Cyclops Appreciation

[DakenGirl]

Was it only in the cartoon that Scott needed exposure to sunlight to recharge his powers from time to time or did something like that carry over into the comics too?

I'm not sure. There's that XM Annual story where he uses Storm's powers to recharge his optic blasts and his optic blasts to re-energize the power source for a failing world. Not sure if there's one where solar power is as much of a plot point. (Darth might know. He's really good on stuff like that.)

[DakenGirl]

Writers went a little on the nose with Cyke's alcohol induced ocular impotence. Makes it all the better that it's Wolverine he's telling this to.

It never fails to crack me up that he felt moved to share that particular...failing in those words with Wolvie. That's true friendship. Of course, the WolvieClops was strong in those halcyon pre-Schism days:

[DakenGirl]

Juan678 posted these on The Funny Room thread. Totes adorbs.

[Logan]

Juan678 posted these on The Funny Room thread. Totes adorbs.

Really cute and adorable

[maxi_miceli]

Was it only in the cartoon that Scott needed exposure to sunlight to recharge his powers from time to time or did something like that carry over into the comics too?

The short answer is whatever the writers wants, he absorbs energy but he never runs out of energy, he just tires himself, so he can be both absorbing solar energy and his eyes can be a portal to a non-Einsteinian universe, if he only absorbed the sun's energy he shouldn't have power after long periods of being underground (which could be used for a story where he is kidnapped for a somewhat long period and when he is rescued he doesn't have his powers for a short time) neither when he goes to places where there is no solar energy like the negative zone, and if his eyes were a portal he shouldn't absorb energy, which, btw, he hasn't done in a long time, Claremont was the one that loved to use powers in weird ways (way too weird and some times without any sense IMO)

[Mari]

Really cute and adorable

It is!

It took me a while to figure out the meaning though. I think Cyke is drawn too small in the second drawing, that is what confused me.

[xiyon]

Bendis is writing about a Scott who has been brought to his absolute lowest ebb. He killed the man who raised him. He's got a crazy kaleidoscope in his head of being and not being the phoenix and doing things he couldn't do - physically, quite apart from anything else, he's not Sunspot - never mind psychologically and yet which he half remembers doing and knows that he must have done. He's no longer uncrowned sovereign of a mutant kingdom. No one, including everyone he loves and whom he thought in the past loved him, have been willing to give him even a glimmer of the benefit of the doubt. The same people he has forgiven at once when they were mind-controlled or possessed in their time, all turned on him as one and acted as if they felt he was entirely to blame for his actions and secretly wanted to murder Charles Xavier. That would be an absolutely crushing blow just by itself, but that's his life now. The other X-Men have rejected him and lose no opportunity to verbalize how much they now hate him, when we know how much they have always mattered to him and what their love and trust means to him - something that he now appears to have lost forever despite not having been himself when he did the thing they now all hate him for.

People who used to be his sometime allies - S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers, are now intent on hunting him down like a wanted criminal and have shown themselves ready and willing to kill him themselves and to collaborate with shadowy government forces who will try to arrange his death. They had a choice between trusting that the man they knew would never have done the things that Scott did when possessed by the phoenix and helping him recover from that ordeal - as they did with Wanda - or allying themselves with people who would throw due process out the window and throw Scott into an iffy private prison and they chose to support the agenda of the people who wanted him shived in prison, and still are, even knowing that those shadowy forces are still in place. So he's not only had the shock of their hatred he also has every reason to be disillusioned with people he used to admire. He's still saying nice things about them in public, because - unlike them with him - he recognizes that they're still heroes despite the dodgy things they've been a part of, but there is absolutely no one he can really trust outside of the NXS.

And I think, crucially, Scott hates himself, which he didn't before, and his powers are broken - a really crushing blow to someone who has been all about control since the age of fifteen. He can't lead from the front as he likes to do when he doesn't know what his optic blasts are going to do next. And he's single, which Scott has never coped with very well, and for the first time in years doesn't have someone telepathically being kind to him on a regular basis. His life has been ripped out at the foundations and he's only still doing the things he does because mutants are going to die if he stops. He's got very little reason to get up in the mornings except for his overwhelming sense of duty. Looking forward, he can see more of this, with 99% of his old friends wiping their feet on him at every opportunity, a struggle in which he is more or less alone and where many of the people who would once have helped him to bring down sentinels hunting mutants now tut-tut at him when he tries it. And looking back to his recent past, instead of a sense of achievement, he's just got PTSD-inducing horror in his head. Possession, loss of control, and then killing someone he loved. For a guy whose worst fear from the day his beams kicked in was that he would lose control and kill someone he loved that is a crushing burden to have to bear.

I'd be really disappointed if Brian Michael Bendis was writing him the way Kieron Gillen wrote him because of the catastrophic and life-changing events that have occurred in between the two Uncanny books.

It's all YMMV of course but I think Bendis has actually done a great job of showing a guy who is still doing the right thing - even if some of what he's doing is, IMO, still proof of how much under Charles Xavier's influence he still is, and quite possibly how he's still trying to make him proud of him even though he's no longer around because that is just the way it is sometimes with fathers and sons - even though he is emotionally shattered and all the things he has relied upon for years - Emma's telepathy, a well-trained team with powers under their control, belief in his own abilities - have all been taken away from him.

I'm not sure it's still even possible for Scott to believe in himself as a hero when people one might have expected to give him some emotional support have all spat in his eye and acted as if he's the world's worst murderer - ironically in many cases while unquestioningly following the leadership of someone who actually is a multiple murderer. I think Scott is getting through the days by concentrating on the fact that the NXS are the only people helping mutants so if they stop helping, mutants die. He is committed to helping mutants so he is going to go through the things on his to do list that might make that situation better and that have worked in the past: find new mutants before mutant killers do, offer them a safe place to learn to gain control of their powers, make it clear to hostile parties that if they persecute mutants or the humans who support them, that their persecution won't go unchallenged.

I apologize for digging up this old argument, elgrey, but I finally found the time to upload some pics. I'll preface this with a warning: a lot of this is about how I feel about the way things are from how I interpreted the comics. Also, I'm trying to reply to your entire post but, as I've exceeded the character limit, I tried to retain the paragraphs more relevant to this reply.

Yes, YMMV (a lot) in regards to Bendis' writing, but I truly feel that, at the very least, Cyke's recent history isn't given justice.

From the onset of Cyke finally taking charge of his dwindling species-- when Utopia was raised-- we had this foreboding prophecy from him.



To me, this not only shows that Cyke knows he's crossing the line and will follow through morally ambiguous decisions, but he's fully prepared to take whatever flak comes from said decisions. To be frank, it is Cyke's conviction and determination, as much as his tactical brilliance, that turned me into a fan-- but that's not my point.

My point is, Cyke knew where he would end up when the X-Gene returns and, likely, he was prepared to fight an uphill battle to regain his colleague's trust. The previous scene, written by KYost, is consistent with Gillen's portrayal.



I would even go so far as to say that Cyke knew he killed Xavier and accepted this fact. I believe that the Phoenix did play a large part in the murder ("It amplifies our feelings. If we think it, it will happen", to paraphrase Emma), but the fact remains that Cyke knew Xavier's death was still by his hands. Cyke, to me, blames himself. As he told the star-spangled jack-booted thug, he accepts full responsibility of his and his peers' actions even though they were all under the Phoenix's influence. He was not making excuses.

Thus, when Bendis writes Cyke like this...



...I can't help but take offense. Then again, over the two years of being exposed to Bendis in the X-Men, I've come to expect inconsistencies-- both with respect to the cast's histories, but also in a character's portrayal.

To be honest, I'm also offended by the way Emma is written. The transition between their portrayals pre- and post-Marvel NOW feels far too abrupt. I get that Bendis is trying to "humanize" them, but he may as well be writing completely new characters at this point.

Now, I'm not saying Cyke shouldn't be portrayed the way you've described. I'm just saying that the abrupt change in Cyke's portrayal is jarring. In my humble opinion, I would have preferred it if Bendis continued Gillen's portrayal and began chipping the armor from there. Instead, I'm supposed to believe that being told off by Tyke and Jeen-- Tyke and Jeen who have no idea what transpired since they began-- was enough to make Cyke falter and hate himself? To me, that's hamfisted silliness.

I'd also like to add that had it been Gillen's Cyke, the silly Bubblehead plot wouldn't have extended up to, what, 12ish issues? And that his Cyke would have hit the ground running-- capitalizing on the PR, rescued more mutants, tracked down Sinister; we would have seen Cyke working through multiple angles, trying to atone for his sins, until he finally breaks-- instead of whatever Bendis Cyke is doing now.

[JeffimusPrime]

What exactly are Scott's crimes that he needs to atone for? Is it just X-force and killing Xavier while possessed by the phoenix? or is he guilty of other crimes. Is he actually guilty of using child Soldiers or is it just a case of making sure that everyone was as trained as possible so that they had the best chance of surviving events like second coming and messiah complex? To me it seemed more like Scott's actions were based on making sure people survived threats rather than just using them as soldiers in a war. This doesn't seem like something that is that terrible considering what position the x-men in at the time or even be considered a crime.

What makes that kind of training any different to the school teaching the kids advanced ninja techniques or tactical training. I can't remember seeing the school teach them subjects like maths or history or any other subject that would enable the kids to be anything but X-men when they grow up.

I suppose I'm just wondering if Scott is deserving the hatred he is receiving and what crimes he is responsible for and thus needs to atone for. What is it, that makes him so deserving a level of hate in which even his oldest friends, now seem to detest him. I mean apart from X-force wasn't everything Scott did in full public view, why wasn't Scott shut down before AVX happened if what he was doing was so terrible and wrong. Why were characters like Storm and Psylocke willing to stay on utopia if the situation was so bad and then apart from Wolverine, Beast and a few others were all the other x-men willing to work with him during AVX?


Sorry if there is an obvious answer to this I only started reading again after AVX.

[xiyon]

What exactly are Scott's crimes that he needs to atone for? Is it just X-force and killing Xavier while possessed by the phoenix? or is he guilty of other crimes. Is he actually guilty of using child Soldiers or is it just a case of making sure that everyone was as trained as possible so that they had the best chance of surviving events like second coming and messiah complex? To me it seemed more like Scott's actions were based on making sure people survived threats rather than just using them as soldiers in a war. This doesn't seem like something that is that terrible considering what position the x-men in at the time or even be considered a crime.

What makes that kind of training any different to the school teaching the kids advanced ninja techniques or tactical training. I can't remember seeing the school teach them subjects like maths or history or any other subject that would enable the kids to be anything but X-men when they grow up.

I suppose I'm just wondering if Scott is deserving the hatred he is receiving and what crimes he is responsible for and thus needs to atone for. What is it, that makes him so deserving a level of hate in which even his oldest friends, now seem to detest him. I mean apart from X-force wasn't everything Scott did in full public view, why wasn't Scott shut down before AVX happened if what he was doing was so terrible and wrong. Why were characters like Storm and Psylocke willing to stay on utopia if the situation was so bad and then apart from Wolverine, Beast and a few others were all the other x-men willing to work with him during AVX?


Sorry if there is an obvious answer to this I only started reading again after AVX.

To be clear, I feel Cyke's actions during his reign were all justified. That doesn't mean he is free of his sins, however. I liken it to a certain politician of my home country: he's been implicated in some very extreme crimes but there is no question that he brought order, economic growth, and rapid development to his city.

I feel Cyke shouldn't be so self-deprecating even for killing Xavier simply because it was the Avengers that instigated it all (though one could still mount the argument that Cable set up the whole thing), but Cyke wouldn't be Cyke without his inner angst and sense of responsibility.

In a setting more consistent with his character and history, I imagine Cyke blaming himself while a friend tries to convince him it was the Phoenix, and not the other way around that Bendis is presenting. In fact, I had even hoped that friend would have been Dazzler.

Dazzler spent a while jumping realities and killing Xaviers. Dazzler even confirmed that 616!Xavier is another 'evil' Xavier; she even met with and sympathized with Scott. That Dazzler was singing to everyone else's tune upon her reintroduction to Uncanny X-Men made me want to just drop the book right then and there. Dazzler's growth in X-Treme was erased-- it's as if she never left in the first place! If not for UXM being the only book where Cyke is featured, I would have dropped it.

Now, though? Now, I think I will be dropping the book unless something changes. This isn't the Cyke I respect.

YMMV, and Bendis isn't doing it for me.

[RLAAMJR.]

I'm missing optic dreams!

[Mr. Brightside]

I'm missing optic dreams!

Me too!!!!!!!!! ;-; ;-; ;-;

...I can't help but take offense. Then again, over the two years of being exposed to Bendis in the X-Men, I've come to expect inconsistencies-- both with respect to the cast's histories, but also in a character's portrayal.

To explain Bendis's terrible It Wasn't Me lines, I take it as this: He takes responsiility for Xaviers death because he's not stupid or in denial. He KNOWS he killed Xavier. It wasn't Emma, or Wolverine, or Tony Stark, it was him. He feels guilty, as shown in the Bendis written issue with Hand-gun Kitty, But in the above panel with Emma, he also knows that it wasn't his INTENTION to kill him, which is why he says he didn't kill Xavier. It wasn't him, as his conciousness, or soul, or spirit or whatever that killed Charles, it was the Phoenix amplifying him due to it all being in him (all 5 phoenix pieces), and the situation that made Charles and Scott fight each other in the first place. Proof would be the "Are you happy now, Captain?" part of AvX 11, and the fact that when he did do the deed, he was crying. There was no triumphant laugh, no sigh of relief. Then he went Dark Phoenix. That's why he can explain to Emma, because she also had a slip while drunk on Phoenix: Namor. She DID make love to Namor Morrison-style, but she knows it wasn't because she's a slut. She had been given countlesss chances to do Namor, and she never took them.
Could all be head canon and further from what Bendis wants it to mean, but that's how I see it.

[Fibinaci]

To explain Bendis's terrible It Wasn't Me lines, I take it as this: He takes responsiility for Xaviers death because he's not stupid or in denial. He KNOWS he killed Xavier. It wasn't Emma, or Wolverine, or Tony Stark, it was him. He feels guilty, as shown in the Bendis written issue with Hand-gun Kitty, But in the above panel with Emma, he also knows that it wasn't his INTENTION to kill him, which is why he says he didn't kill Xavier. It wasn't him, as his conciousness, or soul, or spirit or whatever that killed Charles, it was the Phoenix amplifying him due to it all being in him (all 5 phoenix pieces), and the situation that made Charles and Scott fight each other in the first place. Proof would be the "Are you happy now, Captain?" part of AvX 11, and the fact that when he did do the deed, he was crying

I think Scott's main problem PR with the others wise, isn't whether or even how he takes responsibility, but that with Xavier dead, Charles can't take his fair share of the responsibility, and everyone else is is running so far away from it(has AvX even been mentioned in any of the Avengers books?), that he's stuck holding the bag for an F-up that took half the cast(Cap,Tony,Charles,Logan,Hope,Emma,Himself) to manage to make. There's no way he can own all that.

Some people have theorized it was the Phoenix acting on its own to protect him from whatever it saw Xavier doing next, like a teenage girl overreacting when her dad tries break her and the love of her sixteen year old life up. This works in my mind because Scott doesn't try too hard when fighting his people, he could have finished the fight with Wolverine before schism in one blast but just wouldn't pull the trigger, he could've beat storm for leadership but wasn't willing to hurt her to do it. Such a thing does, I admit, feel kinda weak. Still, I think eventually that will be the revelation we get(one of the telepaths, most likely Jeen, will look into his memories and see he didn't trigger anything that would kill Charles) unless Bendis can bend the Avengers books into dealing with this too.

[LittlePriest]

I would even go so far as to say that Cyke knew he killed Xavier and accepted this fact. I believe that the Phoenix did play a large part in the murder ("It amplifies our feelings. If we think it, it will happen", to paraphrase Emma), but the fact remains that Cyke knew Xavier's death was still by his hands. Cyke, to me, blames himself. As he told the star-spangled jack-booted thug, he accepts full responsibility of his and his peers' actions even though they were all under the Phoenix's influence. He was not making excuses.

I've made this argument before, but can't remember where.

There is a way to reconcile both statements. He knows how badly things could have gone. He's willing to trade his happiness and his mentor for a world that exists. Remember, one of the likely outcomes was a lifeless burned out husk of a planet. Scott has never shied away from living with the aftermath of his decisions, like he did when his plan saved Hope, but lost one of his oldest friends when Nightcrawler died. He kept right on leading after that event and he, in effect, traded a grown man who was quite a close friend for the life of a young girl. In this event he traded the life on one man he cared about for his people and a planet for them to live on. He isn't callously buying one with the other, but he can in the end of the day say "it could have been so much worse."

But not wanting to change anything that happened in no way implies that he was in control at the end. These are two different statements and both can be quite true. He wouldn't change anything because the stakes were so high, but at the end there, when they're eating human meat while Emma's sneaking out of the room every few minutes to track down and kill humans who've been keeping secrets and Scott's choking women out like he's on Pym particles. Something's not quite right.

And honestly, I never understood the condemnation he got from people on the Nightcrawler situation. What kind of hero wouldn't lay his life on the line to save a teenager? Imagine in the real world there's a fourteen year old girl hanging off the side of a cliff and some full grown cop dies rescuing her. Who is a big enough douche to say: "Dude, totally should have let the kid die." Meanwhile you have old Hank flying in to spit in Scott's face because he lost someone trying to save the life that all their enemies were tripping over themselves to erase.

Why have an X-men if they aren't going to save mutants?

[xiyon]

I've made this argument before, but can't remember where.

There is a way to reconcile both statements. He knows how badly things could have gone. He's willing to trade his happiness and his mentor for a world that exists. Remember, one of the likely outcomes was a lifeless burned out husk of a planet. Scott has never shied away from living with the aftermath of his decisions, like he did when his plan saved Hope, but lost one of his oldest friends when Nightcrawler died. He kept right on leading after that event and he, in effect, traded a grown man who was quite a close friend for the life of a young girl. In this event he traded the life on one man he cared about for his people and a planet for them to live on. He isn't callously buying one with the other, but he can in the end of the day say "it could have been so much worse."

But not wanting to change anything that happened in no way implies that he was in control at the end. These are two different statements and both can be quite true. He wouldn't change anything because the stakes were so high, but at the end there, when they're eating human meat while Emma's sneaking out of the room every few minutes to track down and kill humans who've been keeping secrets and Scott's choking women out like he's on Pym particles. Something's not quite right.

And honestly, I never understood the condemnation he got from people on the Nightcrawler situation. What kind of hero wouldn't lay his life on the line to save a teenager? Imagine in the real world there's a fourteen year old girl hanging off the side of a cliff and some full grown cop dies rescuing her. Who is a big enough douche to say: "Dude, totally should have let the kid die." Meanwhile you have old Hank flying in to spit in Scott's face because he lost someone trying to save the life that all their enemies were tripping over themselves to erase.

Why have an X-men if they aren't going to save mutants?

It isn't the issue of control that I was getting at, but Cyclops' acknowledgement that he did "wrong" and subsequent accepting responsibility. There were no excuses, and that was the Cyclops I respected. His fans (including myself) would justify his actions, but Cyke himself wouldn't place the blame on anyone but himself.

And then Bendis stepped in.

I do wholeheartedly agree regarding Nightcrawler. His was a powerful and very heroic sacrifice-- a sacrifice that is repeatedly undermined by those that place the blame on Cyclops. It wasn't Cyclops' moment.

That was Kurt's moment. That was the moment that further proves the nobility of Kurt's spirit. That moment in Second Coming, when Kurt knew what it would take to bring Hope back, when he prayed for strength and parted with an "I believe in you", still sends chills down my spine. I believe that, even if it wasn't Hope, if it was just a random person, Kurt would still make such a sacrifice.

Me too!!!!!!!!! ;-; ;-; ;-;



To explain Bendis's terrible It Wasn't Me lines, I take it as this: He takes responsiility for Xaviers death because he's not stupid or in denial. He KNOWS he killed Xavier. It wasn't Emma, or Wolverine, or Tony Stark, it was him. He feels guilty, as shown in the Bendis written issue with Hand-gun Kitty, But in the above panel with Emma, he also knows that it wasn't his INTENTION to kill him, which is why he says he didn't kill Xavier. It wasn't him, as his conciousness, or soul, or spirit or whatever that killed Charles, it was the Phoenix amplifying him due to it all being in him (all 5 phoenix pieces), and the situation that made Charles and Scott fight each other in the first place. Proof would be the "Are you happy now, Captain?" part of AvX 11, and the fact that when he did do the deed, he was crying. There was no triumphant laugh, no sigh of relief. Then he went Dark Phoenix. That's why he can explain to Emma, because she also had a slip while drunk on Phoenix: Namor. She DID make love to Namor Morrison-style, but she knows it wasn't because she's a slut. She had been given countlesss chances to do Namor, and she never took them.
Could all be head canon and further from what Bendis wants it to mean, but that's how I see it.

Intention or not, Cyclops accepted all responsibility. Remember, this was the guy who had the bad habit of blaming himself for anything that goes wrong, whether his fault or no. Cyke accepting full responsibility even for Namor's actions was silly, but still in line with his character.

Personally, I interpreted that scene in AvX as Cyke finally having enough. It's actually quite humbling to see that it took all those years of abuse, a Phoenix possession, and all those attacks including from a father-figure that never listened to him and didn't bat an eyelash in the face of clear murder attempts but, instead, continued to shout at him and attack him when all Cyke was trying to do is explain his side while trying to stop Emma from creating a world of ash, for Cyke to be pushed over the edge. I saw it as a horrifyingly cathartic situation from blind rage-- a moment where control was lost and Cyke's greatest fear was realized.

I can't blame Cyke for losing control. Most people would have lost control for much lesser reasons. Wolverine loses control when someone has a contrary opinion. Beast is controlled by his emotions. That Cyke still accepted responsibility, to me, speaks volumes of his character.

[FluffyCyclopsRLZ]

Folks, you're overthinking this Blame/No Blame thingy. BendisClops was tweaked so that Eva Bell could fawn over him and so that he could convince Kitty Pryde not to murder him. GillenClops didn't exactly fit those parameters.