Messiah Wars

'Messiah Wars' This storyline could’ve been good! But, nope, the author MESSED IT UP BADLY!!! Book Type: Comic book Genre: Superhero Author(s): Duane Swierczynski Publisher: Marvel's Comics

I am a huge Marvel fan and it’s no secret that I believe Messiah Wars IS THE WORST STORY LINE IN THE MARVEL COMICS. Here is why!

Why Messiah Wars Sucks

1. Nathan Summers/Cable suffers from character derailment in this storyline.
   • With Baby Hope Summers, Cable is reduced to a moody, post-partum father who acts more like a mother who just gave birth. He threw a hissy fit when he had to go to the hospital to get his bullet wounds treated and he was asked, politely to give up Hope so he can recieve treatment.
   • He won’t let anyone touch Hope and doesn’t trust her with a babysitter.
   • He married a stranger and suffered a deep depression that caused him to neglect himself, HE LOOKS DISGUSTING BY THE TIME HOPE WAS A SMALL CHILD. He seems happy when his wife finally died and began to care for himself.
2. Lots of plot holes and storylines that make no sense:
   • Cable is poor for no explained reason. This contradicts his character in previous comics because he’s shown to be quite wealthy, he lived in a mansion, has a superhero base that with tech that would even make Tony Stark blush, he had his own assistant, and he even bought a small portion of Russia and declared it his own country. All that wealth is gone as he is now shown to be living like a homeless person in this comic storyline, he is eating out of trash cans, is forced to feed Hope cow’s milk, and is even using old scraps of clothing as diapers. It’s like the writers forgot Cable’s immense wealth, HE SHOULD NOT BE STRUGGLING LIKE THIS.
   • To make matters worse, the people in the dystopian future he traveled to NEVER BOTHERED TO HELP HIM. It’s sickening, you’d think if someone saw Cable doing what he’s doing. They’d help him like allowing him to come into their house to eat and bathe, giving him gift cards to department stores and grocery stores so he can buy food, clothes, hygiene products, and baby care products for Hope. These people make Sam Alexander look like a saint and Thanos look like Butch Hartman by comparison.
   • Bishop’s IQ dropped massively to the point where he has the intelligence of Patrick Star from SpongeBob. He had suffered from character assassination, possibly worse than Cable since fans despised him after the comics. He thinks Hope will grow up to ruin his life so he chases Cable to try to kill Hope, and he’s very overt about it and he even made it so baby wipes have never been invented, by killing the guy who invented them in the first place. Why hasn’t the TVA arrested him and fixing the timeline?
   • Cable is no better as on top of his character derailment, HE DOES NOT WIPE BABY HOPE’S BOTTOM WHILE CHANGING HER MESSY DIAPER. This proves either Cable is a slightly negligent father or he lacks common sense. This also indicates Hope likely has several months worth of poop caked on her bottom due her adoptive father’s negligence. I don’t even want to imagine how bad this diaper rash would be. Why hasn’t the CPS gotten his butt yet?
3. Cable took 7 years to name his daughter or even adopt her despite CLEARLY HAVING A MATERNAL BOND WITH HER.
4. This comic also AGED POORLY. It came out in 2007 and one of the years Cable timetravels to is 2012, and it’s pictured as a dystopian future after an apocalypse. Today, it’s laughable because we know the year of 2012 did not look like this, unless you’re in Syria, but that’s a whole ‘nother bag of worms.
5. Cable never bothered to put clothes on Hope throughly infancy, it’s a wonder she has not died of hypothermia. But it lines up with Cable being poor.
6. Either there’s a lack of police officers or they’re lazy because there’s a page where Cable is in a car and Baby Hope is not in a car seat. It’s a wonder a police officer did not pull over the driver (a waitress Cable befriended) for having an infant without a car seat in her car.
7. Not to mention, the waitress who befriended Cable is a bit unlikable, while she was the only person who helped Cable with Hope in the future, she only helps him after RUDELY CALLING HIM OUT FOR FEEDING HOPE COW’S MILK. It’s not Cable’s fault, lady! Also, I am surprised Cable didn’t get unfathomably angry for how she talked to him, it’s beyond disrespectful! Doesn’t she know that you’re not supposed to tell people how to raise their children and pets?! She deserves to be punched in the face for this. Hey, Sam, instead of beating up Teen Cyclops and peeing in his shoes, why don’t you punch that waitress? No, Cyclops is a disgusting rat who violated lots of women so that’s why he deserves this treatment and this lady just insulting Cable’s parenting? Okay, Sam, suit yourself. And that’s fair, Sam, Cyclops did the most unforgivable thing to his wife and family and his kids are bitter towards him because of it. So, you’re right.
8. Speaking of Cyclops, he does let Cable and Baby Hope stay at his house for a bit, but he’s such a disgusting scumbag, he knocks up Emma Frost for the septillionth time and drove him away! Had to add that Cyclops bit because that’s Cyclops’ thing, he’s a Quagmire. That’s what he does! He has been doing it ever since he and Jean Grey got married, his kids are bitter with him because of this, it seems he cares more about “having fun” than being with his family. He tries to redeem himself by spending time with his grown up children, trying to have another baby with Jean Grey, and being a Mall Santa. But his plans fail as he can never be forgiven, it’s a miracle he and Jean Grey haven’t divorced yet. The damage has already been done and he can’t repair it, no matter how hard he tries. And that’s why Cyclops is my least favorite Marvel hero, he’s just a disgusting scumbag who is not committed. Sam knows this and that’s why he punched Teen Cyclops, heck, I bet Sam peed on his grave multiple times before he got revived. Sorry, I added this but Cyclops deserves a section. Also, given what Cyclops does, I bet Tony Stark held all of Cyclops’ babies because they more than likely all ended up in the orphanage. Yep, Tony Stark holds orphanage babies when he’s sad, stressed, or can’t sleep, he loves it and I am ugly crying. That’s the only good thing from it, Tony has more babies to hold.
9. Bishop never gets his comeuppance for what he did to Cable.

Redeeming Qualities

1. It gets better after Hope Sr. dies.
2. Bishop becomes underused after this.
3. Cable is proven to be a good father and Hope is a teenager now.
4. In comics released after this storyline, Cable’s wealth also gets remembered too.

Rewrite/How I Could’ve Done It (Because It’s Fun)

1. Leave Bishop out of the story completely, he’s just there because the writers couldn’t think of a big bad so they had to flanderize him.
   • Or at least change his role, he used to be friends with Cable, maybe have him help him with Hope.
2. Make Cable ADOPT HOPE AND NAME HER IMMEDIATELY. The story only fell apart after Cable saved her, if he’s going to act like a mother who just gave birth, NAME HER!!! It’s ridiculous he dragged his feet for seven years!!
3. Change the conflict, the conflict makes no sense! How is Hope the Messiah? What is so special about her? All I see is Cable’s daughter, not a being in the body of cosmic entity that can rewrite reality as we know it. If anything, her powers are just Kirby’s without the eating, yep, she can replicate other superheroes’ powers, THAT IS NOT SPECIAL!! Instead, I would change the conflict to Cable’s own inner struggle, not all superheroes stories have to involve a big bad, look at Spider-Man and the Punisher, sure, they had to fight supervillains but the main conflict was themselves, Peter Parker (who is Spider-Man) was trying to find his place in the world and Frank Castle (who is the Punisher) wanted vengeance for the guy who killed his family, but he soon learns that he doesn’t have to have revenge and just has to save the world. Messiah Wars can be the same, maybe Cable’s wife died before Hope was born, maybe they were struggling to have a child so they turned to adoption but his wife got gravely ill and passed away before she could meet Hope. So, Cable, keeping his promise to his dead wife, goes to get Hope once she’s born, he names her Hope because that was the name his late wife and he raises her as a single father because he promised his wife he would care for their first and only daughter. And we see Cable grieving, he’s very depressed, he cries a lot but he has to fight big bads. Yes, time travel is still apart of it, but he travels to cleaner futures like 2099 to cope because he can’t bare to be in the same timeline as his wife. There, he meets the Avengers 2099 and Spider-Man 2099 and they help him cope and raise Hope and he also helps them fight off threats.
4. There are no plot holes and Cable is as wealthy as ever. He’s no longer digging out of trash cans just to eat and using old clothes as diapers but is actually buying baby care items because he can afford it. But he’s just weird about bringing Hope in stores with him so he has one of the 2099 Avengers babysit so he can go to the store. He also lives with them because he’s so emotionally messed up, he can’t think about getting a home. He even has the new Dr. Strange, Jeannie who is Stephen’s great-grandniece babysit because like her great uncle, she loves babies too!
5. I know she’s too new as she got introduced in a new Marvel timeline, but there’s a female Black Nova from the future now, AND I LOVE HER!! In fact, since I am rewriting the story to fit with today, I am including her in the Messiah Wars story. Much like Sam Alexander in the present, she becomes a member of the Avengers 2099 and she’s a new mother herself. She has a baby boy with blonde hair because she’s married to the son of the Human Torch. She helps Cable because she emphasizes with him because she’s going through the same things with her son. However, unlike Cable, she’s a woman so she’s dealing with hormonal changes and she’s also nursing (probably one of the few mothers who are nursing in the future) (she even often nurses suited up, yep, the nova suit is oddly convient, it is able to have the bottom half be pulled down so the nova can relieve themself. And given that mechanism, I am aware the top half can be pulled up too, so, this nova uses this to nurse her baby while on the job or just saving the world) And unlike the present, Nova Corps is more flexible with nova parents and allows paid leaves, so, this nova was allowed for maternity leave. However, Cable couldn’t look at her for months because she reminded him of his late wife (his wife was a Nova in the rewrite). Every time he saw her with her helmet on or suited up, he will begin crying because he just sees his dead wife, not another nova. Seeing how troubled he is, although her husband is still alive, he just hides, shrunken in her pocket (he’s Firefly and is a 2099 Avenger too), she does try to empathize with him by imagining life without her husband. She even lets him and Baby Hope stay in her penthouse. (Which is really huge, novas make LOTS OF MONEY)
6. Cyclop’s part of the story is completely cut out because it seems to only be there for padding and to remind us that Cyclops is a disgusting scumbag. (I hope you’re happy, Tony! In 9 months, you’ll have more babies to hold) (And Sam, pee on Cyclops’ shoes please? He deserves it, actually, Tony Stark is marrying Emma Frost this fall so that’s a good punishment for Cyclops, I bet he’ll cry like a big baby at this wedding and we’ll just smile because YOU DESERVE IT, YOU SCUMBAG!!! You have caused Emma to suffer enough, the last thing she needs is for you to pound on Tony’s door and have him spray you like the disgusting man you are. So, yes, Tony saved her!)
7. Cable’s toxic marriage is replaced with him getting over his wife’s death and returning to the present. There, he lives with his little brother, Nate Grey in Milwaukee, WI and teams up the Great Lake Avengers and begins dating Domino because her father, Doorman and brother, Lazarus live there and she often visits them because as an orphan, knowing she has a family is important to her. She helps him with Hope. Finally recovering, Cable buys a huge house in Milwaukee next to Flatman and lives there until Hope is 15. He moves back to New York City and that’s how the story ends.

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