Will Deadpool 2 Introduce Hope Summers?

The Ryan Reynolds-starring Deadpool movie took just about everyone by surprise when it became an instant hit in early 2016. With a colorful leading character that checked all the boxes on a list of the most inappropriate superhero ever, the film turned its relatively meager budget into a recipe for a record breaking office and gave us a new (horrid, old avocado-like) face to lead Fox's X-Men franchise after Hugh Jackman's departure from the Wolverine role.

The simple backdrop of a revenge and love story proved just the right note to introduce this most outlandish character to unassuming audiences. But now, every fan is looking at next year's upcoming sequel, currently known as Deadpool 2, to delve deeper into the comic book lore of the character.

One of the most classic and important aspects of Deadpool's story (aside from his snarky humor, his red and black outfit, his penchant for breaking the fourth wall, his love of all things tacos and chimichangas, his big mouth, his guns, his grenades, his swords and his pouches) is his friendship-slash-rivalry-slash-bromance with Nathan Summers, aka Cable. A fellow X-Man, Cable's story is far from simple. Having been raised in the future, he is the grown-up son of Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, and Madelyne Pryor, aka the clone of Jean Grey (long story). A time-traveler who favors extremely large weaponry, Cable is the straight man to Deadpool's crazy, and a brother-in-arms when it comes to throwing down against villains. Both of them are fighters, in short -- survivors.

Cable was first mentioned in Deadpool's very own after-credits scene, and the teases didn't stop there. To the surprise of almost everyone, a secret teaser to Deadpool 2 was released as a preamble to James Mangold and Hugh Jackman's Logan. The teaser, while big on laughs, did in fact hint at some aspects of the Merc with a Mouth's sequel; graffiti on the telephone booth Wade was changing in essentially confirmed that Nathan Summers would be in the film (this was before Josh Brolin was officially cast as the time-traveling mutant).

There was another teaser hidden there as well -- on the far side of the telephone boot we saw one word, underlined twice: Hope. Sure, to most audience members, that didn't mean much. It could have just been dismissed as a message not to give up hope that the movie was coming, or that Cable would be cast.

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Deadpool 2 - You Just Have to Have a Little Hope

But for X-Men fans, "Hope" has a whole different meaning, and with the official release of the first pictures of Josh Brolin as Nathan Summers, it's a meaning that seems more and more likely to be the one they're hoping for. In the second Cable photo, Brolin looks appropriately menacing, grizzled and battle-hardened, sporting all the appropriate traits of Cable, from the metal arm to the glowing eye, the pouches and the destructively gigantic weaponry. And then there's the teddy bear, old and grimy, dirty and feeble, attached to his belt.

As X-Men readers know, Cable was the sole protector a young mutant child named Hope Summers. This young child bore that name because that is exactly what she represented, to all of mutantkind. In fact, before her birth, the mutants were at their lowest of lows; in the wake of Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, suffering a complete breakdown, she changed reality with three simple words: “No more mutants.” In an instant, the world's population of mutants dwindled down from millions to only 198. For a few years, the mutants were an endangered species in the Marvel Universe, fighting for survival in world that feared and hated them more than ever. But then, hope sparked anew in the X-Men: Messiah Complex event, which hinged on the first new mutant birth in years. Hope for mutantkind. Hope for the survival of an entire species.

To protect her from those who would do her harm, Cable was tasked by his father, Cyclops, to take Hope to the future. Cable hopped through the time stream, avoiding detection by any who would hunt him and Hope, whom he would come to care for. In fact, Hope effectively became Cable's adopted daughter, learning to survive and fight under his care.

The reveal of the teddy bear attached to Cable's belt, along with the Hope graffiti, are hard to ignore. It seems more and more likely that Hope Summers may indeed appear in Deadpool 2. But if that is the case, then what would her story be? What role would she fill?

At this point, we don't know much about Cable's role in the film, or the general direction of the sequel's story for that matter. What we can be sure of, though, is that Cable's basic character appears to be intact: He will hail from the future, with his techno-organic virus in tow, and a predilection towards welding uncommonly large guns. With the various X-Men movies being so muddled, something Deadpool himself has mentioned in his own movie, we don't know if the relationship between Nathan and his father Cyclops will be explored, if at all mentioned. It could be that the heart of the movie could find itself in a father-daughter relationship instead. If Hope were to appear in the movie, she would instantly make us root and sympathize with an over-the-top, sci-fi heavy character such as Cable.

But then, where does Deadpool fit into all of this. Since it's highly doubtful that House of M and Messiah Complex will factor into this movie, Hope and Cable's story could be boiled down to a future we will only see glimpses of. If Hope is the last mutant in the future, and Cable has taken it upon himself to protect her, this could lead him to travel to the past, and fall straight into the path of an unsuspecting Wade Wilson as they evade pursuers from the future. Perhaps we're looking at a new twist on a three men and a baby story... only here it'd be two mercenary killers and a mutant child.

Cable and Deadpool Back to the Future Variant

Whether it will be revealed that Cable and Deadpool have a past together, or if this is the first meeting of the popular characters, we don't yet know. (And then there's the question of how Zazie Beetz's Domino factors into everything.) However, after piecing together the visual clues we have so far, everything indicates that Hope Summers will somehow factor into the heart of the film, possibly even providing the road map to the X-Force movie that will reportedly spin out of Deadpool 2.