harsh drill sergeant-figure to her. Cable and Hope went 1000 years into the future to avoid the rebel faction’s rash detonation of biological weapons to destroy the cockroaches, finding their actions had destroyed all life. At seven years old, Hope began asking questions about her life, gradually learning of her past, and of mutantkind; Hope became excited to discover what her mutant abilities were. The two made their way to what used to be Westchester, New York, where Cable hoped to find supplies hidden in the ruins of the Xavier estate. During this leg of the journey, Cable tried to learn what Hope’s mutant abilities were, which frustrated Hope, who didn’t know if she even had any. After finding supplies and clothes at Xavier’s, the two went to 2973 AD, where they reunited with Earth-616’s X-Force, sent by Cyclops to find and assist them. X-Force and Cable struck an uneasy alliance with the eternal despot Apocalypse and a centuries-old Deadpool-80521. They fought a desperate war against Bishop and Cable’s clone, the dictator Stryfe, ultimately defeating them. Upset at parting ways with X-Force and harboring a growing resentment for Cable’s harsh rearing, Hope threw a temper tantrum as they entered the timestream, separating the two by two years.
Alone for the first time in her life, Hope’s training kicked in, and she made her way to a nearby city of surviving humans to wait for Cable to find her. While there, she met a young boy named Emil Spence, who helped feed and hide Hope. Despite initially resisting him, Hope eventually befriended him, then fell in love with him. However, Bishop tracked Hope to the city and befriended Emil’s father, the commander of the city’s police force, manipulating the force to help find Hope, not mentioning he would set off a nuclear device to destroy her upon sight. For two years, Emil and Hope eluded Bishop and Emil’s father, but when Cable eventually found Hope, he forced her onto a departing spaceship, leaving Emil behind. However, two years later, Emil, his father, and Bishop used another starship to find Cable. Before Bishop could detonate his nuclear device, the parasitic Brood race attacked, seeking new hosts. During the resulting battle, Emil put Hope and Cable into the only remaining escape pods, then detonated Bishop’s nuclear device to destroy the Brood. However, Bishop survived as a prisoner of the surviving Brood.
Now 17 years old, Hope returned with Cable to Earth, where Hope decided she was ready to return to her native time and the X-Men. Before Cable could enact a plan, they were attacked by Bishop again. During the battle, Hope’s powers emerged, and Hope easily defeated Bishop. Stealing technology from Bishop’s bionic arm, Cable repaired his time travel device and leapt into the past. But the time machine’s make-shift repairs made time travel difficult and tethered Bishop to their jumps. A dogged pursuit across multiple pasts and futures followed. Eventually, Cable used Bishop’s time travel device to banish Bishop to the year 6700 AD.
Upon arriving at the X-Mansion in 1990 and finally acknowledging the father-daughter bond they shared, Cable and Hope jumped to the present era. Both the X-Men and the anti-mutant Human Council, led by the mutant-hunting Bastion, detected Cable’s arrival. Assuming Hope was with Cable, both organizations sent troops to locate her, resulting in an intense war causing numerous fatalities for the X-Men. Running from the battles, Hope was exposed to civilized society for the first time, all of which made her secretly long for normalcy. After Hope finally reached the X-Men’s artificial island sanctuary, Utopia, Bastion entrapped them with his impenetrable energy dome. He assaulted them with dozens of Nimrod Sentinels, brought from a dystopian Sentinel-ruled “Days of Future Past” reality (Earth-811 or a variant) in which Sentinels exterminated all mutants. While the X-Men battled the Nimrods, Cable and X-Force traveled to the Nimrods’ future, and ultimately destroyed the Sentinel processing plants. Cable sacrificed himself to his techno-organic virus infection to briefly maintain the time portal for X-Force’s return, apparently dying when it closed. Enraged at the defeat of his Sentinels, Bastion directly attacked but was destroyed by Hope, whose fury over Cable’s death caused her powers to manifest fully.
Hope has since journeyed to Alaska to discover her roots, learning the identity of her mother, and meeting her grandmother. Afterward, while investigating an apparent new mutant manifestation, Hope somehow jump-started the mutant’s development, and in doing so, believed she found her life’s purpose. She sought out other mutant manifestations and found others whose X-genes activated, all of which were the first mutants to emerge, other than Hope, since “M-Day”. With Cyclops’ approval, these new mutants became known as the Lights and trained as a mutant-emergence rescue team. These mutants included Laurie Tromette, AKA Transonic, Gabriel Cohuelo, AKA Velocidad, Idie Okonkwo, AKA Oya, Teon Macik, AKA Primal, and Kenji Uedo, AKA Zero. When Hope met Kenji, she experienced exhaustion after mimicking his powers but stabilized them and personality as well. After Teon’s issue of guardianship went to a trail, Kenji and Laurie talked about how all the Lights were drawn to Hope but didn’t understand it fully. When one of the Lights committed suicide over being bullied, Kenji tried to exact revenge but Logan/James Howlett, AKA Wolverine stopped him.
When Crimson Commando ambushed Hope and Laurie while shopping and kidnapped Hope, Wolverine rescued her. Hope confronted him about how he acted towards her, and he revealed his fear that he would one day have to kill her. Afterward, Hope joined Cyclops against Kuurth and had to combine her power with the rest of the X-Men to defeat Kuurth, but it was Piotr Rasputin, AKA Colossus, now with the power of the Juggernaut, who ultimately drove him off.
When the Hellfire Club attacked the X-Men on Utopia, Cyclops ordered Oya to slay them all. Shortly after that, a super Sentinel attacked, nearly destroying the island, and these events created a schism between the X-Men, particularly Wolverine and Cyclops. Hope remained on Utopia with Cyclops and forced Laurie to stay as well, though Laurie fought for Oya to be sent with Wolverine who departed the island with other mutants.
Hope developed a relationship with Gabriel, but when she discovered him kissing Megan Gwynn, AKA Pixie, it ended. She then invited Pixie to join the Lights team. She later met Martha Johansson, AKA No-Girl and added her to the ranks, as well as Sebastian Hiram Shaw, AKA Black King, whose mind had been wiped clean of his former misdeeds. Kenji then concluded that Hope had some kind of control over the Lights and needed to be killed as a solution, and put his plan into action but was slain.
While training with Cyclops, Hope manifested the Phoenix Firebird. Though the Avengers arrived and demanded to take Hope into custody. Hope escaped and later tried to make a deal with Wolverine. She planned to confront the Phoenix Force on the Moon with his help, but Wolverine summoned the Avengers who were followed by the X-Men. The Phoenix Force arrived and split itself into five pieces, entering Cyclops, Emma Frost, Illyana Rasputin, AKA Magik, Namor McKenzie, AKA Namor the Sub-Mariner, and Colossus who became the Phoenix Five, while Hope was knocked unconscious. The Phoenix Five returned to Earth with Hope to remake the world. Hope tried to accept the Phoenix back into her, but Cyclops refused. The Avengers arrived, and Hope volunteered to go with the Scarlet Witch, who took her to K’un-Lun. There, Hope learned she would be trained by Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, who shared his uncle’s sage advice that, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Cyclops interrupted, and a battle between him and the Avengers ensued, and Cyclops defeated the dragon, Shou-Lao. Hope mimicked the dragon’s flames and Scarlet Witch’s powers and sent Cyclops to the Moon. Hope argued with Scarlet Witch about having destroyed her life when she changed reality reducing the mutant population. Though Captain America and Iron Man had a plan to defeat Cyclops that required Hope and Wanda to reconcile, or at least cease fighting. Hope and Wanda worked together to hurt Cyclops, and he let go of the Phoenix Force after Jean Grey visited him in the White Hot Room–the realm of the Phoenix–and encouraged him to let go of it. Hope again became its host but removed the flames from the Dark Phoenix, thus becoming White Phoenix. Wanda helped Hope understand her purpose, and together they undid Wanda’s original spell that reduced the mutant race.
Hope attended the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning but secretly searched for her adoptive father, Cable, despite receiving a letter from him that advised against it. During her search, she came upon Namor and a sunken Utopia, and when asked about how he dealt with war in the aftermath of destroying Wakanda, his reasons left her angry. She later saw Cable outside her school window, and they said goodbye to each other.
Though she continued to search for him and made a deal with Neena Thurman, AKA Domino, to use her powers of luck to find him. Finding him in Nebraska, she mimicked his telekinesis powers to contact him. She expressed her anger towards him about why he didn’t contact her, but they quickly reconciled. Hope later joined him alongside X-Force to fight against Stryfe and Bastion though X-Force disbanded after the battle.
After Hope became comatose following a disaster in Virginia, Cable reformed X-Force. The team saved another catatonic mutant, MeMe. MeMe had electro-magnetic transference abilities so Hope mimicked her powers and impersonated her unknown to the team. She helped X-Force as a digital interface by hacking computers and gaining intel from them. It wasn’t until telepath Betsy Braddock, AKA Psylocke, realized MeMe was Hope. The truth remained a secret from Cable until Mojo revealed it to him. Cable left the team, and Hope stepped in as the team’s leader.
A band of mercenaries with cybernetic enhancements known as the Revears later captured Hope to turn her into one of them, but a time-displaced Jean Grey tracked her down to learn from her experience with the Phoenix Force. Together, they defeated the Reavers. Hope, with assistance from Rachel Summers, AKA Marvel Girl now going by Prestige, Quentin Quire, AKA Kid Omega, Colossus, and Magik, tried to help Jean understand the Phoenix Force.
Hope joined the Mutant Liberation Front with Sean Cassidy, AKA Banshee, to protect other mutants. Though she found herself up against the X-Men and shot Cyclops in his eye. She rejoined the X-Men when the Brotherhood of Mutants posed a threat to them all.
After Xavier established the mutant nation-state of Krakoa, Hope joined a group of resurrectionist mutants to bring back their fallen brethren. Hope used her abilities to amplify the others’ powers within the group, and they successfully brought back once-dead mutants. Revered on Krakoa, they became known as The Five.
