The many 'Hope's of Marvel

[rallamajoop]

Poking back through a couple of very old issues from Cable's first solo series, I ran into an interesting little oddity I thought I'd share with the comm.

We all know Hope Summers, now teenaged, destined for Messiah-hood, finally back in the present day X-Men comics. And most of us have probably heard that the 'official' reason for her getting that embarrassingly significant name was in honour of another Hope Summers, namely Cable's short-lived second wife (why no-one ever gave the poor girl a name before her adoptive mother's death I still don't know). Hey, it's not like a character being introduced entirely to be the hero's disposable love interest is anything new in comics.

So I was pretty surprised when, back in those old Cable issues, I ran into an established character from his future-clan by the name of Hope, who existed way back as far as the nineties. This is her:




(Yeah, I know – a combat bikini and all the pouches you can eat. Look, it was the nineties.)

Given that the rest of the clan had a habit of taking on names like 'Dayspring', 'Dawnsilk' and 'Tetherblood', 'Hope' actually sounds comparatively normal. The sum total of her appearances seem to be issues #1 and #2, but we do learn she's the sister of Cable's first wife, Jenskot (not quite sure what the story there is, as she's very black and Jenskot was very white, though they could always be adoptive or half-sisters), and doesn't seem too fond of him, since she holds him responsible for her sister's death. On the other hand, it's not too hard to picture her having a bit of a thing for him herself, if her reaction to him leaving is anything to go by.





So far, this actually seemed to be adding up. I knew Cable took Hope to the future to raise her, so it made plenty of sense he might've hooked up with his old clan, and, knowing he'd be there a while and probably feeling a bit lonely, married an old friend. Reviving an old character like that wouldn't have been half a bad excuse to get her that name, even if said character was too obscure for 99% of the audience to recognise.

However, all I actually knew about the first Hope Summers to this point came from discussion around the web, so imagine my surprise when I found a picture of the 'Hope' who'd appeared in Cable's recent comics, and she looked like this:





Ooo-kay. Not expecting that. What did they, just not bother to look for an actual picture of the character they were re-introducing?

Having finally tracked down and read the recent Cable issues in question, there doesn't seem to have ever been any intentional connection between the new Hope and the old one. The Hope Cable marries actually comes from a time period some years before the era his clan came from, and they'd never met before the whole Messiah thing sent him timehopping again.

So it seems all this was never a continuity nod so much as a really weird coincidence. (For bonus weird, the new Hope actually could've passed for Jenskot's sister quite convincingly.)

Kind of a shame, really. The original Hope gave the impression she would've been capable enough to give herself a better life expectancy than the one we got - inasmuch as any woman married to Cable has has much hope of that.

Tags: char: cable/nathan summers
char: hope summers

Comments

[kaileighblue]

I think that's part of the reason I hate names like Hope. Especially when it's used in a work of fiction. It's always the writer thinking they're being cute/smart. See Gabrielle's kid from Xena


Forget Hope or Joy my kid will be Dues ex Machina.

Doctor Dues ex Machina Maximilian. Doctor is his first name.

[rallamajoop]

If he grows up to be a supervillain, you will have no-one to blame but yourself. =P

Having finally read the issues in question, even saddling the poor kid with the name 'Hope' doesn't really compare with her being given her own mother's name right after seeing her mother brutally gunned down right in front of her eyes. What's that tell a kid, you're going the same way? Your mother was inherently replaceable? Yeesh.

[shadowpsykie]

MY thoughts exactly (on the whole supervillan thing:)

[kaileighblue]

If he grows up to be a supervillain, you will have no-one to blame but yourself. =P

As long as he loves his mother.

Yeah naming them after someone close is another thing that annoys me in fiction. Might as well have named her Jean and got it over with.

Goddamn JK Rowling. Albus Severus? Really?

[ravenous_raven]

Yeah naming them after someone close is another thing that annoys me in fiction.

People still do that in the real world, don't they? Not that I think that's any more creative either, but that's just me.

[kamino_neko]

I'm named for my grandfather, who died shortly before my parents were married.

So, yes, they do still do that. (And I'm a touch annoyed by it being treated as some horrible crime.)

[ravenous_raven]

I apologize. I don't think it's something terrible, I guess I'm just a tad superstitious about names having meaning and identity. New name, new identity, instead of having an old identity given to a new person, that's my way of thinking. I also think that in literature, where characters are controlled by the author, character 2 named after character 1 might run the risk of becoming a mini version of character 2 and therefore dilute the potential uniqueness of a new character.

But that's only my opinion.

[kamino_neko]

Responding in reverse order, as my thoughts on real people are a little more in depth than fictional...

I also think that in literature, where characters are controlled by the author, character 2 named after character 1 might run the risk of becoming a mini version of character 2 and therefore dilute the potential uniqueness of a new character.

A valid concern sometimes, though it depends on a whole lot of factors - the author, the characters, the reason for the name, etc. But, in this case, it's always seemed pretty obvious to me that Hope the Elder was given that name only to justify the name they were going to give to Hope the Younger. (Well, at least from the point of her death, on - I didn't see them naming the kid Hope until then.)

I don't think it's something terrible, I guess I'm just a tad superstitious about names having meaning and identity.

I come at it from the opposite POV - a more existentialist perspective. A person creates their own identity, themselves, by living. My name tells me where I come from, not who I am.

Following the path set out by one's namesake is a perfectly valid path, of course, but simply sharing the name doesn't, in my opinion, or my experience, really effect whether one will choose that path or not.

[ravenous_raven]

Yes, the handling of naming Hope seems to be more than a little awkward. However, it's a name that isn't completely rare, so it still sounds somewhat natural.


That's an interesting take on namesakes. I seem to apply that idea to other things, but not names.

[v_various]

I tell my friends, if I have a kid I'm naming it Hawkman. Boy, OR girl, doesn't matter. Unless I marry a guy named Hawkman, then I'm naming them Hawkman jr.

Followed by "and that is why I should never have kids".

[icon_uk]

no-one ever gave the poor girl a name before her adoptive mother's death I still don't know

Family tradition, it took them literally YEARS to reveal what Scott and Maddy's little boy was called, to the extent it became almost a running joke.

[rallamajoop]

He made up for it in the long run though - how many names does he have now, Nathan Charles Christoper Dayspring Askani'son Summers? And that's not even counting 'Cable', 'Soldier X' or 'Priscilla'. ;)

Given that I know Cable was introduced as a character well before it was decided that he and Scott's kid were one and the same, I always did wonder whether the first time people started calling him Nathan was a sign of things to come, or just another unlikely coincidence.

[halloweenjack]

Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Grace Jones!

[sianmink]

[brandiweed.livejournal.com]

That is a truly great picture of Ms. Jones.

[greenmask]

All hail.

[icon_uk]

Oh, and there is another Hope, Esperanza Ling known almost universally as "Hope" was a regular in the short lived M-Tech "Warlock" series.

[halialkers]

So are there anyone named Faith and Charity, too? XP.