Characters / Generation Hope

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The Lights

Hope Summers

Hope Summers

Nationality: American, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Men #205 (November 2007)

'"I know why you're scared. You think the Phoenix is either going to kill me or drive me crazy. Or maybe both. Just like it did Jean. But I'm not your dead wife, Scott. That's not my story. The Phoenix is coming. I know that. And I'm not afraid. I want it to come. I'm ready."

Hope Summers, Avengers vs. X-Men #0

Hope Summers (birth name: Spalding, given name unknown) is the first mutant to be born after the events of the "House of M" and "Decimation" storylines, in which the Scarlet Witch used her reality-altering superpower to turn all but 198 of the world's mutants into regular, depowered humans. Her biological mother is Captain Louise Spalding, an Alaskan firefighter.

Not too long after her birth, the anti-mutant organization Purifiers attacked her hometown in Coopertown, with the goal of killing Louise Spalding's baby daughter. Although Purifiers killed Louise along with all other children in the town, Cable manages to save Louise's baby. Cable and the X-Men believe the baby to be a Messianic figure destined to save both mutant and humankind. Meanwhile, Bishop believes she's the one responsible for the Bad Future he hailed from and seeks to kill her. Cable, with the blessing of the X-Men, is forced to take the baby into the future to raise her, promising to return once the child is ready to fulfill her destiny. However, Cable's time-travelling device is damaged and the two end up in terrible future after terrible future, which the child, later named Hope (after Cable's second wife and the child's own adoptive mother), is forced to grow up in — All while Bishop chases after them. Eventually, a teenage Hope decides she's ready to return to the modern era. Upon her return, she is still hunted, and Cable is killed as a result.

Hope would form her own team, formed from the new mutants who emerged after her return. Said team would split after the X-Men's Schism, and she would remain with her grandfather, Cyclops. The Phoenix Force would return to Earth, and after a war between the Avengers and X-Men, Hope would use the Phoenix to restore the mutant race. Afterwards, she decided to live the life of a normal teenager, but that didn't take, and she found herself caught in her father's adventures once again, much to her delight.

With the founding of the mutant nation of Krakoa, Hope once more became a messianic figure among mutantkind as a member of the Five alongside Elixir, Proteus, Egg, and Tempus. Using her mutant abilities to enhance and synch together the powers of the Five, Hope stabilized the resurrection process used to return previously dead mutants back to life.

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• Action Girl: Let's see, she's been trained in the arts of survival and war since she was a child by one of Marvel's most iconic anti-heroes. She also carries a BFG. As Teen Jean puts it, faintly impressed, Hope is "kind of hardcore."
• All Your Powers Combined: She seems to be able to copy the powers of any and every mutant in the vicinity at once. Most of the time in a fight she just copies Cable's power of "shooting a really big gun", which usually works. However, as of X-Men (2019), she's the most crucial part of 'The Five', who serve as Krakoa's resurrection engine, as her power allows her to best link and stabilize the others.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: Marvel copied a lot of concepts for her character (her Power Copying ability, membership in a Tangled Family Tree, and predilection for heroics) from Peter Petrelli of Heroes fame, though personality-wise the two characters are different enough to make her more than just Peter's expy.
• Anti-Hero: Blunt and abrasive a lot of the time, and not always very kind to (though very protective of) the Lights when she's their team leader, she's definitely this trope - but, like her father and grandfather, she is fundamentally a hero. That said, there's a reason why more than one person remarks, "This is why we shouldn't let Cable raise children."
• Badass Family: Not just her adoptive family, but her now-deceased biological mom was a Badass Normal firefighter captain.
• Berserk Button: Downplayed, but comparing her to Jean is a very good way to irritate her. Understandable, though, given she's heard it far too often.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She really, really would just love to try to be a normal girl. But don't try to hurt her Lights. Ever.
• BFG: Just like her adoptive father, she likes wielding and using these. Some of them are about the same size that she is.
• Break the Cutie: Her entire childhood has pretty much been one long list of people trying to do this to her. The fact that it hasn't succeeded says a lot about her character.
• Crazy-Prepared: When she decides to go to Alaska to figure out what happened to her mother, she packs enough supplies and weaponry for a small army—and then has to be told that it’s not really necessary. Justified by the fact that she grew up in a Crapsack World that was long, long After the End, while being hunted by an Ax-Crazy ex-hero. Did we mention she was raised by one of the Marvel Universe’s consummate soldiers and survivors?
• The Cynic: Spending your childhood being chased being people who want to kill you horribly will leave you with a mess of issues. Being raised by Cable does not help. Despite this, she wants to do good... just in an incredibly angry way.
• Daddy's Girl: Cable's not her biological father, but it makes exactly zero difference to her.
• Dead Girl Junior: She's named after her deceased adoptive mom.
• Disappeared Dad:
  • Her biological father, whoever he is. Nothing is known about the guy.
  • Cable, during a temporary period of being dead again.
• Expy: The editors and staff at Marvel played her up as one of these for Jean Grey from practically Day One, even putting the Phoenix effect around her in promos (though nowhere in-story). The reception was... mixed.
  • Said reception has improved after Avengers vs X-Men, when she got the chance to develop as a character in her own right, and the resemblance to Jean Grey was mostly Played for Laughs when the two met.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": A Running Gag in Immortal X-Men is Exodus referring to her as the Messiah and Hope telling him to cut it out.
• Et Tu, Brute?: She is tremendously pissed when she learns what the Exodus of the Sins of Sinister timeline did to her.
• Face–Heel Turn: Went through a brief turn of this in Uncanny X-Men (2018) where she was depicted as the new leader of the Mutant Liberation Front. When Jonathan Hickman took over the title the reset button was pushed hard on this and now everybody acts like it never happened.
• Fiery Redhead: As part of her resemblance to Jean Grey, and she's also extremely hot-tempered.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Has some trouble adjusting to a time frame that isn't a Bad Future and Crapsack World.
• Girlish Pigtails: Her hairstyle when she was a little girl.
• Good Is Not Nice: Well, what do you expect from someone raised by Cable?
• Laser Guided Tyke Bomb: Sort of, and sort of subverted; Cable raises her and protects her for the explicit purpose of saving the mutant race, but he doesn't really know how she's going to do this so he can't teach her anything directly related to that task, instead opting to teach her how to survive.
• The Leader: Besides leading Generation Hope, after the team dissolved and Krakoa was founded, she has become the de facto face and leader of The Five.
• Little Miss Badass: She's already well-trained, though she's still a teenage girl.
• Little Miss Snarker: She is considerably very snarky and outspoken - then again, she is a teenager.
• Long-Lost Relative: For her maternal grandmother (Louise Spalding's mother). Hope doesn't tell Mrs. Spalding that she's her granddaughter when she visited her, however.
• Macguffin Girl: When she was born. The X-Men wanted to protect her because she was the first Mutant born since M-Day, the Purifiers wanted to kill her, the Acolytes wanted her to be their messiah, Sinister wanted her for experimentation, Mystique wanted her for her own purposes, and Bishop wanted to kill her for causing his Bad Future. Cable eventually had to tell Cyclops this was why he was taking her to the future; Everyone had an agenda for her, and there was no safe way to raise her with that going on.
• Meaningful Name: story-wise, she was named after another deceased Hope, who was Cable's wife for a time and acted as a mother-figure for the younger Hope. As an apparent messianic figure for mutants, she's aware of how painfully on the nose her name is.
• Messianic Archetype: Though not an All-Loving Hero, personality-wise - being raised by Cable doesn't do wonders for an idealistic mindset. Nevertheless, she's persistent enough at this that Nate Grey, arguably the original Mutant Messiah ^note  Cable's destiny was messianic, but he didn't really act that way until his 'Savior Cable' phase, after Nate had gone full Messiah, and even that was part Genghis Gambit expressed unflinching faith in her. Even on his return and very intentional invocation of Jesus imagery, in his created world, the Age of X-Man, she was the (admittedly posthumous) messiah, not him.
• Meta Power: She has the power to copy any mutant ability, even multiple sources simultaneously, can stabilize mutant Power Incontinence by touch and amplify the abilities of nearby mutants. She's described as a "voodoo doll of the entire mutant race". Hickman's X-Men lists her power as "Omega Level Power Manipulation".
• Missing Mom: Not just her biological mom, but also her adoptive mom, Hope Summers, Sr.◊.
• Most Common Superpower: Usually Subverted, by comic book standards at least. That said, she looks rather more well-developed than most girls in their teens would be.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Is the only person on the Quiet Council to openly show any sign of being appalled at what they became in the Red Diamond timeline. Storm takes this as a positive sign.
• Naïve Newcomer:
  • After a childhood travelling through increasingly desolate futurescapes, she's ecstatic on arriving in in the consumerist paradise of the 21st century.
  • Happens again in Immortal X-Men when Exodus persuades her to take a seat on the Quiet Council. While Hope agrees to give the Five a voice on that group, being a politician is not something Cable trained her for, and before she even officially takes her seat she's unwittingly instigated a crisis.
• Not So Above It All: During the events of King in Black, she insisted she and the Five stay at their post rather than use their powers to help fight Knull (because otherwise the story would've been over much quicker). However, she was not averse to a little post-victory rave.
• Odd Friendship: With Nate Grey, despite the Tangled Family Tree aspects (he's the young alternate counterpart of her father, as well as being his half-brother, genetically speaking). She helps him adjust to going from a psychic Physical God to little more than spoon-bending, teaching him some of the things that Cable taught her to survive and fight without powers. In turn, he offers her a friendly ear and as an ex-Mutant Messiah in his own right, advice and the invaluable confidence booster of his support and faith in her. Notably, this endures into Age of X-Man - in his constructed world, he's not the Mutant Messiah, she is (albeit posthumously).
• The Phoenix: Hope has demonstrated a flaming energy aura like the Phoenix raptor several times, even as early as five months old. These manifestations could suggest she is a potential avatar for the Phoenix. After Cable's return from the future and being consumed by the techno-organic virus, Hope absorbed the virus and used the Phoenix flames to destroy the virus and cure Cable. Cable then told Cyclops that Hope was the Phoenix. Scarlet Witch also said that Hope is a part of Phoenix. Then Hope became the White Phoenix, undid the damage of the Dark Phoenix and showed what was special about her - she was able to let it go.
• Physical God: At the top of her potential power-level, which varies based on which mutants are around her. As the Phoenix, she goes even higher.
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Sort of. In terms of the present, she goes from a child to a young adult in a very short amount of time, thanks to time travel. However, the Cable series covered her travels in the future with Cable, showing her growing up.
• Power Copying: One of her main abilities.
• Redhead in Green: Her main costume in X-Men is green-colored.
• Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: She has red hair and green eyes.
• Slut-Shaming: Sort of did this to Emma Frost, who didn't take it well◊.
• Spanner in the Works: Sinister's plan for Krakoa had been secretly implanting every resurectee with a dash of his personality. He got confused and frustrated until he finally worked out Hope had been scuppering this without even knowing. So he adjusted his plan so that killing Hope was Part 1 of the plan.
• Stop Worshipping Me: Immortal X-Men shows Hope is rather annoyed at the reverence the other mutants show her, especially Exodus. She takes Exodus' devotion in more stride by the second issue, though she still inwardly thinks he's nuts.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Despite the uncanny resemblance with her adoptive (step-)grandmother Jean Grey, she actually takes her appearance from her biological mom◊.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: She looks like a teenaged Jean, wears the same colours as she had, and displays similar Phoenix-like powers.
• Tangled Family Tree: Even she lampshades the infamous Summers Family Tree while talking to Nate Grey.
  "[Scott]'s your father like he's my grandfather, which makes you my — The family dynamic is too insane to even think about."
• Upbringing Makes the Hero: A Mutant with the power of every other Mutant, with a connection to the Phoenix? Cable took her to the future to make sure she was brought up properly. The future where she wasn't? Bishop's timeline, where apparently Hope eventually turned evil and killed millions of people in a matter of minutes.
• Use Your Head:
  • Anaconda (Blanche Sitznski) of Serpent Society has to learn the hard way that Hope is◊ very hard-headed◊, no pun intended.
  • Scarlet Witch suffers the same misfortune as well.
  • Crimson Commando also receives a headbutt from a tied-up Hope.
• We Have Become Complacent: Thinks this about herself early on in Immortal X-Men, when Selene sets an undead kaiju on Krakoa. Hope chides herself for not having a gun on her person, thinking all the time on Krakoa's making her go soft.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • She does not approve of the way Cyclops runs the team.
  • She also rips into Wanda Maximoff for M-Day.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Even though he has stopped trying to do so and it has otherwise been allowed to gently fade into memory, she is still terrified of Bishop, on account of him spending years hunting her through time to kill her.

Oya

Idie Okonkwo / Oya

Nationality: Nigerian

Species: Human mutant

Debut: Uncanny X-Men #528 (November, 2010)

One of five new mutants who appeared after the return of Hope Summers. Idie was rescued by Hope and Storm from a militia but had difficulty adjusting to her new status as a mutant, viewing herself as an abomination in God's eyes. Despite this, she still worked with Hope's Five Lights team until being sent to join Wolverine's school, where she struck up an unlikely friendship with Quentin Quire and Broo.

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• Boomerang Bigot: Believed that mutants were monsters who were damned because they were different. However, she eventually grows out of that mindset.
• Burn the Witch!: The survivors of her village and a militia attempted to burn her under the belief that she was a witch when her powers manifested. She is somewhat disappointed that they didn't succeed.
  Oya: I can't burn in this world. I'll burn in the next.
• Crisis of Faith: After she grew out of her self-hatred, Oya's faith in God wavered due to how much hate was spread in his name.
  Oya: I don't hate myself anymore. Not most days. But I don't know how much of you to keep. Can I hold on to the loving God who taught me how to be good and pretend the vengeful jerk doesn't exist?
• Elemental Powers: Possesses both pyrokinesis and cryokinesis. Her powers work by altering the temperature, so she needs something cold to make fire and something hot to make ice.
• Fire/Ice Duo: She showed Iceman that she can control both ice and fire. He tends to be a bit jealous of her abilities.
• The Fundamentalist: Due to her highly religious upbringing, especially when first introduced. Upon finding out that Kitty and Colossus are sleeping together without being married she declares her an immoral woman who should not be put in charge of children. Oya becomes less fundamental in her beliefs over time, but her beliefs are still quite central to her character.
• I Am a Monster: She says this a lot, having lived in a very conservative village in Africa before the X-Men found her. She was raised to believe that all mutants are abominations in the eyes of God. This is also why she can be lethally ruthless in battle. She figures she's a monster and damned already, so she can't make anything worse by acting the part.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Her reasoning to justify killing several members of the Hellfire Club.
• Knight in Sour Armor: She turns very jaded and considers herself as the "monster" due to her powers, but she is a good person who fights for what's right and learns to control her powers.
• The Mole: She joined the Hellfire Academy in order to find out who shot Broo in the head, which left him in a coma and feral for several months after he came out of it.
• Odd Friendship: With Quentin, whose rebellious ways don't exactly mix well with Idie's religious nature.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Spends much of the fight against the Blob yelling at God. While also trying to protect Notre Dame from being accidentally destroyed during the fight.

Primal

Teon Macik / Primal

Nationality: Ukrainian

Species: Human mutant

Debut: Uncanny X-Men #529 (December, 2010)

Another of the five Lights, Primal's mutant ability gave him an animalistic mind that gave him hyper-instincts to mentally adapt to whatever situation he found himself hin.

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• Adaptive Ability: Has hyper-instincts that lead him to intuitively adapt and survive to current conditions. Left with a stocked fridge and he'll eat enough to survive and even remain in optimal physical condition. Put him on the stand to testify his case and he'll become eloquent enough to form a winning argument.
• Let's You and Him Fight: He attacked Hope on-sight until he was tamed by her.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: He is constantly trying to "mate" with any young female he sees.
• Primal Stance: He moves on all fours and has a hunched posture.
• Psychic Block Defense: His animalistic mind provides natural psychic shields against telepathic invasion and mind-related attacks.
• Super-Senses: He has superhuman olfactory, visual, and auditory senses.
• Undying Loyalty: To Hope Summers, as she essentially becomes his "alpha".

Velocidad

Gabriel Cohuelo / Velocidad

Nationality: Mexican

Species: Human mutant

Debut: Uncanny X-Men #527 (October, 2010)

"Because let's be honest...When we look this good, how can we fail?"

Another of the five Lights, Gabriel grew up in Mexico City with rich parents. After his powers stabilized he joined the X-Men, but his initial enthusiasm was tampered by the realizations that using his powers made him age faster.

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• Blessed with Suck: His time manipulation ability slows time down around him, but he isn't affected. Using his power for several minutes ages him by a few days.
• Mercy Kill: After he is captured and forced to use his power for O*N*E's benefit, Wolverine and the X-Men find him aged and merged with Warlock. He begs for Wolverine to kill him due to the agony, which he does.
• Rapid Aging: Using his ability makes him age quicker, and after just a few months of being a mutant he discovered he had started to grow grey hairs.
• Super-Speed: He was originally thought to have this ability, but it was revealed this was actually the result of latent time manipulation; when he "runs", he actually slows down time to make it appear he is merely moving very fast.

Transonic

Laurie Tromette / Transonic

Nationality: Canadian

Species: Human mutant

Debut: Uncanny X-Men #526 (September, 2010)

One of the five Lights, Laurie was a teenager in Vancouver preparing for college when her mutant powers manifested.

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• Adaptive Ability: Speculation inside and out has this as her real power rather then just being a Travel Transformation.
• Bookworm: She is highly studious and keeps a very scheduled study planner to keep up her education after becoming an X-Man. She gets along very well with Prodigy due to this, as they are two of the few teenage mutants who take their studies seriously.
• Demoted to Extra: After the Lights disbanded, Laurie has mostly become a background character in the X-Men books, although she was a supporting character in a few Young Avengers issues.
• Driven to Suicide: Attempted to do this to end the pain her mutation was causing her. If Hope Summers hadn't arrived, she would've succeeded.
• Flight: Her mutant abilities allow her to fly at supersonic speeds with Travel Transformation helping her achieve it even faster.
• I Owe You My Life: She felt this way towards Hope Summers after the girl's powers stabilized her mutations, allowing her to become a full-fledged mutant.
• Painful Transformation: Her transformation into a mutant HURT. She started losing hair; her bones constantly shifted; and her skin turned blue, hard, and cold. She was in constant pain to the point of trying to kill herself to end it all.
• Organic Bra: She's essentially naked. With her mutant power covering her naughty bits.
• Ms. Fanservice: She provides Most Common Super Power for the team.
• Travel Transformation: A major part of her power at one point she keeps up with the Blackbird get and morphs into something like a serpent with the profile of a stealth bomber.
• Undying Loyalty: To Hope Summers, though this wavered somewhat during the events of the Schism storyline.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: The extent to which she can change her body is unclear, but she has been able to shift into a form that resembles are large flying fish.

Zero

Kenji Uedo / Zero

Nationality: Japanese

Species: Human mutant

Debut: Generation Hope #1 (November, 2010)

Zero is one of the Five Lights, five new mutants to emerge since the return of Hope Summers. He is a techno-organic body sculptor, as well as a world-renowned artist.

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• Expy: He’s one to Tetsuo Shima from AKIRA except instead of being the result of experimentation his powers come from being a mutant.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: Can weaponize his own Body Horror to a variety of effects.
• Puppeteer Parasite: Does this to almost everyone on Utopia in the climax of Generation Hope.
• The Starscream: He had designs to not only usurp Hope but all of Utopia.

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