Post-Postmodern Mutancy In Generation Hope

Spinning out of X-Men: Second Coming, 2010's Generation Hope took to focus the first new generation of mutants since the Scarlet Witch, and editorial decree, informed the X-Men of their obsolescence. The line of X-Men titles had been reeled back from its heady heights of 90s popularity, and in-text the mutant population had been severely diminished. This book, and its cast of new characters, set out to define what a modern mutancy could look like. Instead, its post-postmodern superheroes were never permitted the freedom to explore or evolve their unique standing. 

Generation Hope #1 By Kieron Gillen and Salvador Espin

The Marvel superhero has been a site of postmodern self-referentiality since its inception, pushing the boundaries of genre and coating itself in a costume, not of spandex, but of ironicism. It's fitting, then, that Generation Hope's attempt to rekindle that same creative spirit went even further into the depths of this self-referentiality. Mutation in the X-Men franchise is the most undiluted, pure realisation of the superhero genre icon of the Power. No complex origin story, no radioactive spiders or enchanted hammers, if you're a mutant you have mutant powers. Rather than delve into the infinite creative potential of this, Generation Hope focused in. choosing instead to pilfer mutations from genre history and develop them towards more traumatic conclusions. 

Oya was equal parts Iceman and the Human Torch, taking heat with an ice hand and returning it with a pyrokinetic one. A character based on the two ends of an extreme binary. Velocidad, meanwhile, was functionally a speedster, not unlike Quicksilver or the Flash, differing in that he increases the time around him. The faster he would go, the faster he would age. Transonic's active ability of flight was amplified with shapeshifting characteristics, as her outward appearance invoked the naked blue of Mystique and the blue lips of Apocalypse. Primal spoke to the savage types, the Beasts, the Hulks and the Wolverines, and was particularly concerned with the genre trapping these characters repeatedly find themselves within. The honour of man brought into conflict with the beast within, only this time the beast would win out over the man. Kenji Uedo, codenamed Zero, was perhaps the team's most inventive creation- that is, if you had never seen the film Akira (1988). A unique enough immigration, the character itself nevertheless remained entirely a visual retread of the film's Tetsuo. And then there was the titular Hope, herself a riff on the staple X-Book power manipulators, such as Rogue, Synch and Mimic. Not to mention evoking other cosmically-touched redheads. 

Generation Hope #5 By Kieron Gillen and Jaime McKelvie

Where the powers are developed from the base of what went before, they enter into a zone of criticism. Not just of tired, archetypal power-sets and genre imagery, but of character tropes as well. Exemplifying this, a certain aspect of Hope's power set that often goes unremarked upon is her inclination to inspire loyalty and camaraderie between strangers. Rather than a result of charismatic personality, this is inexorably linked with her superhuman abilities; she can awaken and stabilise both the condition of mutancy and the psyches of mutants themselves.

Those following the current X-Men line should note a connection between this unexplored hypnotic element to her powers and the surprisingly close coalition of mutants at the core of Krakoa's state infrastructure, the Five. It also shines a different light on Nightcrawler's Second Coming sacrifice.

But, in the context of Generation Hope, this works more to address practical concerns. It is of little surprise to any follower of comic books when a new team of superheroes debuts, spending the first 6 issues of their series assembling the team and finding themselves cancelled at issue 10. Generation Hope itself would be cancelled at issue 17, albeit with writer Kieron Gillen leaving after 12. With the cast hypnotically under Hope's control, Gillen was able to bypass a lot of the standard storytelling pitfalls in order to deliver his story more efficiently. 

Still, however unintentional this may be, the hypnotic aspect nevertheless serves as criticism of the structure and standard of the superhero team more widely; the suggestion being that, if it's happening with Hope's team, who is to say that it is not happening to every cast of superheroes? So often does a superhero team consist not of people who would understandably collaborate for a set goal, or even work against each other as a compelling cast, but of people simply grouped together as alternate sub-franchise mascots. The Avengers come to mind. 

That Gillen is never given the opportunity to delve into these concepts further is the series at its most meta. Much like the tragic Velocidad, the story moved faster, burned brighter and ended sooner, with its cast relegated to obscurity almost immediately after cancellation. Touted as the "most important X-Book in years," Generation Hope has, in fact, managed to become little more than a footnote. 

Reconstructing Fantasy In The MMORPG

Times of great crisis oft call for similarly great compromise. 

Admittedly, as a perennial shut-in, my pandemic compromises have come easier than most. Even as I have dabbled in those hallowed artefacts of the terminally uncool, anime, fan fiction, Dungeons and Dragons and their ilk, there has always remained one avenue that remained beyond the pale: the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, or MMORPG. I vowed to never venture into EverQuest, or be wowed by World Of Warcraft and or to even know enough about MMOs that I could come up with a third example.

That is not to say that I had a distaste for that particular form of gaming. Rather the opposite: I've had a deep fascination for the concept long before ever diving in myself. I've devoured the ancillary materials of MMO culture: Documentaries, such as Second Skin (2008) and Life 2.0 (2010), an episode of South Park that utilised in-game WOW footage to tell its story and followed closely the emergence of Isekai anime; a genre which frequently sees its main characters drawn into a virtual game-world.  

But a monthly subscription fee, not to mention the level of total immersion, was so alien to how I traditionally approached gaming as a medium. Frequenting mostly older titles, my gaming history has been defined mostly by cheaply-procured, second-hand, single-player story experiences to be consumed not unlike a DVD: played through once and relegated to the shelf, never to be parted with for the sake of a replay that will never come. 

Yet still coming down from the Final Fantasy VII Remake high, and with truly nothing better to do, I finally tried out Final Fantasy XIV during (the first) lockdown. Several months later, the plethora of fascinating stories and experiences I've engaged within the Final Fantasy XIV makes it feel that much less like a singular experience and more like an interactive streaming service. With catgirls. The library of which, after half a year, I still feel like I haven't made much of a dent in.

So many of these quest-lines are sweeping and ambitious, detailing their own casts of characters and wondrous locations, yet I was recently floored by something comparatively much more mundane. A feature easily overlooked and in no way unique to this particular game.

Where the FFXIV's second expansion, Heavensward, weaves a complex story of war, dogmatism and colonialism (with dragons!) that ranks alongside some of the franchise's best storytelling, the totally optional, follow up side quests see the player-base tasked with the reconstruction of the post-war world. The once hostile city-state of Ishgard has had a change of heart, and now seeks to do right by its displaced, to refugees and the downtrodden.

Serving as a collective, collaborative mini-game to encourage the game's crafters to compete for prizes and glory, countless players go from supply pile to work station to building site in a frenzied rush to complete construction work within the time limit. The Ishgardian post-war optimism is palatable throughout, as the crowds are staggering and a soaring musical score accompanies the mass building projects. Not only is it the strength of a narrative forbidding economic concerns to inhibit essential investment that is affecting, but the clear enthusiasm also. The player-base could so easily spend its time running dungeons, seeking treasures and hunting monsters, yet would gladly choose instead to build an orphanage.

Naturally, that is a manipulative framing. There is plenty of in-game incentive for the player to do this. Importantly though, this was a moment that transcended any of its constituent elements. This mass building project resonated deeply, reminding me of that hallowed 1945 spirit, where from the desolation of the blitz emerged enough political will to rewrite the fabric of the UK, greatly expanding its welfare state and establishing the NHS. But just as much did it emphasise the chasm between the economic status of then with the post-Thatcher now. I would find myself wondering, do our own politicians require cute pets, cool outfits and themed furniture to incentivise real world rebuilding?

Where the dominant stories of pandemic politicising will rightfully be the apathetic, sluggish responses of a disconnected political class patronising and aggravating their constituents, the pandemic has also seen movement against that aforementioned status quo. Particularly in the urgent housing of the homeless. 

Whilst it would be wrong to characterise this as a universal effect of post-Covid optimism, my university city of Coventry saw almost all of its rough sleepers housed. Long since having moved away from Coventry, I found this out via newsreel and the sight of the city centre, once so indistinguishable from the human pain and misery of homelessness, now totally clear was staggering. It was that rare occasion where a news item rendered me so totally speechless, so moved by the simple, mundane image of doorways with no one lying in them. 

Both that very real, material experience, and the ephemeral virtual one, found its power in a radical simplicity,  offering a break with the dominant common-senses and pragmatisms that dictate that things simply cannot get better. What's particularly interesting in the case of FFXIV, however, is that it is not only this fantasy of remedying real world problems realised. For years now, the game-as-service has been plagued with its own housing crisis, a crisis borne out of not so alien backgrounds: where the few rich players buy up more housing than they need, or can even feasibly use themselves, leaving the many without; demand has far exceeded the supply.

This has had a real human cost, as securing housing in the game has transformed into as much of a real world trial as an in-game one. If the idea of harm seems an extreme one, I would recommend we cast our minds back to the aforementioned documentaries, Second Skin and Life 2.0, and the very real mental and physical damage that can come from these immersive experiences.

In building a new housing district for Ishgard, you are engaged directly with seemingly solving this crisis- even as the underlying problems go unaddressed. Players engage in an almost interpassive experience, where at the point of interactivity, the construction of a new housing district, encourages docile, passivity in a player base that is being actively harmed by the ongoing housing crisis. On the level of narrative response, this plays out as well: the player's resolution of one housing crisis allows for closure and complacency in the face of the other.

Soon, the housing district will be complete. Players will move in, and perhaps the story will contrive itself so as to provide some new location to rebuild. But it was this particular moment that stood out amongst hundreds of hours of gameplay.