With #87, Christina Strain completed her 12 issue run on Generation X (2017). Within those pages Strain, Amilcar Pinna and Felipe Sobreiro, told a spin-off mutant story of the losers of the Xavier institute. While there were many great moments, featuring both the original Generation X (1994) class and the younger class, I want to focus on one loser in particular.
Nathaniel Carver aka Hindsight.
Hindsight was a completely new addition to the series, a half-Korean mutant with "psychometry", the ability to read minds via touch. In many ways he is a riff on mutant angst that has gone before, the burden of knowing people's every thought, like with characters such as Professor Xavier or Jean Grey, and the isolating pain of a the inability to touch, such as Rogue, but what made this character so successful was how he was created explicitly for this series, and you could feel it.Hindsight, who doesn't get that name until the finale issue, is used to give quick backstory with his convenient psychometric powers; a touch by him to another character allows the book an excuse to expose character backstory- usually in page spreads that make reference to significant moments in that character's comic book history. This implementation of powers was a smart choice, allowing longtime fans to be spared tenuous explanations of what they already know, whilst allowing a newer reader to quickly get up to speed. It also worked to develop a world outside of what we see in the series. Generation X is a book with limited scope, it is only really interested in one class of mutants in an entire mutant school, but these spreads and references to moments in comic book history serve as a way to bridge the series into the wider works with which it participates.
Perhaps, the most notable use of Hindsight's psychometry is the function he performs in the series finale, being an integral element of how the series' main villain is brought down. Monet St. Croix, who also goes by M, was a member of the original Generation X cast but has been possessed by her power-stealing brother Emplate, one of the original Generation X's most significant villains, since Cullen Bunn's Uncanny X-Men (2016). Monet's struggle with a possessing force is brought to its conclusion with Hindsights powers at the forefront; his psychometry being stolen by Monet allows her friends and old classmates to exorcise said possessing force with some nostalgia-ridden, emotionally rendered flashbacks. It's a humanising scene that reiterates the bonds of these characters and helps ground the new Generation X with the classic series. It is only able to manifest though because of Hindsight, reaffirming how much of a central character in this story he was.
Generation X #87 By Christina Strain, Amilcar Pinna and Felipe Sobreiro.
This charming, well-rounded character is only benefitted by a second reading; we can reflect on his original more stoic, detached behaviour knowing that he opens up later on in the series. He's initially a lot more trepidatious when it comes to viewing other people's memories, mainly doing so by accident, becoming more comfortable with his mutancy as the series goes on. There is clear character growth in his narrative, developing perhaps better than any other member of the cast, as Nathaniel learns not only to embrace his psychometric powers, but also to embrace the trust and affections of classmate Benjamin Deeds.
Generation X #86 By Christina Strain, Amilcar Pinna and Felipe Sobreiro.
His narrative throughout the series is never one of 'coming out', Nathaniel is gay and that's just how the character is. His comfort in sexual identity goes to show the maturity and care put in by his creators that his relationship is simultaneously important to his development and inessential, alongside building the Xavier institute up as an explicitly tolerant space for mutant youth of all backgrounds- a far cry from Weir and Defilippis' scrapped gay suicide plot from New Mutants (2003). Generation X doesn't give us a critical, emotional presentation of what it's like to be young and gay, it just shows us young mutants messily navigating romance (with people of the same gender). This is really where the series shined, mutant angst hasn't been so good in a while and the moment where Hindsight finally lets Benjamin Deeds in we get a kiss sequence unlike anything else in comic books.
Generation X #87 By Christina Strain, Amilcar Pinna and Felipe Sobreiro.
Thinking about the future though, I must admit that I'm concerned for Hindsight. As previously stated, he is a character who explicitly works within the context of Generation X; certainly the character can work outside the book, but will he? He can never join the ranks of a premiere superhero team, he isn't flashy or aggressive enough, and this would leave him relegated to B-Plots and cameos at best, given that a particularly weird book like Generation X doesn't manifest again. In light of this, we get the sense that Hindsight is really a once in a generation kind of character. Even if he never reaches the big leagues or the silver screen, Strain has constructed a timely, emotionally resonant mutant who embodies all the best qualities of Generation X.
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