Winding through X-Men Legacy, Uncanny X-Men, X-Force and New Mutants; X-Men: Second Coming will be the third chapter in the Messiah CompleX storyline started back in 2007 and continued in the disappointing Messiah War this past summer. The first mutant child born since M-Day, Hope is now in her teens, having spent most of her life with Cable on the run from Bishop in the future (hopefully, this means the end of the awful Cable series…). When she and Cable return to the present, Cyclops and the rest of the mutant population thrust the faith of a race upon her. Her return also continues to polarize other factions against mutants because they feel if they control or eliminate her, the mutant race is extinct. Cyclops, Rogue and the members of X-Force will play vital roles in the story as Bastion and his army surface to make sure the X-Men’s faith in Hope is wasted. X-Men Legacy writer Mike Carey gave this look at Hope in an interview with Marvel.com:

“You always talk about what everyone else’s reaction to [Hope] is – what is her reaction to everyone else? What is her reaction to shoulder this burden? Now she’s old enough to understand exactly what’s going on. This is a life that nobody should have thrust on them. What she’s experiencing is a very specific part of the story. You look at her life and how horrible it is, I would think I’d want my life to be different. People have so many expectations of her. How does she meet them and how does she defy them? I think a lot of people are going to be surprised.”

My hope is that the X-editors are letting Matt Fraction (Uncanny X-Men) take the lead on this story and not Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost (X-Force). I’ve liked everything they’ve done with the Marvel animated projects, but I think that their comic projects are starting to suffer. Messiah War for example had great story potential, but felt rushed as it jumped around from issue to issue. 

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