Cyclops/Scott Summers Appreciation 2024

[Darth_Caedus]

Nowadays many young boys see that kind of things as "based" or what a "Sigma Male" would do

[whitecrown]

Yeah, I feel the same. The ironic thing is that both characters had a lot more going on then the reducted/simplified version that most readers (& in Claremont's case writer) say.


Thanks for pointing this out. Did not even know this was a thing. Will read it when free.

I was always sympathetic towards Scott during that period. He wasn't blameless and he made a lot of mistakes but I do think he wasn't 100% at fault as Claremont often seems to take it. But I also think I can feel that way because I wasn't even alive when this all occurred. Had I been reading it in real-time, I might feel just as betrayed and hateful as readers felt at the time. And reading the Maddie thread has reminded me that Scott was hardly innocent like searching hospital records in Anchorage for his son's birth even though Nathan was born in NY...I know Scott barely had an interest in the baby but that's a new low to not even remember which city/state he was born in. Maddie fans are starting to get my sympathy lol.

X-Men Elsewhen is basically Byrne's version of Claremont's X-Men Forever. An alternate take on the X-Men where Byrne never left the book based on the original plan that Jean wouldn't die at the end of The Dark Phoenix Saga but would instead become a child emotionally from the brain surgery the Shi'ar would perform on her to remove her powers. Marvel wanted to publish it as an ongoing but Byrne refused.

[Darth_Caedus]

I was always sympathetic towards Scott during that period. He wasn't blameless and he made a lot of mistakes but I do think he wasn't 100% at fault as Claremont often seems to take it. But I also think I can feel that way because I wasn't even alive when this all occurred. Had I been reading it in real-time, I might feel just as betrayed and hateful as readers felt at the time. And reading the Maddie thread has reminded me that Scott was hardly innocent like searching hospital records in Anchorage for his son's birth even though Nathan was born in NY...I know Scott barely had an interest in the baby but that's a new low to not even remember which city/state he was born in. Maddie fans are starting to get my sympathy lol.

X-Men Elsewhen is basically Byrne's version of Claremont's X-Men Forever. An alternate take on the X-Men where Byrne never left the book based on the original plan that Jean wouldn't die at the end of The Dark Phoenix Saga but would instead become a child emotionally from the brain surgery the Shi'ar would perform on her to remove her powers. Marvel wanted to publish it as an ongoing but Byrne refused.

Scott wanted to sacrifice his own life to save Nathan. He's made up for his mistakes by raising Nathan three times

[Havok83]

I was always sympathetic towards Scott during that period. He wasn't blameless and he made a lot of mistakes but I do think he wasn't 100% at fault as Claremont often seems to take it. But I also think I can feel that way because I wasn't even alive when this all occurred. Had I been reading it in real-time, I might feel just as betrayed and hateful as readers felt at the time. And reading the Maddie thread has reminded me that Scott was hardly innocent like searching hospital records in Anchorage for his son's birth even though Nathan was born in NY...I know Scott barely had an interest in the baby but that's a new low to not even remember which city/state he was born in. Maddie fans are starting to get my sympathy lol.

X-Men Elsewhen is basically Byrne's version of Claremont's X-Men Forever. An alternate take on the X-Men where Byrne never left the book based on the original plan that Jean wouldn't die at the end of The Dark Phoenix Saga but would instead become a child emotionally from the brain surgery the Shi'ar would perform on her to remove her powers. Marvel wanted to publish it as an ongoing but Byrne refused.

Ive been posting in that Maddie thread and Scott definitely knows where his son was born. The hospital in Alaska would still have had records of Madelyne and Christopher from her prenatal visits and following checkups after he was born. Im sure Scott would have accompanied her to the doctor at some point to know that her OB-GYN was at said hospital and there should have been a file

[whitecrown]

Cyclops wasn't ruined as a character when he left a clone created by Sinister to basically rape him. Lol even Peter has beaten his wife. Claremont being a man child and not moving from something that happened decades ago is the real problem

Peter is one of those characters that has plot immunity because he's too popular. Characters like Superman, Batman, and Wolverine are on that same level. They're basically impeachable by fans and anything akin to character assassination will be ignored or forgiven. The same reason why Peter selling away his marriage to the devil isn't held against him.

And the issue with Cyclops is that when Maddie was introduced, there was no clone drama or Sinister. So fans following in realtime had only one person to judge which was Scott. Maddie debuted in 1983 and Inferno occurred in 1989 so that was 6 years (as long a period as Jean was dead) where nobody knew the truth about her because it didn't exist then. So fans not approving of the storyline would have had 6 years to blame Scott and that's an ample enough period to ruin his character.

I posted this in the Maddie thread but it's probably more pertinent here:
I never bought the Scott/Maddie relationship. He got a lot of flack from readers back then who already felt it was too soon that he was linked with Lee Forrester after Jean's death and then that he dumped her the second he met a complete Jean look-alike. Claremont's idea that she was this one-in-a-million lookalike was even stupider since Maddie worked for Scott's grandparents, was the sole survivor of a plane crash that happened the same time Jean died on the moon, and knew things about Scott like his favorite breakfast. Oh, and she was amnesiac so nothing about her past was noted. Apparently Paul Smith said he thought it was a stupid idea as well and the reason he drew Maddie looking nothing like Jean was on purpose. It was obvious she and Jean were linked so she was always going to be stuck in her shadow.

What I don't understand is when it was decided to bring back Jean by separating her from the Phoenix, why nobody considered revealing that Maddie was that real Jean. Perhaps that Sinister had found her body in Jamaica Bay and released her and left her amnesiac. I think the issue was that Shooter and Byrne had zero interest in Maddie and just wanted Jean back and the O5 reunited. Claremont was the only person who ever cared about Maddie and he was too upset that his happy ending was being taken away so he never thought to try and salvage things by merging Maddie and Jean which would have saved everyone a lot of headaches. Jean's return was already planned by the time Maddie gave birth and Scott left the team, so I've seen some people say they should have just killed off Maddie and the baby in childbirth or had the baby not make it and Maddie leave Scott after that when she realized there was no link between them without the baby.

[Darth_Caedus]

Cyke can't even catch a break in his own appreciation thread. Tell me again, how many time has Logan killed his own kids?

[Arthas]

A murdering ragaholic that disrespects her husband constantly and treats her like a prize he's entitled to? Nah, it makes her look bad.

Sorry for not praising her for being an ******* and shitting on Scott for no reason, I guess. And I doubt anyone here cares about Storm like that lol, she can be a good mary sue as long as she stays away from Scott’s business.

Whoa there. While I dislike the Triangle particularly lately I think you both are going a bit too far.

Storm was not alone in that era in blaming 'Mutant Hitler'. It was practically everyone in marvel-land and quite clearly a publisher issue.

I want to point out what I've said in other threads is that if you read Claremont's run, Logan and Scott did not have much of a feud. Only in the early days and they never had fights over Jean. In fact, nobody even knew Logan loved Jean or even what his real name was, that's how secretive he was. Their feud was over leadership issues with Logan refusing to follow him and thinking Scott was a coward. And it ended by the Proteus Saga when Scott finally won Logan's respect. You'll see that even in DOFP when Storm becomes leader, Logan gives her the same attitude at first so he was like this with everyone whether it was Cyclops, Storm, or Xavier (remember in UXM 129 when he leaves the Danger Room while Xavier is training him and Xavier chides him by taking away demerits).

Logan's real feud during that time was with Warren. Some of that was over Jean as confirmed by Classic X-Men 1 but also because Warren in general thought Logan was a murdering psycho and always hated him. Scott actually stood up for Logan more often such as in UXM 129 when he tells Xavier that Logan's a grown man and not going to listen to Xavier's demerit talk.

Even in the 90s, Logan had respect for Scott and his marriage with Jean as evident by the letter he sends them in X-Men 30. This dynamic didn't change until the advent of the movies and the 2000s comics followed suit...when continuity and canon no longer made a difference and writers just did whatever they wanted for sales. Hence why this is the dark age and X-Men stopped being #1.

Yeah, this I remember.

There's a reason during the X-Men's most popular and critical period, that it was really Ororo who was the team's leader, not Scott. Claremont was retiring him.

But back to Scott and Ororo's relationship, they've never been very close. Ororo mentioned this in X-Men: Worlds Apart about how much Jean, Logan, Kurt, and Peter mean to her but she never had that relationship with Scott. In the Savage Land, when the X-Men think Jean and Hank are dead, Scott is unable to mourn and Ororo is disgusted by this and chews him out for his emotional constipation. Interestingly enough, John Byrne said this is the moment where he feels readers started to hate Cyclops and think he was a "d*ck." Also the moment Byrne said that it was obvious Claremont's women were all bisexual and Claremont was trying to demonstrate that Storm held more love for Jean than Scott did.

I remember World's End and yeah I felt that her sentiments was appropriate.

Request for anyone:- Please post a few panels of Storm and Scott being friends (not leaders or rivals, just friends.)

Ironically that was the series where I did have an issue against Storm (or at least the writer) as a Scott fan.

One of Scott's best feats was when he was he channelling Storm's lightning in another world.

I really loved that scene and I hated that World's End negated it by having Storm take out Scott with Lightning. I mean there were other ways Storm could have done it (wind etc..) but using lighting just annoyed me.

[Darth_Caedus]

And Wolverine is nowhere near as popular as Spider-Man, Batman or Superman. I live in Germany, out of 10 guys maybe only one has seen the character and only knows him by the name of Logan.

[whitecrown]

Ive been posting in that Maddie thread and Scott definitely knows where his son was born. The hospital in Alaska would still have had records of Madelyne and Christopher from her prenatal visits and following checkups after he was born. Im sure Scott would have accompanied her to the doctor at some point to know that her OB-GYN was at said hospital and there should have been a file

I've been following your posts there lol. It was quite a fun read.

You posted this scan from when he's at the Anchorage hospital. Even if the hospital records are originally from Westchester and transferred over to Anchorage, Scott says "as far as the hospital's concerned, she never gave birth...She was never here at all." Well of course she was never here at all, she didn't give birth in this hospital!

[Arthas]

Peter is one of those characters that has plot immunity because he's too popular. Characters like Superman, Batman, and Wolverine are on that same level. They're basically impeachable by fans and anything akin to character assassination will be ignored or forgiven. The same reason why Peter selling away his marriage to the devil isn't held against him.

And the issue with Cyclops is that when Maddie was introduced, there was no clone drama or Sinister. So fans following in realtime had only one person to judge which was Scott. Maddie debuted in 1983 and Inferno occurred in 1989 so that was 6 years (as long a period as Jean was dead) where nobody knew the truth about her because it didn't exist then. So fans not approving of the storyline would have had 6 years to blame Scott and that's an ample enough period to ruin his character.

I posted this in the Maddie thread but it's probably more pertinent here:
I never bought the Scott/Maddie relationship. He got a lot of flack from readers back then who already felt it was too soon that he was linked with Lee Forrester after Jean's death and then that he dumped her the second he met a complete Jean look-alike. Claremont's idea that she was this one-in-a-million lookalike was even stupider since Maddie worked for Scott's grandparents, was the sole survivor of a plane crash that happened the same time Jean died on the moon, and knew things about Scott like his favorite breakfast. Oh, and she was amnesiac so nothing about her past was noted. Apparently Paul Smith said he thought it was a stupid idea as well and the reason he drew Maddie looking nothing like Jean was on purpose. It was obvious she and Jean were linked so she was always going to be stuck in her shadow.

What I don't understand is when it was decided to bring back Jean by separating her from the Phoenix, why nobody considered revealing that Maddie was that real Jean. Perhaps that Sinister had found her body in Jamaica Bay and released her and left her amnesiac. I think the issue was that Shooter and Byrne had zero interest in Maddie and just wanted Jean back and the O5 reunited. Claremont was the only person who ever cared about Maddie and he was too upset that his happy ending was being taken away so he never thought to try and salvage things by merging Maddie and Jean which would have saved everyone a lot of headaches. Jean's return was already planned by the time Maddie gave birth and Scott left the team, so I've seen some people say they should have just killed off Maddie and the baby in childbirth or had the baby not make it and Maddie leave Scott after that when she realized there was no link between them without the baby.

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.

[Darth_Caedus]

Whoa there. While I dislike the Triangle particularly lately I think you both are going a bit too far.

Storm was not alone in that era in blaming 'Mutant Hitler'. It was practically everyone in marvel-land and quite clearly a publisher issue.



Yeah, this I remember.



I remember World's End and yeah I felt that her sentiments was appropriate.

Request for anyone:- Please post a few panels of Storm and Scott being friends (not leaders or rivals, just friends.)

Ironically that was the series where I did have an issue against Storm (or at least the writer) as a Scott fan.

One of Scott's best feats was when he was he channelling Storm's lightning in another world.

I really loved that scene and I hated that World's End negated it by having Storm take out Scott with Lightning. I mean there were other ways Storm could have done it (wind etc..) but using lighting just annoyed me.

I just posted one from X-Men: Regenesis

[whitecrown]

I remember World's End and yeah I felt that her sentiments was appropriate.

Request for anyone:- Please post a few panels of Storm and Scott being friends (not leaders or rivals, just friends.)

Ironically that was the series where I did have an issue against Storm (or at least the writer) as a Scott fan.

One of Scott's best feats was when he was he channelling Storm's lightning in another world.

I really loved that scene and I hated that World's End negated it by having Storm take out Scott with Lightning. I mean there were other ways Storm could have done it (wind etc..) but using lighting just annoyed me.

In Cockrum's second run, Scott and Ororo seemed closer. I don't remember the exact issues but they spent a lot of time together before the Brood Saga and I don't remember friction. Especially when she reveals that Jean told her about Corsair being his father. There was also UXM Annual 5 when Ororo reflects on how Scott/Jean and Reed/Sue are the endgame couples and she wishes she could have someone like that for herself and reflects on if Black Panther is the man for her.

[Havok83]

I've been following your posts there lol. It was quite a fun read.

You posted this scan from when he's at the Anchorage hospital. Even if the hospital records are originally from Westchester and transferred over to Anchorage, Scott says "as far as the hospital's concerned, she never gave birth...She was never here at all." Well of course she was never here at all, she didn't give birth in this hospital!

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

[whitecrown]

And Wolverine is nowhere near as popular as Spider-Man, Batman or Superman. I live in Germany, out of 10 guys maybe only one has seen the character and only knows him by the name of Logan.

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.

[NearlyEnough]

There's a reason during the X-Men's most popular and critical period, that it was really Ororo who was the team's leader, not Scott. Claremont was retiring him.

But back to Scott and Ororo's relationship, they've never been very close. Ororo mentioned this in X-Men: Worlds Apart about how much Jean, Logan, Kurt, and Peter mean to her but she never had that relationship with Scott. In the Savage Land, when the X-Men think Jean and Hank are dead, Scott is unable to mourn and Ororo is disgusted by this and chews him out for his emotional constipation. Interestingly enough, John Byrne said this is the moment where he feels readers started to hate Cyclops and think he was a "d*ck." Also the moment Byrne said that it was obvious Claremont's women were all bisexual and Claremont was trying to demonstrate that Storm held more love for Jean than Scott did.

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.