I AM The X-Men - Cyclops Appreciation 2023

[whitecrown]

One - you'd have to go a LOT further than Scott did by Schism to even reach Magneto, much less Hitler.

Two - While the actual events of Schism had me agreeing with Logan in the long term, I still think he was utterly wrong in the moment. But, given the mental crisis he had been put in over in his solo series (being manipulated into killing five of his own children) I can understand why he acted that way.

Three - Marvel really, really dropped the ball after Schism. If the debate was over kids fighting, whose comic has kids in combat and whose didn't? I'll spoil it for you - Wolverine and the X-Men constantly had his students in Danger and Uncanny X-Men never really had Scott's students on the page, undermining the entire narrative be refusing to actually show even a single moment of it on the page. If it wasn't for writer interviews I would never have known that was the supposed angle they were going for, and even then the non-Scott writers showed how little they understood every time they spoke about him. Remender especially said Scott doesn't believe in free will, when reading the actual panels would show that he has the opposite problem: Scott presumes agency exists in places it does not, and doesn't understand that offering a choice might not actually be that way when seen by someone from outside - all because he was offered a choice that was no choice at all before he became a child soldier, and he never really understood that remaining on the streets and wanted by the police vs being protected and trained in Xavier's mansion was no choice at all.

It wasn't just his stance on Schism that put me off the character by then. It was everything that led up to it before as well. I think it's interesting that even in-universe, characters reflect on how unlikable Scott has become. In The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire, Lorna and Alex reflect on how they miss Jean and how they liked Scott a lot more when she was alive as well. This was the first contemporary X-Men comic I started to read when I got into the X-Men so this has always stuck with me, even though at that point I had little familiarity with why Scott had become so unlikable in the years before. I've spoken a lot more about this in the Jean thread, but the way Scott doggedly pursued Wanda, refused to give her a chance to help out or even listen to her and was only determined to "burn the witch where she stands" was incredibly off-putting. He wasn't interested in helping mutantkind then, he only wanted vengeance. Which is fine for a character like Wolverine but if you're the moral leader of the X-Men and have appointed yourself the head of all mutantkind, you need to hold yourself to a higher standard. I'm still of the belief that Scott wanted Wanda dead because he feared that if she could actually reverse M-Day, he would lose all the emergency powers he had cultivated from taking advantage of the fact that this dying species had grouped around him. That narrative would completely change if Wanda restored mutantkind and he would no longer be the mutant leader or savior.

Uncanny X-Force also did a good job of recontextualizing Logan's actions. That entire chain of events started because X-Force allowed a child to die (kid Apocalypse) and everyone who was part of the team regretted that decision by the end. It should be noted that even when kid Apocalypse was killed, by that point Logan and all the others had already changed their initial minds and refused to kill him. They all wanted to rehabilitate him before Fantomex put a bullet in his head.

The way I saw it, Wolverine's stance was teaching the kids how to use their powers so they could become productive members of society and reintegrate with the public. If some of them grew up and decided they wanted to be X-Men, that was fine too but it wasn't compulsory nor was that the purpose of the school. The school was designed to help these kids control their abilities so they wouldn't be a danger to themselves or others, not to train them to be child soldiers. They weren't being trained to be X-Men. They weren't being sent out on missions to do with the adults did. But as mutants, their very existence meant they were always likely to be put in harm's way so they needed to learn how to defend themselves. This was very similar to what Xavier envisioned for the New Mutants. That team was created with the idea that these kids wouldn't be X-Men but would only learn to control their powers. They weren't supposed to go out on missions and encounter danger, but of course danger always found them. And we see that even when Magneto is headmaster, he's actively grounding them or keeping them confined to the mansion to keep them out of danger. The New Mutants were the ones sneaking out on missions as the junior X-Men and their actions got Cypher killed despite Magneto's best attempts to prevent exactly something like that happening.

[whitecrown]

I put Utopia Scott as someone doing what must be done to ensure that there is someone left to live Xavier's dream someday, even if it means sacrificing his place there to accomplish it. He did things he never would have considered before based almost entirely out of the desperation of his situation - in Bendis' X-Men run, adult Scott isn't willing to kill and stops the teen characters from doing so, as without the looming threat of imminent extinction he was free to start returning to his usual form. I don't consider Utopia Scott to be aspiring, but someone who was willing to sacrifice his own soul to ensure someone would still be alive in the future to condemn him, rather than remain a hero to the dead and gone. There was a tragic nobility in that which I found compelling.

Bringing up Xavier, Xavier is another prime example of a character whose treatment I deplored in the 2000s. Marvel in that era seemed to love to cut down authority figures. They demeaned Xavier over and over between the revelations of Cassandra Nova, Danger, and Deadly Genesis. It seemed like Xavier was only propped out for a story when it involved revealing he had another big bad secret he was hiding and by the third time, I wonder if anyone really even cared because how much muck can you rake on a character before everyone just gives up on them. Like with Beast fans now, I've never heard of Xavier fans who were proud of this treatment towards him back in the 2000s and think it improved him as a character that he was responsible for so much bloodshed and secrets that kept the X-Men in the dark.

What another user told me is that after the success of the X-Men movies, Marvel decided they wanted to restructure the comics to follow the films and have Wolverine in charge. This meant they needed to categorically get rid of all the characters who had seniority on the team above Wolverine since it wouldn't make sense for him to lead if you had Xavier, Scott, and Jean around. As far back as UXM #99, we're told that they're the heart and soul of the team. Jean was killed off for this reason with no intentions to bring her back. Xavier's character was destroyed with every new revelation with the plan that by AvX, Scott would go Dark Phoenix and kill him so that he would be permanently out of the picture as well. With Scott, the idea was to make him into a darker foil and thus restructure him as Magneto 2.0 while Logan became Xavier 2.0 and the new face of the dream. So Schism had been planned years before and everything Scott had turned into was always supposed to lead to that moment where Logan would become the legitimate leader of the X-Men and Scott leading what more or less translated into a new Brotherhood of Mutants packed with former villains. And AvX was supposed to have Cyclops become irredeemable by killing Xavier and locked away so that now Logan would have no more competition in the X-Men. No one could challenge his right to lead the team in a new era. In that sense, I see Scott as a victim of bad writing and mismanaged editorialship because they had to actively make him a villain in order to prop up Wolverine. Villain Cyclops needs to be retconned out of existence the same way they retconned Jean and Wanda so they wouldn't be mass murderers or crazy, out of control characters.

I can understand your points about how you felt this Scott was still sympathetic because he was only acting out of the situation and had to resort to things he would never have done or thought of before. I can even see the tragedy of him losing his soul to save everyone else. My problem with that is what I said in a prior post, that when Wanda came back, instead of working with her or listening to her, Scott was only interested in vengeance. He refused to consider the Avengers' side of things or the fact that Wanda was at her core, an Avenger. In the Jean thread, I posed this same argument that it would have been just as hypocritical if after the Dark Phoenix Saga, Cap and the Avengers came after Jean and ordered her "burnt at the stake." Of course the X-Men would rally around one of their own and fight to the death to save her. And the Avengers thankfully never played that part. So I don't see why Cyclops felt the need to do the same against Wanda and more or less wage war on the Avengers for defending their own. If people argue that Wanda's actions affected mutants which is why this was a mutant issue and so Cyclops should have had jurisdiction over her fate, my argument is that going back to the Dark Phoenix Saga, Jean's powers posed a threat to the entire universe. The Avengers could have claimed jurisdiction over her by saying they're a part of existence and the universe which Phoenix threatens so Jean should be turned over to them. So I never bought into Cyclops being an altruistic figure with his treatment of Wanda and the Avengers.

Going back to your statement that Cyclops was willing to sacrifice his soul for the sake of his people, I feel like that story had already been done with Jean in the Dark Phoenix Saga. She gave up her life because it was more important for her to die a human than become a god. When Cyclops becomes Dark Phoenix, one would think that having had prior experience with the Phoenix power and having seen the destruction that it wrought, he would know that its power can't be contained. If Jean couldn't do it, why could he? But he had devolved into someone so power-hungry at this point that he actually had the hubris to believe he could do what Jean couldn't. And ironically enough, whereas Jean was fighting the Phoenix at every point, Scott didn't even try. Once he became Phoenix, there were never any scenes where the real Scott snapped back in control and begged the X-Men to kill him and stop him. If he was really so determined to sacrifice himself to save his people, he would have begged Wolverine or someone to kill him and put this power out of harm's reach. He never did because he had become arrogant enough to believe he could actually make a difference where others like Jean, Wanda, or even Warren (all consumed by power) couldn't. This is why I do not like this Scott and cannot see much redeeming qualities in this characterization. What's more, when he fights Xavier, he kills him. When Jean fought Xavier, Xavier noted that the only reason he won is because the real Jean was fighting the Phoenix and helping Xavier all along to win the duel. When Warren ascended to Apocalypse, even he was fighting to regain control and oppose this split personality that had taken over. He has his own scenes where he briefly snaps back and begs his friends to kill him and stop him. Scott never has a moment like that because he's been completely consumed by the power. What we see is the real Scott all along which is why he's treated like a villain after his actions, unlike the way Jean, Wanda, or Warren were since all those characters were constantly fighting to regain control.

[TheDeadSpace]

Pre-Y2K, I was in my single digits age-wise. Primarily consumed the animated series as I didn't have the cash to buy comics at the time. I was a massive Wolverine fan, with a strong dislike for Cyke for "standing in the way of Logan getting Jean". For what few comics my grubby little hands could get, I couldn't for the life of me understand why people even liked Cyke.

In my defense, I was a stupid kid! lulz

Honestly, didn't think I'd be such a Cyke fan years later...

If there is one thing post-Schism did to me, it was actually turn me into a Wolvie detractor (and borderline hater during the AvX, Bendis era, and beyond).

I got into comics late as well. I grew up with the movies and X-Men evolution. I think the only difference is that I grew up liking both Scott and Wolverine. Cyclops was my favorite of the two, and still is. The design won me over and the comics kept it that way.

In all honesty, I don't have Claremont on my list because of his acting like a petulant child when Jean was brought back/Scott joining X-Factor and transferring that anger onto Scott. Plus, even as a kid, I always found the Maddie stuff super-creepy instead of some sort of wholesome send-off.

I'm in the same boat. Claremont wrote one of the best Cyclops, but his actions and attitude towards the character have removed him from my list of favorite writers.

I don't know how someone can hate a fictional character that much.

[Omega Alpha]

Claremont hates Jim Shooter and uses Cyclops as an avatar.

[whitecrown]

I don't know how someone can hate a fictional character that much.

Byrne said it best here.
https://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/...47&mobile=FULL
"No character should be blamed for being badly written. And no character should be badly written just because s/he’s been badly written before."

I would add John Byrne to the list of best Cyclops writers. Even if Claremont was the official writer during his run with Byrne, clearly much of the characterization was thanks to Byrne as well as it was a collaborative effort. Also for anyone who read X-Men Elsewhen, his take on Scott felt like a breath of fresh air.

More good Byrne quotes about Scott.

https://m.byrnerobotics.com/forum/fo...649&PN=0&TPN=3
"Undoubtedly, what did the most damage to Cyclops as a character was the shrinking of the marketplace coupled with the increasing dominance of the Direct Sales Market. The louder, whinier fanboys had always protested that the stright-shooting, honorable, noble and trustworthy Cyclops was "boring", and wanted him either using his beams to slice people in half, of killed off.

As these fanboys came to represent a larger and large prercentage of the audience (as well as becoming some of the people writing the characters) there was increasing pandering to this line of thought. And, of course, then we get the movies, which are pure fanboy WOLVERINE IS SO COOL crap, and Cyke gets dealt the worst hand of all."

https://m.byrnerobotics.com/forum/pr...ID=3&TID=10605
""...it made sense that (Wolverine) would be smitten and she not. Jean is, after all, a phenomenally hot babe. Problem was, Wolverine became the avatar of the fanboys, and it became necessary that that 'loser' Cyclops get punted aside in favor of the 'way kewl' Wolverine. And then the whole point of the 'triangle' gets lost."

[Kal-El Summers]

No, that's not me trolling at all. I find it very odd how Beast's fandom has been so distraught by the last few years of his character assassination and are just waiting for someone to restore him back to normal, but some Cyclops fans actually revel in that dark period of his becoming a tyrant and still cling to those years of character assassination like that was the real Cyclops and the character who existed from 1963-2001 was somehow the fraud. The discrepancy between the two amazes me but it seems Beast fans are less concerned with how "cool" or "edgy" their favorite character comes across as. They just want him treated like a human being with some modicum of decency and respect, the way he used to be. Before Beast gets saved with a retcon, I'm still waiting for the day some writer saves Cyclops with a retcon that he was never Magneto 2.0 but some Skrull imposter, Sinister clone, or Apocalypse infused abomination.

Please stop throwing around buzz words like "tyrant" when he was never anything like one. Also, comparing Beast's fall from grace from Endangered Species until now to Scott not being the "boy scout" anymore is WILD.

[whitecrown]

Please stop throwing around buzz words like "tyrant" when he was never anything like one. Also, comparing Beast's fall from grace from Endangered Species until now to Scott not being the "boy scout" anymore is WILD.

Wasn't it Cyclops who directly compared himself to Magneto in the pic below that their only difference was Cyclops was winning?

I was on Beast's side when he left the X-Men and Utopia. I haven't been following what's been happening with him in recent years but I've heard the worst from posters on here. Another character the X-office has butchered.

If you look at those Byrne links I posted above, you'll see that while here on CBR I may inexplicably be the minority in terms of disliking what was done to Cyclops in the 2000s onward, I'm definitely not alone in other internet forums and sites. Those links have hundreds of posts and comments where fans bemoan what was done to Cyclops and how Marvel is ruining him. The third link in particular is to a thread titled "Salvaging Cyclops." Some of those posts were even before Schism or AvX which shows how dissatisfied classic fans of the character were just by the mid-late 2000s. I pretty much agree with all those posters especially the ones wondering what retcon could be used to explain how Wrongclops was not the real Cyclops. If Marvel was willing to retcon Tony Stark in the 90s to save him from being a villain, I don't see why they can't do the same with Scott. They seem to be going the route of just ignoring that time period altogether, which was also one of the ways listed on how to salvage Cyclops in that link by simply never bringing up his character assassination ever again if they aren't willing to do a full retcon. As Byrne stated, that's something he's done as well which is to just ignore unsavory aspects although it's much harder in this case since it wasn't an issue or two but almost two decades of misuse.

[AJpyro]

Just have to disagree with ya White crown. Scott's time in Utopia was amazing and some of his best writing.

[Kal-El Summers]

It wasn't just his stance on Schism that put me off the character by then. It was everything that led up to it before as well. I think it's interesting that even in-universe, characters reflect on how unlikable Scott has become. In The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire, Lorna and Alex reflect on how they miss Jean and how they liked Scott a lot more when she was alive as well. This was the first contemporary X-Men comic I started to read when I got into the X-Men so this has always stuck with me, even though at that point I had little familiarity with why Scott had become so unlikable in the years before. I've spoken a lot more about this in the Jean thread, but the way Scott doggedly pursued Wanda, refused to give her a chance to help out or even listen to her and was only determined to "burn the witch where she stands" was incredibly off-putting. He wasn't interested in helping mutantkind then, he only wanted vengeance. Which is fine for a character like Wolverine but if you're the moral leader of the X-Men and have appointed yourself the head of all mutantkind, you need to hold yourself to a higher standard. I'm still of the belief that Scott wanted Wanda dead because he feared that if she could actually reverse M-Day, he would lose all the emergency powers he had cultivated from taking advantage of the fact that this dying species had grouped around him. That narrative would completely change if Wanda restored mutantkind and he would no longer be the mutant leader or savior.

I just want to say... basing your opinion of Scott(seemingly for the most part) on Children's Crusade, which was widely-panned as being editorially-mandated garbage with almost every character involved being written incredibly out of character, doesn't make much sense.

[Kal-El Summers]

Wasn't it Cyclops who directly compared himself to Magneto in the pic below that their only difference was Cyclops was winning?

I was on Beast's side when he left the X-Men and Utopia. I haven't been following what's been happening with him in recent years but I've heard the worst from posters on here. Another character the X-office has butchered.

If you look at those Byrne links I posted above, you'll see that while here on CBR I may inexplicably be the minority in terms of disliking what was done to Cyclops in the 2000s onward, I'm definitely not alone in other internet forums and sites. Those links have hundreds of posts and comments where fans bemoan what was done to Cyclops and how Marvel is ruining him. The third link in particular is to a thread titled "Salvaging Cyclops." Some of those posts were even before Schism or AvX which shows how dissatisfied classic fans of the character were just by the mid-late 2000s. I pretty much agree with all those posters especially the ones wondering what retcon could be used to explain how Wrongclops was not the real Cyclops. If Marvel was willing to retcon Tony Stark in the 90s to save him from being a villain, I don't see why they can't do with the same with Scott.

A page of Phoenix-possessed Scott from a terrible event does not a tyrant make. :/

[whitecrown]

I just want to say... basing your opinion of Scott(seemingly for the most part) on Children's Crusade, which was widely-panned as being editorially-mandated garbage with almost every character involved being written incredibly out of character, doesn't make much sense.

Umm, I don't remember that criticism. In fact, I remember X-Fans here cheering on Cyclops and his actions to "burn the witch where she stands." That was a very popular sentiment here in the X-Books section for years. There was a thread a while back about how X-Fans seem to have forgiven the Avengers and Wanda and there's no bad blood anymore. I posted in there about how I was disgusted at how X-Fans were suddenly pretending all was well when for years, they went on hate rants about Wanda, Steve, Tony, Carol, Logan, Hank, etc. You could practically see the foam churning at their mouths and there would be new threads created everyday complaining about one of these Avengers. And that's not even considering all the random threads that were being polluted with arbitrary hate towards the Avengers.

So I definitely don't remember any complaints about the characters being OOC from X-Fans. And even on the Avengers side, I recall no negativity especially since Wanda fans had waited for years for her to be brought back. She's another example of a character who desperately needed to be salvaged after years of abuse and misuse. The story was quite praised by Wanda fans and considered long overdue.

Cyclops' characterization during that time wasn't just limited to Children's Crusade. He was written like that in AvX as well. One story was not the reason why I was disgusted at Cyclops' writing, because it was consistent with what I had seen at that point for almost a decade.

[whitecrown]

Just have to disagree with ya White crown. Scott's time in Utopia was amazing and some of his best writing.

And I'm glad you feel that way, really. I may absolutely despise what happened to the character then but there should be someone who actually enjoyed it so it wasn't negativity for all.

[whitecrown]

A page of Phoenix-possessed Scott from a terrible event does not a tyrant make. :/

I brought up in a prior post on this page about why I hold Scott's actions as Phoenix possessed as different from holding Jean, Wanda, or Warren accountable when they were possessed. Those three were constantly fighting to regain control, whereas Scott never fought against it. I don't recall any moment like this with Scott.

[TheDeadSpace]

I can see why some would hate the Utopia era. I don't have a problem with that.

For me it worked. Jean was gone. Trust in Xavier was gone. His father was dead. All he had left was the X-Men and Emma. He felt fine making the tough choices if it meant everyone lived. He knew the costs, but wanted a better future for mutant kind instead.

That being said, I feel like the conclusion to the story was ruined when it ultimately became/lead to AvX and Scott was given terrible writing.

Aaron being a main writer probably didn't help.

I brought up in a prior post on this page about why I hold Scott's actions as Phoenix possessed as different from holding Jean, Wanda, or Warren accountable when they were possessed. Those three were constantly fighting to regain control, whereas Scott never fought against it. I don't recall any moment like this with Scott.

Cyclops asks to be killed in AvX #12 while Dark Phoenix, right before losing control again. The Uncanny X-Men tie in, I'm blanking on the exact issue number, also gives insight into his thought process.

[Thirteen]

Just have to disagree with ya White crown. Scott's time in Utopia was amazing and some of his best writing.

Cyclops in the Utopia era was one of the standout examples of Scott Summers being a leader in not only just physical battle, but also ideologically in X-MEN.



Bendis' run being another...