Originally Posted by
FUBAR007
Keep in mind we don't know specifically which future stories JDW is referring to. My hunch is he's referring to the forthcoming end of Rosenberg's run. I could be wrong, but this doesn't seem like the sort of thing Hickman is likely to focus on.
Also, don't forget that not all Cyclops fans are RightClops fans; some genuinely prefer BoyScott.
The problem is that, in one key respect, the Extinction-era creative team did their job too well. It's obvious to me they were going for the dramatic irony of Scott, Xavier's prize pupil, turning into the new Magneto in order to subvert the traditional hero/villain dynamic. But, they did it gradually and incrementally over time to show what was motivating Scott, why he was making the choices he was making, and to keep him sympathetic to the reader. That way, when the final, heel-turn flashpoint came--Scott killing Xavier--it would have the maximum emotional impact for readers. What Marvel didn't seem to anticipate was that a sizable of contingent of fans shifted their own moral goalposts as Scott did. They didn't see Scott's arc as a fall from grace but rather as a liberation from a naive and weak morality and an embrace of hard-boiled, ends-justifies-the-means worldview. When the flashpoint came, they didn't see Scott's killing of Xavier as the final heel-turn but as him finally, truly becoming a man and righteously executing an oppressive, hypocritical father-figure.
I remember a parallel effect with fans of The Shield and Breaking Bad. Despite the fact he was a cold-blooded murderer and a cop-killer, lots of viewers thought Vic Mackey was a straight up hero and model cop because he bucked the system. Despite the fact he was a ruthless, manipulative shit-heel who ruined lives and got innocent people killed, lots of viewers thought Walter White was a hero because he subverted the system. (Their cases are far more extreme than Scott's--even I don't think he ever went full villain--but the effect among the fanbase is similar.)
It's like pro wrestling: people root for the heel, not the face. Marvel forgot that.
Now, Marvel's trying to walk Scott back to being a more traditional hero, but the fan contingent that prefers him as an edgelord anti-hero is going apeshit.
(The credible way to thread the needle is to explicitly reiterate that, throughout the Extinction era, Scott's world was crumbling around him. He was possessed by Apocalypse for months. He lost his marriage to Jean. Then, he lost Jean. Again. Then, aliens wiped out her entire family. Then, he found out he had another brother, a fact his mentor and surrogate father had lied to him about for years. Then, said brother turned out to be a raging psycho who killed Scott's friend and then went on to murder their father. Then, Scott's other brother disappeared in space fighting said psycho brother. Then, Scott thought he lost his son. Again. And on and on and on. And, all this is before factoring in M-Day, Bastion and Stryker, the Phoenix, etc. Scott's arc wasn't a case of a vanilla wimp discovering his inner badass; it was a case of a good, but flawed man gradually losing everything and cracking apart under the strain.
He doesn't need redemption so much as proper mental health care and a lot of it. Fortunately, a certain redhead is back and uniquely qualified to provide exactly the love and TLC Scott needs. If Marvel will let her.)