Cyclops/Scott Summers Appreciation 2024

[whitecrown]

Really agree with all of this.

Ironically I think Claremont did do something of a Merge between Jean and Maddy during the X-Men the End but it came across as a bit ham-fisted in my view.

It's more or less what was implied in Inferno but I think Claremont then was still too emotionally raw to commit. What people forget about Maddie is that she wasn't a typical clone like Ben Reilly. She was literally a lifeless body. She only came to life when the Phoenix was rejected by Jean and it went to the second best thing which was a genetic duplicate. Maddie's first breath of life, screaming Scott, is Jean/Phoenix's last moment on the moon. Every memory Maddie had came from Jean including her love for Scott. So she was always meant to be Phoenix or Dark Phoenix 2.0 and another Jean incarnation that should never have existed but was split off when the real Jean inadvertently helped create her by rejecting the parts of her that the Phoenix had taken. Hence why, when Maddie becomes the Goblin Queen right before Inferno, she's even wearing the exact same black evening gown that Jean/Phoenix wore before she became the Black Queen. It was history repeating itself.



Jean did reabsorb those memories and personalities of the Maddie and Phoenix by the end of Inferno but that was still the era when Jean couldn't be the Phoenix so they had to keep driving in how Phoenix and Maddie were technically her but Jean couldn't accept them. I think Claremont would have happily had Jean merged with Phoenix again but editorial wouldn't allow that. And he was too hurt about Maddie's fate to let her merge with Jean and deny her individuality, which is why we only see this truly explored in X-Men: The End even if Inferno should have really honed in on this and directly said it.

[Havok83]

The whole reason Claremont wanted to retire Scott is that he didn't like him and wanted to make Storm the leader, if anything it just shows that he's never liked him, and the Claremont run is pretty overrated, I agree with Alan Moore about Claremont's writing being kinda weak, especially in terms of characterization, don't get me wrong, he's written some good stuff but he's proven with garbage like X-Men Forever that if you let him do whatever he wants he's kind of a hack.

IDA. Cyclips is the one O5 member that Claremont kept bringing back. Up until he was permanently transfered over to X-Factor, Cyclops was a regular fixture in his book, even when he wasnt a team member. Compare that to the other members, whom outside of Jean and Angel for a short stint, had little to no presence in his run. He deinitely enjoyed using Scott or else he would have just wrote him out and not really use him like he did with the others

[whitecrown]

She would have been there at some point if her OB-GYN was at that hospital and she had been getting regular visits in the months leading up to her birth and gone backwith the baby for his weekly/monthly visits. Women do not just go to a doctor once to give birth and thats the end of the story. Especially in the first few months, babies are weighed/measured regular to monitor growth and make sure there arent any abnormalities. Thats also important for the mother to check how she is recovering and make recommendations on treatment if she's feeling any complications post-birth

How long did they live in Alaska before Scott left for X-Factor? Was it months, weeks, or days? I've always wondered how much time they spent together as a family in Anchorage.

[Darth_Caedus]

The whole reason Claremont wanted to retire Scott is that he didn't like him and wanted to make Storm the leader, if anything it just shows that he's never liked him, and the Claremont run is pretty overrated, I agree with Alan Moore about Claremont's writing being kinda weak, especially in terms of characterization, don't get me wrong, he's written some good stuff but he's proven with garbage like X-Men Forever that if you let him do whatever he wants he's kind of a hack.

Maddie is a blatant example of something a hack would do.






As for Storm, I just mentioned her as one of the ones who turned their backs on Scott and treated him like trash, she's not the only one, I also mentioned Bobby, Rachel, Kitty, Hank,etc. I know that they don't say nice things about Scott in the Storm thread either so I don't see any reason to get mad.

When Alan Moore talks, we listen. Preach more GOAT

[NearlyEnough]

Claremont really did hate Cyclops. Glad he's not touching the character again.

I hope so, Claremont, Hickman and Duggan are the three writers I don't want to see writing Cyclops again.

Hickman because of how much he regressed his character and made him report to a council of evil monsters.

Claremont because he hates Scott with a passion and tries to make him look bad out of spite.

And Duggan because 90% of his characterization is being a Jean simp, the 10% left is just Scott being incompetent.

[Darth_Caedus]

Oh wow. I think his popularity has gone down a bit with the MCU taking over but he's easily considered Marvel's second or third most popular character. Maybe Iron Man beats him in terms of movie fans now but I imagine Wolverine will overtake him again with Iron Man not being onscreen anymore. There's a reason Spider-Man and Wolverine dominated every comic book with multiple spin-off titles and multiple spin-off characters.

Even when the X-Men ban dropped, I didn't see a huge influx of X-Men or Fantastic Four characters getting merchandise. Wolverine though came right back to all the games and toys.

In comic book fandoms yeah he's popular. But Hulk, Captain America and Iron Man are much more popular and well known now

[Havok83]

How long did they live in Alaska before Scott left for X-Factor? Was it months, weeks, or days? I've always wondered how much time they spent together as a family in Anchorage.

Maddie was already living there when Scott met her and he moved there around the same time, circa UXM 170ish. They had to be together there for at least a year by the time X-Factor came around as she went through a whole pregnancy

[Darth_Caedus]

I hope so, Claremont, Hickman and Duggan are the three writers I don't want to see writing Cyclops again.

Hickman because of how much he regressed his character and made him report to a council of evil monsters.

Claremont because he hates Scott with a passion and tries to make him look bad out of spite.

And Duggan because 90% of his characterization is being a Jean simp, the 10% left is just Scott being incompetent.

I would've loved to see Geoff Johns write Cyclops. He's a better writer than anyone who's ever worked on X-Men except perhaps Morrison.

[whitecrown]

IDA. Cyclips is the one O5 member that Claremont kept bringing back. Up until he was permanently transfered over to X-Factor, Cyclops was a regular fixture in his book, even when he wasnt a team member. Compare that to the other members, whom outside of Jean and Angel for a short stint, had little to no presence in his run. He deinitely enjoyed using Scott or else he would have just wrote him out and not really use him like he did with the others

Scott and Jean were definitely his two favs from the O5. Byrne confirmed that Claremont didn't want Jean off the team but she was already drawn and scripted that way in UXM 94, so he had to let her go. But the moment he had full control over the book, he brought her back as seen in UXM 97 onward. Then Byrne forced Claremont to remove Jean/Phoenix from the World Tour era because Phoenix was becoming too popular and dominating the book (Phoenix and the X-Men). Killing her off was never intended as Byrne confirmed that the plan was always to keep Phoenix around as a recurring villain (which he demonstrates in his X-Men Elsewhen) until Shooter demanded she needed to pay for her crimes and should be exiled to a radioactive asteroid where she would eternally be tortured. Claremont and Byrne both said that wasn't feasible because the X-Men would never allow that to happen to Jean so they'd keep trying to save her, which is when Byrne said let's just kill her.

And another thing to keep in mind is that Claremont's version of Jean was always Phoenix. That was his creation and how he viewed her. Hence why he rewrote the mythos to tie Jean and Phoenix back together again in his Classic X-Men backstories and during the Revolution period and X-Men Forever, he has Jean as Phoenix again. Byrne is the one who did not like Phoenix and preferred Jean without it. Which is why he was willing to separate the two in order to bring back Jean as Marvel Girl and also why both had a fight over FF 286 and how the Phoenix should be characterized. Byrne wanted Phoenix to be a villain that Jean defeated with her humanity whereas Claremont rewrote those pages so that Phoenix was a benevolent entity and not evil.

During the 90s Disassembled period, Claremont wanted to bring Jean and Hank over into X-Men. He was denied that but he was allowed to use them as guest-characters during the Morlock issues with Banshee and Forge. I think around the time he lost respect for Scott, Hank became a bigger favorite for him and then his second favorite O5 character after Jean. Besides wanting to use Hank in the 90s, he also used him in Revolution, X-Treme X-Men, and X-Men Forever. He got stuck losing Hank in X-Treme X-Men to Morrison but you'll notice that all his pet favorites who weren't part of the X-Treme regular cast were brought back in X-Treme X-Men 18-19, namely Logan, Jean, Hank, Kurt, and Kitty. He had zero interest in bringing back Scott, Warren, or Bobby even though Scott could easily have come with Logan, Jean, and Hank and Warren and Bobby could have come with Logan and Kurt.


In the Angel thread, we've been discussing Claremont's feelings on Warren. He's admitted that he felt Betsy (one of his other pet favorites who only isn't present in the above X-Treme X-Men scan because he wasn't allowed to revive her) was too good for him. Claremont only liked using Warren as a foil against Logan but he did admit to Louise Simonson that he liked what she did to him as Archangel and wished he would have thought of him first. And Bobby you can tell Claremont had zero interest in from day one. He's pretty much always ignored Bobby, whereas even Warren he's willing to use occasionally.

[Darth_Caedus]

Perhaps Johns could've expanded upon Scott’s powers like adding a minor form of telekinesis that allows him to control the trajectory of his Optic blasts, or perhaps made him so powerful he could split planets in half.

[whitecrown]

In comic book fandoms yeah he's popular. But Hulk, Captain America and Iron Man are much more popular and well known now

Hulk was always the third most popular character after Spidey and Wolverine before the MCU. The MCU raised the profiles for Captain America and Iron Man for sure. But characters like Spider-Man and now Wolverine will continue to appear onscreen whereas I don't see Robert Downey Jr. returning anytime soon or ever. And Hulk has always been treated like a supporting character rather than a lead one in the movies. I don't think Wolverine is that far off from them. When I went to Madame Tussauds, he was clearly depicted next to Spider-Man and Iron Man. I can't remember if Captain America was there or not but I don't think so. Wolverine is still a household name and well known especially with all the recent publicity. Deadpool is also arguably up there now with these characters even if being R-Rated and not having the same extensive history hurts him a little.

[Darth_Caedus]

Hulk was always the third most popular character after Spidey and Wolverine before the MCU. The MCU raised the profiles for Captain America and Iron Man for sure. But characters like Spider-Man and now Wolverine will continue to appear onscreen whereas I don't see Robert Downey Jr. returning anytime soon or ever. And Hulk has always been treated like a supporting character rather than a lead one in the movies. I don't think Wolverine is that far off from them. When I went to Madame Tussauds, he was clearly depicted next to Spider-Man and Iron Man. I can't remember if Captain America was there or not but I don't think so. Wolverine is still a household name and well known especially with all the recent publicity. Deadpool is also arguably up there now with these characters even if being R-Rated and not having the same extensive history hurts him a little.

Just saying that whenever Americans say the whole world knows this character or that character is hilariously wrong. There's Superman, Batman, Joker, Spider-Man, Mickey Mouse, Sherlock Holmes and then there's everyone else.

[whitecrown]

Maddie was already living there when Scott met her and he moved there around the same time, circa UXM 170ish. They had to be together there for at least a year by the time X-Factor came around as she went through a whole pregnancy

The pregnancy was one of those things that CC really rushed through. I think there was an issue around UXM 193 where there was some time jump, maybe after Xavier's injuries, to accommodate for Maddie's delivery date.
His sense of time was not great especially when you consider that Kitty turned 14 during the Brood Saga and she turns 15 during the Cross-Time Caper. That means that in the span of one year, Scott met Maddie, married her and had baby Nathan, Jean came back, the X-Men died in FOTM and joined the Outback, and Inferno occurred.

[whitecrown]

Just saying that whenever Americans say the whole world knows this character or that character is hilariously wrong. There's Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Mickey Mouse, Sherlock Holmes and then there's everyone else.

Maybe being an American has influenced me but I don't think Wolverine is that far off from those characters. Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man are the top three most popular comic book heroes easily but if you had to pick someone after them, I don't think it would be impossible to imagine that it could be Wolverine. If not him, then probably Iron Man, Captain America, or Hulk.

[Darth_Caedus]

Maybe being an American has influenced me but I don't think Wolverine is that far off from those characters. Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man are the top three most popular comic book heroes easily but if you had to pick someone after them, I don't think it would be impossible to imagine that it could be Wolverine. If not him, then probably Iron Man, Captain America, or Hulk.

I don't care about Wolverine anymore. When I was younger yeah he sounded cool and edgy. Right now? Nah. I prefer introverts such as Cyclops.