Writer: James Asmus
Pencils: Timothy Green II
Inks: Cam Smith & Rick Ketcham
Colors: Jim Charalampidis
Letters: Dave Sharpe
Cover: Jorge Molina
Editor: Nick Lowe
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Page Count: 20
Cover Price: $2.99 USD
The Story:
Coming out of the often convoluted X-Men universe this story explores the ramifications of Emma Frost’s mind wipe of the once Black King of the Hellfire Club, Sebastian Shaw. Sebastian, who Hope views as an innocent, has been taken in by her, and her pack of misfit mutants. This causes visible act of contention from the X-Men’s super tool, Cyclops.
As Hope squares off against Cyclops and Emma, her team takes verbal flak from former M.L.F.(Mutant Liberation Front) members who don’t take to kindly to the fact that these kids are getting the “red carpet treatment” while they are treated like garbage. To be fair, among their ranks is 90’s throwback, Random, yes that guy with the dew rag, dead looking flesh, and gun hand.
This is the first issue of Generation Hope that I have read, but I went into it with a open mind, and surprisingly it was quite easy to follow. The clash between the old and the new mutants was upfront but came off kind of blandly, few quips back and forth telegraphed Hope’s team’s lack of respect or even acknowledgement of their crusading processors. But the interactions between Hope, Cyclops, and Emma Frost are the best of the book, Hope’s brazen attitude towards the former White Queen could elicit a “Damnnnnn!” from a less hardened reader.
The Art:
The weight of the book falls on the shoulders of Timothy Green II, who you may know from his recent stint on the Rocket Raccoon and Groot back-up tales from the two “Annihilators” mini-series. While the some of the characters featured within I may not know all that well, they are all illustrated to great effect, the best being Hope, Zero(aka Not “Tetsuo”), and Random(aka shotgun armed dew rag guy), all three really stood out the most to me.
The Random versus Zero fight was a wonderfully grotesque display of how not all mutants are beautiful, no matter how many times Magneto tries to convince you. This issue was real heavy on the action for the most part that all worked, but there were a few hiccups like when Psylocke first shows up jumping onto the scene. Along with a few other detail drop out’s, which is common when there is not a single inker on a issue. Lines, and other details can get lost in translation, but compared to relative hot messes like other comics suffer from *cough*“Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E.” *cough-cough* this issue, and it’s creators have nothing to worry about.
Conclusion:
The story was interesting, maybe all this “Regenesis” stuff is getting all the X-Men’s chickens in a row ahead of the “Avengers versus X-Men” stuff that’s coming out in a few months time. But it was quite accessible, and that is saying something for a X-Men comic, I felt like I got to know that characters pretty well, and understand their motivation.
The art was solid, and more often then not a blast. The final splash page that gives more than a subtle nod to the movie “AKIRA” was a nice touch, and something that I thought was played off very well. Also, for those three of you that wanted to see Random show up again, here’s your chance. He is treated pretty well here. All we need now is Tusk, and we are complete.
In closing, Generation Hope #15 receives 4 out of 5 Gun-Totting Red Heads.
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