Generation Hope 13

[outlawpoet]

So, is anyone else kind of... unnerved by Hope?



So in the latest Generation Hope, things are strange. I'm not sure how they intend it to come off, but everybody on "The Lights" team seems kind of out of control. It's twisted enough that I'm not really sure of authorial intent.

They have a bit of a punch up for fun, until Zero seemingly tries to kill Magneto, by jamming flesh tentacles into his eye sockets and mouth. When Magneto defends himself, they all get mad at him. Which is... something. I guess they all expect stuff like this from Kenji? They repeat that his mutation expressing itself killed a lot of people in Japan.

Then Hope goes to meet the Cuckoos, and is really really rude to them. For laughs I guess.



Lots of people fantasize about assaulting you girls, because you suck! Or something. Hope is distracted by the mutant detector showing a mutant she isn't aware of. When the Cuckoos try to explain, she isn't interested.



She assaults one, steals their telepathy, and storms out without ever getting the explanation, because why bother? Everybody else sucks.



They teleport directly to the location of the unidentified mutant signature. Which is in a random town in Pakistan near the border. Note, she hasn't explained to them where they're going or what they're doing until after they are there. She also doesn't know if anything she's saying is correct, since the Cuckoos didn't get to explain what they obviously knew about this mutant. For added skeeviness, note Transonic again having an abrupt and bizarre turn of opinion, referencing the low level mind-control Hope has over the lights.

Then things proceed to, surprise, not go very well. Communication problems, no plan, and then sudden violence when they find out the town contains unexpected protectors.

Maybe being raised by Cable has left Hope really contemptuous of things like context and planning? Why bother when your dad can destroy everything in a five mile radius if anything goes wrong, and you never stay in a time period long enough to care about consequences, right?

Or is it just me? Its just not clear exactly why Hope has been entrusted with the well-being of these kids. She's making really questionable decisions all the time. And its not as if they're hidden, Kenji tries to kill Magneto right in front of Cyclops, and Hope tells them off in the aftermath for not "controlling their team".

Maybe I'm reading it wrong.

Comments

[batman]

I keep going back and forth but I think maybe she influenced Hellion in Legacy as well? There's a line in the issue where he beats up Omega Sentinel where he remarks that Hope touched him and he felt something change with his powers - at the time I wasn't reading Gen Hope and so thought he was just making aspersions on Hope because he doesn't like her. but now having read the series and having seen how her mind control stuff a) works on people she's touched and b) turns people into brutal soldiers for her if she wants it, makes me wonder what she did to him. Normally I'd just dismiss it, but as Carey created her I have to wonder.

[outlawpoet]

Wow, good point, and I would love to give you a No-Prize as to why Hellion has been strange lately. I guess losing his hands has been pretty traumatic, but his interactions with X-23 in particular are kind of sharply veering from their previous dynamic, which I kind of liked.

Hellion was one of my favorite characters ever, and lately... bah, I am getting weirdly nostalgic for comics from less than ten years ago.

[batman]

I take it you mean this week's X-23? I didn't mind that scene actually, given that he's demonstrating a pretty textbook severe depressive episode. He's lost his hands, been horribly injured more times than I can count, the whole getting captured and tortured in Dark Reign, the Legacy Virus - I'm not surprised that Karima's death at his hands broke his last coping mechanism given how fervently he believed in not killing. If it turns out that I'm right re: Hope's involvement that just makes it worse: he's being considered a threat and going through massive guilt over betraying his principles over something he may not have been able to control.

[long_silence]

Of course Liu has a tendency to tear down the New X-men to make X-23 look better.

[outlawpoet]

It's too bad, because so much else in the X-23 run is great.