I AM The X-Men - Cyclops Appreciation 2023

[BESTXMAN]

If I wrote X-Men I would do a Summers family in space 12 issue run where Cyclops and family [Jean, Cable, Hope, Rachel, Havok, Madelyne and even Lorna and Wolverine tag along for drama because of course] are visiting the Shiar Empire and suddenly they find themselves in the middle of a coop against Xandra and Vulcan is freed from his Arrako prison by a mysterious figure who is some kind of Shiar superguardian black ops operative [Like the ones that murdered the greys][Which we later find out was a deed actually masterminded by this figure]. This figure has some pretty serious powers that I can't determine the exact nature of yet but something omega level like vulcan except affecting mental and psychic energy as well. Her look would be reminiscent of despara in motu complete with cape and everything.

Anyway this figure which is clearly female and humanoid in appearance somehow knows about Vulcan and has a huge grudge against both Lilandras family and the Summers family, especially Corsair. She finally makes her move after years of being in the shadows and challenges the praetor for leadership of the imperial guard and is able to remove his confidence [part of her powers] and easily beats him. And she installs Vulcan as the emperor and somehow has control over him and he does everything she says. Her powers make it easy to control him... but is it just the powers at work? The story plays just like Deadly Genesis in that we slowly start to unravel the mystery of who this is and if you haven't figured it out by now it turns out to be Katherine Summers who it turns out was a very powerful mutant who hid her powers from her husband and was in denial of them and wanted a normal life and the Shiar attacked her craft because they homed in on her very powerful mutant energy signature. Once discovered she was pregnant they kept vulcan around to harness that power. You also notice that Vulcan is significantly more powerful than Scott and Alex and it is because their powers have not been enhanced by her presence [part of her powers] so we get to power up these two dudes significantly after meeting their mother again. They found out she has gone mad from surviving having her son taken from her belly and left for dead only to be saved by fellow slaves. And then discovering her sons were alive, and Corsair had not rescued her, etc etc. Part of her power is to remove peoples courage and mental energy and she essentially scared Corsair away from her this whole time. Or did he freak out when he realised she was a mutant? Something to add to the fire. In the end the story serves to tell the story of what happened to the Summers bros mom and where their crazy genetic potential comes from. Which weve been led to believe came from the Summers and the manipulation of Mr. Sinister. And as it turns out, he was in on the Katherine Summers thing too. So much so that he had her in the same orphanage that he later had her son in. She also saves Scotts life at some point and tries to bring him over. I don't know. My 2 cents worth of fan fiction for the day. In the end she is presumed dead. The summers bros develop stronger versions of their powers and in cyclops case full control of his beams as well as the nature of what the beams actually are. I may even give him super strength.

[xiyon]

All this debate about EvoClops and W&TXMClops, but no one talking about AnimeClops

That being said, X-Men Anime pretty much just took the setup of W&TXM and crafted a better series.

[Kal-El Summers]

AnimeClops had a pretty decent costume outside of that awful jacket. Should've just gone with a bomber jacket, IMO. Also, while Hisako was annoying in the anime, she thankfully wasn't as bad as Kitty and Bobby in W&TXM, who seemed to only exist to nag everyone else that Logan was right and they were wrong.

[GoingGreen]

Hey Cyke fans, question.

So, I want to go back and read some defining moments for certain characters to understand their popularity better. Love good ole Cyclops, but I’ve never taken the time to dive very deep into him beyond just casually reading his panels. My favorite run of him to date has been the Uncanny series straight out of the Phoenix Five event, when his powers were broken and he was rescuing newly manifesting mutants (including Tempus and Egg) and I’m pretty sure most Cyke fans find that tragic.

Wondering what some of you say are quintessential reads and your favorite runs for the character.

Thanks in advance!

[TheDeadSpace]

Hey Cyke fans, question.

So, I want to go back and read some defining moments for certain characters to understand their popularity better. Love good ole Cyclops, but I’ve never taken the time to dive very deep into him beyond just casually reading his panels. My favorite run of him to date has been the Uncanny series straight out of the Phoenix Five event, when his powers were broken and he was rescuing newly manifesting mutants (including Tempus and Egg) and I’m pretty sure most Cyke fans find that tragic.

Wondering what some of you say are quintessential reads and your favorite runs for the character.

Thanks in advance!

Off the top of my head, with different eras in consideration, I would recommend: Astonishing X-men (Josh Whedon), X-factor #14 (Louise Simonson), Dark Phoenix Saga , X-Men: marvels snapshots #1 (Jay Edidin), Cyclops #1-4 of the icons line (Brian K. Vaughan), and Uncanny X-Men (Gillen). God Loves, Man Kills also has a pretty good representation of Cyke, albeit very small. I'm sure others have plenty of great recommendations to add and probably better specifics.

[xiyon]

Hey Cyke fans, question.

So, I want to go back and read some defining moments for certain characters to understand their popularity better. Love good ole Cyclops, but I’ve never taken the time to dive very deep into him beyond just casually reading his panels. My favorite run of him to date has been the Uncanny series straight out of the Phoenix Five event, when his powers were broken and he was rescuing newly manifesting mutants (including Tempus and Egg) and I’m pretty sure most Cyke fans find that tragic.

Wondering what some of you say are quintessential reads and your favorite runs for the character.

Thanks in advance!

Off the top of my head?

Messiah Complex, Second Coming, and then the Uncanny X-Men: Heroic Age one-shot / tie-in.

Compelling character and leadership moments throughout that saga-- and why I thoroughly detested the way Marvel handled Hope all-throughout AvX. Could've really been an epic X-saga conclusion instead of shoehorning in the Avengers at the last moment.

[R+R]

All this debate about EvoClops and W&TXMClops, but no one talking about AnimeClops

That being said, X-Men Anime pretty much just took the setup of W&TXM and crafted a better series.

AnimeClops is an awesome version of Cyclops. His personality is more similar to that of the books. His position as a leader is respected and watching him train Hisako was reminding me of how Scott was training youngsters to defend themselves on Utopia.

Hey Cyke fans, question.

So, I want to go back and read some defining moments for certain characters to understand their popularity better. Love good ole Cyclops, but I’ve never taken the time to dive very deep into him beyond just casually reading his panels. My favorite run of him to date has been the Uncanny series straight out of the Phoenix Five event, when his powers were broken and he was rescuing newly manifesting mutants (including Tempus and Egg) and I’m pretty sure most Cyke fans find that tragic.

Wondering what some of you say are quintessential reads and your favorite runs for the character.

Thanks in advance!

The runs from Whedon, Fraction, Gillen, and some of the Bendis stuff are all great for Cyclops.

[Ra-El]

Warren Ellis's Astonishing X-Men is also pretty good.

For all the crap AvX gave us, AvX: Consequences is a great look into Scott's character.

[Uncanny X-Man]

Warren Ellis's Astonishing X-Men is also pretty good.

For all the crap AvX gave us, AvX: Consequences is a great look into Scott's character.

Agreed, AvX: Consequences has one of the best Cykes for me.

[Gray Lensman]

Warren Ellis's Astonishing X-Men is also pretty good.

For all the crap AvX gave us, AvX: Consequences is a great look into Scott's character.

I think consequences was Gillen again. He can do great when he wants to write the character.

Also, for good Cyclops stuff, look up the early Claremont run starting with Giant Size #1. CC may be a bad Cyclops writer NOW, but he didn't get that way until he transferred his entirely justified anger at Jim Shooter onto Scott Summers. He did quite well with the character when he started.

The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix is another great limited series.

For animation, if you can get by the "Superhero Hogwarts" setup of X-Men: Evolution, they do a great job with the character of Cyclops. It isn't exactly him, but you can see how this version will become the Scott we are all more familiar with. The X-Men Anime does a great job with him as well, gives us a pretty good Beast, but fails with Storm.

I don't like the portrayal of Scott in Wolverine and the X-Men (with it's focus that Logan is always right and Scott is always wrong, but never more so than when they do the same damn thing), but he does have a great action episode going against the Marauders one by one like Marv out of Sin City, just don't watch the very end. Logan was never more blastingly smug in ANY portrayal ever than in the closing of that episode, and no, no blasting happens. It also has a better setup for a potential Emma/Jean love triangle than Morrison did.

The Bendis run for Uncanny is pretty good until you get to The Last Will and Testament of Charles Xavier. This is all of Bendis' worst writing tendencies amped up to 11 - a story that should have taken 2-4 issues stretched out into 9, and ends with a time travel reset button and a formerly great new character going off the rails. His run in All-New is also good until the first space arc ends and Scott leaves the team (things start going off at this point but don't really start to slip until after Scott returns, but since the question is good Cyclops stuff the natural stopping point here is when he leaves the team temporarily). Spinning out of this is Greg Rucka's Cyclops solo. Excellent for the first 5 issues (and a MUST READ), it drops down to merely being good when he leaves and the next writer takes over. Rucka had some personal stuff, but at the same time Marvel yoinked his artist out from under him and he wasn't happy with the treatment. This was still when Fox owned the movie rights and Marvel wasn't interested in "wasting" up and coming talent on the X-line.

[R+R]

AvX: Consequences is one of the best Cyclops stories. Gillen does him a lot of justice in his writing.

[R+R]

It's been a long time since we've seen Cyclops be a competent martial artist.

[xiyon]

It's been a long time since we've seen Cyclops be a competent martial artist.

Been a long time since we've seen a competent Cyclops, period. At least, from what I've gathered.



I'm still a bit salty that Gillen didn't get to write AvX. Like, bad enough the X-line story got hijacked to prop up the Avengers, but that Aaron was the only X-writer allowed to handle the main event book...? Despite all of the setup Gillen was doing over at UXM...?

Man, that sucked.

At least Gillen got to write AvX: Consequences, I guess, but just imagine if Gillen got his pen on the main book.

[Ra-El]

It's been a long time since we've seen Cyclops be a competent martial artist.

I think the root of the problem is that Cyclops is in the background right now, in more than one way.

So the writer/artist have to show him in a page with 6 other character each one doing something, Cyclops is rarely the focus point, so they just have him shooting optic blasts at some goons. When he does get a moment, they want to show him using his powers, usually bouncing his blast in some objects.

The issue, is that we get a Cyclops who seems to have zero skills outside his powers, and his powers come off as nothing more than long ranged punches.

[R+R]

I think the root of the problem is that Cyclops is in the background right now, in more than one way.

I don't know what some here think but I thought it was pretty cool to see Scott's development on the x-books in the 2000s and 2010s. It was interesting. Today we have some good stories but it doesn't seem to be the same. Before the characters really seemed to have more personality, now it seems like they are just reacting to the storyline.