Who the Clix? Hope Summers

Who the Clix? is a series of articles featuring information on comic book characters that have been made into figures for the popular tabletop game Heroclix. These articles are meant to help Heroclix players learn more about the characters behind their favorite pieces.

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Appearances in Heroclix: X of Swords, House of X, Deep Cuts: X-Men, Regenesis, Avengers vs. X-Men, Wolverine and the X-Men
First Appearance:  X-Men #205 (November 2007)
Team Affiliations: X-Men, The Lights, X-Force, Quiet Council of Krakoa
Powers/Abilities: Superpower manipulation: Power mimicry; Power activation; Power enhancement
Created by: Mike Carey - Chris Bachalo

Hope is the very first mutant born after the Decimation which places an unreasonable amount of importance on her. Some groups want to kill her to make sure the mutant race remains stunted, others want to protect her as a symbol of hope and yet others want to corrupt her for their own nefarious means. Because of the low amount of mutants on the planet and her unique powers, Cerebro explodes when it first locates her.

Nimrod directs the Purifiers to Hope's town, planning to kill her before she can be found by other mutants. Although the genetic terrorists kill all the other young children, Cable is able to find Hope and rescue her. Cable believes that Hope is a mutant messiah, destined to save mutant and humans alike. The Purifiers, along with Bishop, believe that Hope will become a great evil and kill a million humans in a moment. This event, called the Six Second War, is the event that leaves to Bishop's dark timeline.

The Marauders are able to kidnap Hope and deliver her to Mystique, disguised as Mr. Sinister. Mystique attempts to use Hope to wake Rogue from a coma. Gambit rescues Hope and is shocked to find the baby and Rogue are both awake and healthy. As the battle between all the forces after Hope begins to rip Utopia apart, Cyclops decides to give Hope to Cable so that the telepath can take her into the future where she'll be safe. Unfortunately, Bishop is able to track the pair and follows them into the future, determined to prevent his dark timeline from happening.

In their first future clash, Cable's time travel device is damaged. He can only jump further into the future, never back into the past. After several jumps forward, Cable settles in the haven of New Liberty and finds a woman named Hope who acts as a surrogate mother to the young (as yet) unnamed baby. The couple raise the young girl in relative peace until she is seven years old. That year, New Liberty is attacked by an army that seems determined to capture Cable and the baby. The family escape into the wastelands, to hopefully draw attention away from New Liberty. There they battle a group of highly intelligent insects, the president of whom is incapacitated by young Hope.

Cable questions the insect and learns that Bishop has gone mad in his hunt for them. Bishop has decimated every continent on the planet except North America, hoping to box Cable and Hope in so that he can kill them. Cable kills the insect and they move on, trying to find a new safe haven. Unfortunately, the elder Hope is soon killed, leaving Cable and the young girl alone. Cable decides to name the child Hope Summers, after her adoptive mother.

Cable and Hope are eventually able to return to the present through the machinations of Stryfe and Bishop, working together. Hope begins to bond with Elixir and X-23 which leads to an argument between her and Cable. She kicks Cable mid time jump and the pair are separated. Cable ends up returning to Hope two years later, with her now eleven years old.

Hope continues to grow in her power and begins to form a bond with the Phoenix Force that causes fear in some of the X-Men. During an intense battle with Bastion, Nightcrawler sacrifices himself to save her life, believing that she is important to mutantkind's future. Soon after this series of battles, Cerebro locates five new mutants that have all manifested around the globe at the same time. As these are the first new mutants since Hope, she is tasked with finding the “Five Lights,” and becomes a leader to all of them.

Hope and the Lights all return to Utopia and work together to better understand and control their powers. At this time, with her small group of fellow “new” mutants, Hope begins to push back against the old paradigms present in the mutant culture. She rejects the notion of Xavier's “School for Gifted Youngsters,” believing that it reinforces the notion of homo-superiority as much as anything Magneto ever did. She grows more restless and, in the middle of one of Emma's classes, decides to simply leave with the Lights and find their own way in the world.

The Lights first challenge is a sixth Light in Germany. This is a fetus whose vast telepathic powers have manifested. As it became self-aware, it grew afraid of being born and began to suppress the will of all those around it. By working together, the Lights are able to convince it to let go and accept its future. Once it is born, Hope suppresses its power until it is older and better able to control it. The Lights are again tested when the parents of one of them, Teon aka Primal, sues for custody. Though Teon wins the right to stay on Utopia with Hope, two of the other Lights are questioning how much free will they really have while Hope is around.

When X-Man returns to Utopia, there is initially friction between him and Hope. Eventually, however, she offers to help train him in hand to hand combat she had learned from Cable. Soon after the Serpent calls the Worthy to his cause, Hope is among the plan to stop the Juggernaut, newly empowered as Kuurth. She strains herself by calling on all the mutants' powers to remove his helmet, only for the Serpent's blessing to still protect his mind from telepathy. Kuurth continues to march on Utopia.

A new Hellfire Club attacks Hope and the X-Men, leading to a terrible event. Cyclops orders Oya to do what she thought was necessary, which translated to murdering the Hellfire Club soldiers. When Hope arrives, she is enraged but soon discovers that the Lights behave differently when she's not around. Zero asks Oya if she is okay and Oya simply asks if there's anyone else she needs to kill. After Oya leaves with Wolverine, the Lights find another light that turns out to be an amnesiac Sebastian Shaw. The stress of this and building No-Girl a new body is too much for Zero who tries to rebel and kill Hope. No-Girl kills Zero to protect Hope and destroys her new body in the process, though her mind still survives somehow.

Cable returns and is almost completely consumed by the TO-Virus, which is driving him to kill the Avengers to protect Hope. Hope and Cyclops are able to intervene before Cable finishes the job and Hope is able to burn the TO-Virus out of Cable. Once he recovers he confirms to Cyclops that Hope is an aspect of the Phoenix. Cable's worry soon comes to pass as the full Phoenix Force heads towards Earth in order to possess Hope. The Avengers want to contain Hope in their custody while the X-Men want her to use its power to reignite the mutant race. Wolverine confronts Hope, who is already showing the power of the Phoenix. She makes a deal with Wolverine: allow her to try and contain the power of the Phoenix. If it corrupts her, she'll let him kill her. Wolverine betrays Hope by informing the Avengers of her plan.

Tony Stark attempts to build a Phoenixbuster to dissipate the Phoenix Force. However, as the other Avengers confront the X-Men, and Hope, on the Blue Area of the moon, the splintered Phoenix Force goes into Cyclops, Magik, Namor, Emma Frost and Colossus. The PhoeniX-Men take Hope back to Earth and intend on healing her. However, the Avengers manage to secret her away with the help of the Scarlet Witch. Hope travels to K'un-Lun to learn from Iron Fist how to contain and control the Phoenix energy. She also learns of Spider-Man's belief that with great power comes great responsibility. These studies prepare Hope for the final battle when Cyclops absorbs the full Phoenix Force, becoming a Dark Phoenix and killing Professor X. Hope is able to draw the Phoenix Force to her and becomes a White Phoenix. Just as the power seems ready to consume her, she remembers the words of Spider-Man. She uses the Phoenix Force to reignite the mutant race and empower a number of powerless mutants. Once this is done, she is also able to give up the remainder of the Phoenix Force, releasing it back into the universe. Hope then attempts a normal life, enrolling in public school and reconnecting with Cable who takes on the role of a guardian angel.

Hope and Cable are both infected by a strange virus, leaving Hope in a coma. Through a series of incredibly strange circumstances, Hope is able to convince a god like Fantomex to attack X-Force, copy his powers to heal herself, defeat Fantomex and then take charge of X-Force. Her first act as leader of X-Force is to fire Cable for leading the team down a bad path.

Hope is a key component of the Five, the team that resurrects dead mutants on the mutant nation of Krakoa. Due to her ability to copy and enhance powers, she asks as a stabilizing element during the sensitive process of resurrection.

Recommended Reading:

• Uncanny X-Men by Kieron Gillen: The Complete Collection Vol. 2
• Uncanny X-Men: The Birth of Generation Hope
• Avengers vs. X-Men Collection