Warning: contains spoilers for Children of the Vault #3An emotional letter in Children of the Vault #3 reveals that a surprising X-Men hero, the gruff time-traveling warrior Cable, may be Marvel’s most caring and compassionate father. Having heard the rumor that Hope died in the Orchis assault on the Hellfire Gala, Cable sends a beautiful and heartbreaking telepathic message to the “mutant messiah” which shows just how special their father-daughter bond is.
Cable raised his adopted daughter Hope Summers since she was a baby, starting in the X-Men: Messiah Complex event which saw Hope born as the first mutant on Earth after the devastating events of the Decimation.
Children of the Vault #3, from writer Deniz Camp and artists Luca Maresca and Carlos Lopez, sees Cable send a telepathic message to his daughter telling her he knows she is alive and that, “Whatever it takes, I will be here waiting for you.”
Cable Has Spent A Lifetime Protecting His Daughter Hope
After Hope’s birth, Cable saves her from a group of anti-mutant Purifiers, convinced that Hope is the messiah of both mutant and humankind in the future. Traveling forward in time to avoid the vicious Lucas Bishop – who was dead set on murdering Hope – Cable and Hope spent 17 years in the future before returning to the present for the X-Men: Second Coming event. Living for seven years in the future city of New Liberty, Cable fell in love with a woman named Hope who helped raise young Hope and acted as her mother. When Hope died while fleeing Bishop, Cable named his adopted daughter Hope Summers after his lost love.
Hope and Cable have had a contentious but loving relationship, with Nathan often acting as a harsh taskmaster around her training and development. Throughout all of this, it remained clear how deeply Cable cared for Hope, and even though they have had periods of drifting apart, they continue to see each other as father and daughter. The telepathic message Nathan sends to Hope acknowledges just how tough and resilient she has been since birth, referencing the cockroach-human hybrids Cable and Hope had to fight starting in Cable (2008) #8. Thankfully, Cable is right, and Hope is very much alive and working as hard as she can to return to Earth to fight alongside her father.
Hopefully Cable And Hope Will Be Reunited Soon
Hope is currently stranded in the Phoenix’s White Hot Room along with Exodus, Destiny, and about 250,000 other exiled mutants. Mother Righteous manipulated the Krakoan Gates so that when Xavier forced the mutants through them, they went to the White Hot Room instead of Arakko, which is why Xavier and other psychics can’t sense them and think they are dead. Hope has her own unique connection to the Phoenix, manifesting it multiple times over her history, and recently found a sick Jean Grey within the White Hot Room, who can hopefully help rescue the stranded mutants.
Cable’s faith in his daughter is unwavering and beautiful to behold. Even though Marvel has some lovely parents, it is clear that Hope and Cable’s daughter-father connection is something special – forged through war, adversity, and hope – that sets it apart from other parental relationships in the Marvel Universe. Cable and Hope will both do anything to save each other and the X-Men, and Cable’s touching telepathic message to his daughter Hope is all the evidence needed to know that he is perhaps the most caring father in all of Marvel Comics.
Children of the Vault #3 from Marvel Comics is available now in stores.
