X-Men Forever #4: "No Hope"

[alliterator]

"This is a book of big ideas, and it would be easy to get lost in the big ideas. What I think will ground it is that it's very personal. It's about what people are willing to do to save the world. That's the heart of superheroism, this idea of what are you willing to do? It becomes an increasingly hard question."
-- Kieron Gillen


In order to stop the Phoenix from being reborn, Enigma has gone back in time to alter Hope's birth...and make himself the father.

Comments

[cainofdreaming]

So, Space Chicken has now only existed since Hope was born? How does that work?

[donnblake]

Or it's always existed, but it only started having always existed now?

[alan2099]

Kind of like how Jean was always Phoenix even before Jean was Phoenix?

[cainofdreaming]

Eh, the Infinity Being didn't kill itself within the first couple of minutes of existence so I doubt it.

[bruinsfan]

From what we saw in Defenders Beyond, I'd say that the plane the Phoenix exists upon is a sort of eternal now above/outside the timestreams of the universe, the multiverse, and the prior multiverses (which seem to be sequential to one another). Stuff can happen there, but it always happened/was going to happen.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Space is warped and time is bendable?

[blues32]

Oh boy, time for another star or two to be consumed.

[icon_uk]

I think the universe can spare a couple.

It was only because the D'Bari homeworld orbited the random star dark Phoenix chose that being a heliovore got a bad rep.

[scorntx]

Quick, try to look as unappetising as possible!

[starwolf_oakley]

This is leading to "The D'Bari somehow deserved it. And that one Shi'ar ship as well."

[remial]

well, yeah, of COURSE the Shi'ar deserved it. only beings in the multiverse worse than Charles

[onsokumaru]

Wouldn't be a true X-Men story if they didn't kill some young mutant to prop up the Not New, Not Different.

[deh_tommy]

Wait, who’s dead? Is Hope dead?

[alliterator]

Hope dies in the process of killing the Phoenix...and then her body burns up and the Phoenix is reborn from the flames.

[akodo_rokku]

To be fair, messiahs ARE known for their deaths.

And this is the X-Men, nobody stays dead for that long, doubly so if they're tied to the Phoenix. Considering Hope's been entwined with the Phoenix since her first appearance as an infant, I think this is pretty cool and well done.

[super_fly]

"That will not be necessary."

But it couldn't hurt right

[scorntx]

Well, as far as explanations for Hope's parentage go, that was... probably what should've been expected.
(Was some tension in the suggestion Enigma would've been the bio-dad because going by the rest of his X-Men stuff there was every possibility Gillen would have done that...
Couldn't just have Hope's parents be two completely ordinary people.)

Kudos to Gillen, he almost made me feel something for Hope there.
...
Fortunately, such moments pass quickly.