No Matter Who They Are, Youths Won't Listen To Their Elders

Reading Nova #33, we learn that Sphinx summoned Nova and the other heroes to fight against a younger version of himself. Old Sphinx is dying of "temporal cancers", which are a result of all his time traveling. He wound up in the Fault, and brought his younger self there to convince him to do things differently, so as to spare Old Sphinx his fate. Young Sphinx refused to do whatever it was Old Sphinx requested.

For the moment, I'm going to set aside how Young Sphinx can change the fate of Old Sphinx, when typically such an attempt will only result in the formation of a new timeline where things go differently, while the old timeline remains. Maybe it has something to do with the Ka Stone, which can shape reality. I was more amused by Young Sphinx' refusal to play ball, and his self-assurance that whatever happened to Old Sphinx couldn't happen to him. Except, Old Sphinx is Young Sphinx, give or take six thousand years. I assume Young Sphinx is banking on getting that second Ka Stone, and becoming so powerful the forces that crippled his older self will not affect him.

This headstrong nature of the young has been a recurring theme in the series. Nova wouldn't listen to the Worldmind when it insisted he should give more thought to finding a proper place to deposit it, and the end result was it went a little crazy from trying to keep Nova from going crazy.

Robbie Rider wouldn't listen to his older brother about the dangers of the Nova Corps' rapid rebuilding, or Richard's warnings that Robbie wasn't cut out for being a Nova. End result is Richard's on his own in his conviction something's up with the Worldmind, the Nova Corps throw themselves into the War of Kings, and get slaughtered.

No matter how many times Nova urges him to calm down and think things through, Darkhawk keeps charging full-bore into battle, without regard to strategy or the strength of the force they're up against.

Now we've got one Sphinx not listening to his older self, too focused on gaining a second Ka Stone and becoming an even more incredible force. I'm betting that having two Ka Stones would actually accelerate the onset of the problems Old Sphinx is afflicted with, making things even worse for the villains.