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Why I'm Not Reading Generation Hope
Nov. 15th, 2011 12:06 amStating up front this is going to be much less a review than a whole lot of frustrated venting coming out at the end of what is now a whole year of build up. I'm not in any way going to discourage dissent in the comments – in fact if anyone who is actually reading Generation Hope and/or enjoying her as a character, I would be very interested to hear why, as I'm actually much happier to hear 'the industry is producing works tailored to tastes which differ from yours, in ways you have perhaps not considered' than to be left with 'the industry just doesn't know what the fuck it's doing anymore', which is about where the whole matter is sitting in my head right now.
So, I'm not reading Generation Hope. This isn't much of an announcement; if the sales figures are to be believed, hardly anyone else is either. The only thing that makes my disinterest notable is that a year ago, back when I was writing my glowing and rather stunned review of Second Coming event, Generation Hope was one of the titles I was most looking forward to. See, what sold me on Second Coming was the fantastic sense of scale to the story. Tasked with the unenviable job of giving us a climax to two inimitable years of waiting for Cable to make it back from the future with a young mutant who we were assured had to be important because, if not, why would so many evil people want her dead? - it delivered one of the most cleverly thought out, edge-of-your-seat reads I've seen from Mavel in recent memory. It never got as far as answering the big questions about exactly what Hope represents, but it did finish with a tantalising hint in the form of five new 'lights' revealed on Cerebro's mutant GPS – the first to appear since M-Day, and certainly not coincidentally related to Hope's return. It was an inspired teaser for the next step for the X-Men line.
But in practice, Marvel had put me off the concept so fast and so thoroughly in the months following Second Coming that I never even got as far as reading issue one. That's a dizzying turnover rate for the enthusiasm.
( cut for length )
So, I'm not reading Generation Hope. This isn't much of an announcement; if the sales figures are to be believed, hardly anyone else is either. The only thing that makes my disinterest notable is that a year ago, back when I was writing my glowing and rather stunned review of Second Coming event, Generation Hope was one of the titles I was most looking forward to. See, what sold me on Second Coming was the fantastic sense of scale to the story. Tasked with the unenviable job of giving us a climax to two inimitable years of waiting for Cable to make it back from the future with a young mutant who we were assured had to be important because, if not, why would so many evil people want her dead? - it delivered one of the most cleverly thought out, edge-of-your-seat reads I've seen from Mavel in recent memory. It never got as far as answering the big questions about exactly what Hope represents, but it did finish with a tantalising hint in the form of five new 'lights' revealed on Cerebro's mutant GPS – the first to appear since M-Day, and certainly not coincidentally related to Hope's return. It was an inspired teaser for the next step for the X-Men line.
But in practice, Marvel had put me off the concept so fast and so thoroughly in the months following Second Coming that I never even got as far as reading issue one. That's a dizzying turnover rate for the enthusiasm.
( cut for length )