Hope Summers is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Mike Carey and Chris Bachalo, the character first appeared in X-Men #205 (Jan 2008, during the "X-Men: Messiah Complex" storyline). She is the first mutant born after the events of the "House of M" and "Decimation" storyline.

Publication history

"Messiah Complex" The Goddess of all Mutants 

Hope is the first mutant to be born after the Decimation, an event in which the Scarlet Witch uses her reality-altering superpower to turn all but 198 of the world's mutants into regular, depowered humans. The moment Hope is born, the mutant-locating computer Cerebro explodes, and soon afterwards the hunt for her begins.

Hope's town is attacked by the Purifiers, who use information given to them by the time-traveling Nimrod who warns them of her arrival. Although all the children in town are murdered by the Purifiers, the X-Man Cable manages to save Hope. According to Cable, the baby is a Messianic figure destined to save both mutant and humankind. The Purifiers and Bishop, however, recall a timeline in which Hope will become the mutant equivalent of the Antichrist, and kill a million humans in an instant. This event, known as the "Six Second War", will turn humanity against mutants once again and lead into a new era of mutant persecution, creating the dark timeline into which Bishop is born.

Later, the baby is kidnapped by the Marauders and delivered to the mutant Mystique who is disguised as Mister Sinister. Mystique takes the baby and makes her touch the comatose Rogue with the intention of waking her from her coma. The mutant Gambit intervenes and takes Hope from Mystique. Believing the baby has died during her rescue, Gambit is amazed to find not only is the baby unharmed, but also Rogue has been awakened from her coma. After an intense battle between the Marauders, the X-Men and Predator X, X-Men leader Cyclops decides the baby would be better off with his son Cable, and allows him to take her to the future. However, an adamant Bishop decides to track Cable and the baby through time in order to kill her and prevent the bleak future of his own timeline from happening.

Into the Future
During one of the first battles with Bishop, Cable's time traveling device is damaged, so he can only jump into the future, instead of the past, when he needs to escape Bishop each time he finds them. After several jumps into the future, it is revealed that Cable has taken her to the secluded safe haven of New Liberty in the future, where Cable marries a woman named Hope, who is like a mother to the mutant baby. Finding relative peace there, he raises her with Hope until she is seven years old. But then New Liberty is invaded by humanoid insects who called themselves the United States Army, later calling themselves humanoid Blattarians. Cable fights them and leaves New Liberty with his wife and her in order to make sure New Liberty does not fall.  After spending months in the wasteland, the family is attacked by the president of the insects, from whom Hope manages to save her family by stabbing the insect in his weak spot, since she has been watching Cable fight. Cable questions the president where he finds out that Bishop, in order to find Hope in the future, has destroyed all the continents in the world and left them uninhabitable, except North America, in order to box them in, find her and kill her. Cable kills the president, and the family moves on. The family encounters a settlement, but are met with resistance. Cable takes care of them easily, but not fast enough, as Hope is shot and dies in Cable's arms while the girl watches. The girl sees Cable bury the closest thing she ever had to a mother and departs with him. After arriving at a church, the pastor asks the name of the child. In that moment, Cable decides to name her Hope Summers, in honor of her adoptive mother.

"Messiah War"
In the Messiah War storyline, which ran through Cable and X-Force, Hope Summers was the center of conflict between the forces of Stryfe, Cable, and X-Force. The Messiah War was part of a three-part story that began with X-Men: Messiah Complex. During the Messiah War, Hope was kidnapped by Cable's clone Stryfe, in league with Bishop. Hope watched as Stryfe tortured Warpath until Cable, Wolverine and Elixir came to their rescue. In the following fight, Hope survived along with the rest of X-Force and Cable, though Bishop lost an eye to Wolverine and had his time travel device damaged. When Cable and Hope were forced to time travel again, Hope resisted because she wanted to stay with X-23 and Elixir, with whom she had bonded during the events of Messiah War.

She kicked Cable in mid-jump, stranding herself and Cable two years apart. They eventually reunited, with Hope now 11 years old instead of nine.

"Homecoming" and "X-Men: Second Coming"
In the four-part series A Girl Called Hope, Hope watches over Cable as he sleeps, and she says "I would come back from the dead to kill them", referring to anyone who would harm Cable, with the Phoenix emblem reflecting in Hope's eyes again as she looks in the fire. As the short series closes, it is revealed that Hope slaughtered many of the evolved wolves in order to keep Cable safe. A promotional image for the event was released depicting two versions of Hope: one angelic, emphasizing her role as a savior; the other as evil and surrounded by the Phoenix Force, depicting her as a destroyer.

During the "X-Men: Second Coming" story arc Hope manifests various X-Men powers such as Armor's psionic armor and Colossus's organic steel and kills Lang and Creed. Nightcrawler saves her from Bastion, dying in the process. With the assistance of the X-Men, she eradicates Bastion and shatters the dome surrounding the city. At a celebratory bonfire, Emma Frost notices the flames around Hope take the shape of the Phoenix, and triggers a flashback to the Sisterhood storyline where Jean freed her from Lady Mastermind's illusion after giving her the warning to prepare. Seized with terror, Emma runs to Cyclops to warn him but before she can, Cyclops tells her that Cerebro has found five new mutants that have appeared around the globe.

The Five Lights

After the events of Second Coming, five new mutants are detected by Cerebro. Hope is then tasked with the mission to find and help these "Five Lights". Hope finds the first of the Five Lights in Canada attempting to kill herself by jumping off a building. Hope touches the girl, Laurie Tromette, whose mutation is jump started (a power display similar to Sage's) and she develops an ability to fly. Introducing herself, she also agrees to follow Hope. Being in Canada, Hope expressed an interest in discovery her biological family to which Cyclops agreed and organized an escort team of Rogue, Dr. Nemesis and Cypher. Once the group arrived in Alaska they discovered the identity of Louise Spalding, visited her grave, as Louise was one of the casualties of the Purifiers when they killed everyone in the hospital, and Hope was able to meet her maternal grandmother, although she did not reveal her biological connection, she learned that Louise was considered a fiery redhead with a strong will, free spirit, and a good head on her shoulders. She worked as a firefighter in or near Cooperstown, Alaska, and didn't show any desire to "settle down" until she got impregnated with Hope.

Later she is called to Mexico by Cecilia Reyes and Psylocke where the second of the Five Lights lives. This new mutant is a boy called Gabriel Cohuelo, whose speed powers caused him to move so fast he had become invisible to the naked eye. Psylocke taps into Cecilia's powers to create a force field around his room so they would not lose him before Hope Summers could arrive to help. Hope manages to help him gather control of his abilities, however it is also revealed that his powers made him age slightly.

Accompanied by Storm, Hope finds the third of the Five Lights praying in a small church in Nigeria, surrounded by armed men who wish to kill her as they believe she is a "witch child", due to her newly manifesting power over fire and ice. Hope manages to help this new mutant, a girl named Idie Okonkwo calm herself and gather control of her abilities. As Storm and Hope proceed to leave with Idie the men attack, but Idie protects them from harm using her ability over fire and destroys the men's vehicles. She then opens her eyes to reveal her right pupil is blue (ice) and her left pupil is orange (fire).
 
Later Rogue, Hope, and the Lights arrive in Miami Beach to search for the fourth Light, a boy named Teon, in the hope of having him join the X-Men. Their first interaction with Teon results in the feral boy's attempt at "mating" with Hope. A battle ensues and is promptly finished by Hope who uses her power to tame Teon. From this point, Teon views her as his Master.

Generation Hope

In the series Generation Hope, Hope and the four "Lights" along with Rogue, Cyclops