X-men – Messiah War

I’m not entirely sure why I decided to read the Messiah War storyline – I think perhaps it was because I saw Hope in a glimpse at the Avengers Vs X-men comics (a gimmick no fan can quite resist, no matter how much they might roll their eyes), and thought I needed more context. There are a lot of mutants, even with the much-reduced post-decimation roster, that I don’t recognize here either, though – Pixie, Elixir and Vanisher sent me back to Wikipedia, and (the cameo from) Peepers made me remember a long-forgotten silly character, may he rest in peace.

Messiah War covers a major event in the wake of The Scarlet Witch very nearly depowering every mutant in her Marvel universe. Only a handful remained – though predictably just about all the established favourites either stayed mutants or regained their powers through twisted plot contrivances. Anyway, after a long period of searching, the X-men finally see what they had hoped for on Cerebro – the light of a new mutant life. Indeed, Hope’s birth causes the whole machine to shut down. Unfortunately, other factions also knew of her birth, and from the start Hope is both a symbol and a threat. After much carnage, it is Cable who saves her, and eventually he feels forced to take her into the future to keep her safe. However, she is anything but safe as Bishop chases him, determined to kill her, and besides, the future is full of numerous other threats, from cockroach people to a Stryfe risen to dominance. Marvel’s rather confusing view of timelines involves a definite confirmation of multiple possible futures, with time travellers coming from them, but one master timeline, so that when a character goes back and changes something, his future then no longer exists. Thus Bishop is determined to prevent his from coming to pass.

Young Hope gets to spend a fairly pleasant early childhood with a surrogate mother (from whom she gets her name) in a community hidden from the world, then learns survival and combat skills as a child frequently in a lot of danger, spends two years fending for herself in a dystopian city (and finding a taste of love), comes very close to death in an X-Force side-story that I have to say I enjoyed mostly for Apocalyse, then grows to young adulthood in a capsule, Lion-O stylee. As soon as she is back in the present, it’s very clear that the modern X-Men writers want to be gritty and hard-hitting, though if anything, their constant bloodiness, killing-off of fan favourite characters and - rather awkwardly given a long history of undoing deaths and heroes and villains alike surviving the most unlikely things - trying to make moral tensions between killing and not killing.

Ultimately, the Messiah War and Second Coming arcs feel rather more inconsequential than many such major events. But I certainly like Cable much more now, and find the new X-Force compelling – especially interacting with Deadpool, who for once was written in a very enjoyable way as a kind of long-suffering clown and extreme punching bag. Also nice knowing Doug and Warlock are still around, and that the stupid Predator X has finally died. Now it remains to be seen if Hope can be a likeable and important character beyond being a vulnerable child who needs protecting.

Every time I read a decent event like this one, though, even if it’s not a brilliant one, I wonder why the makers of the Hollywood adaptations never try to adapt one of these larger-scale stories, especially with the modern comic book mixture of sincerity, grit and ironic self-awareness (without being smug about it).