Cyclops/Scott Summers Appreciation 2024

[Rev9]

Not really, the open relationship sets a really bad precedent, now Jean can cheat on Scott with anyone and the writer can just say that Scott doesn't mind and that it's in character for him to be a cuck, when before Krakoa it was a pretty consistent character trait that he really hated Jean and Logan's relationship and Emma cheating on him with Namor disgusted him so much he wouldn't touch her with Namor's trident. Also, now they're gonna pretend like Apocalypse never did anything to him and his family or that it doesn't matter how much you hurt him and his friends, Scott won't mind, also they regressed his character and ignored more than a decade of character development so now he needs to go through all that again.

Krakoa era was to Scott what OMD/BND was to Peter.

Pfft the writers already hinted that he doesn't mind when he told Emma(iirc) rather nonchalantly that Jon Hamm is her hall pass in the Hellfire gala issue.

[Darth_Caedus]

Pfft the writers already hinted that he doesn't mind when he told Emma(iirc) rather nonchalantly that Jon Hamm is her hall pass in the Hellfire gala issue.

That was more of a joke than anything else. That hellfire gala issue had one of the best Jott scenes of all time

[Refrax5]

The thing with Cyclops i that he has been many different things over the years. Bendis's Cyclops isnt the only version of him nor does his existence negate or make any other Cyclops not valid. There are and were peopl that argued that the stuff that Bendis' Cyclops did and acted are things the character would never do but it happened. I remember the time and people also claiming character assassination with him. And the same claims were said under Fraction in the Utopia era and before that with Whedon in Astonishing and before that with Morrison in NXM. Heck people were saying it before Hickman during that Rosenberg UXM run, which IMO I saw as a reset for the character having been resurrected with the memories and experiences of his teen self unlocked which put him in a position to view the world in a different context than when he had died

Cyclops means different things to different people. Im not going to be quick to say he's suffering from character assassination bc his portrayal doesnt line up with my idealized version in my head. Not unless he is actually doin things that are way out of character, which wasnt really the case during this era. The biggest offense was how little he was utilized. He joked about him being Captain Cameo on here and thats bc showed up alot but didnt really get to do a whole ot

Yeah, but he had relatively consistent development as a character over the years and having him go from a guy at odds with the rest of the X-Men and the hero community, telling Xavier where to shove it and even killing him (possessed and crazy, albeit) to him being the good soldier for Xavier's dream, even when Xavier brings in two of the villains that most tortured and violated you and your loved ones? It's bad writing. I like a lot of Hickman's work, but he completely abandons tons of established character development and interpersonal dynamics--which are a huge part of the X-Men---just to make this big idea work. But very little of the Krakoa era made much sense if you thought too much about it. Hickman just writes this kind of thing in a way that seems very smart so people buy into it, but none of it really made much sense. I'm always surprised at how much people liked it when it destroyed so much previous characterization and made the X-Men seem so cult-like and alien.

[NearlyEnough]

Yeah, but he had relatively consistent development as a character over the years and having him go from a guy at odds with the rest of the X-Men and the hero community, telling Xavier where to shove it and even killing him (possessed and crazy, albeit) to him being the good soldier for Xavier's dream, even when Xavier brings in two of the villains that most tortured and violated you and your loved ones? It's bad writing. I like a lot of Hickman's work, but he completely abandons tons of established character development and interpersonal dynamics--which are a huge part of the X-Men---just to make this big idea work. But very little of the Krakoa era made much sense if you thought too much about it. Hickman just writes this kind of thing in a way that seems very smart so people buy into it, but none of it really made much sense. I'm always surprised at how much people liked it when it destroyed so much previous characterization and made the X-Men seem so cult-like and alien.

Couldn’t have worded it better. Hickman had one story he wanted to tell and changed all the characters to fit said story shitting on interpersonal history, character development and continuity in the process when he should’ve adjusted his story to fit the characters’ he had at hand.

Most stuff from Krakoa doesn’t make any sense, I really don’t understand the weird fascination so many fans have with this era, it’s like all they care about is how colorful and pretty the views are, and couldn’t care less about the characters, I understand wanting mutants to not be on the brink of extinction for a while but the way it was written was very lazy and weird, Hickman sacrificed the characters for worldbuilding and it’s not like Krakoa’s worldbuilding is that good either, the crucible was just disgusting and they barely did anything with that.

[Havok83]

Yeah, but he had relatively consistent development as a character over the years and having him go from a guy at odds with the rest of the X-Men and the hero community, telling Xavier where to shove it and even killing him (possessed and crazy, albeit) to him being the good soldier for Xavier's dream, even when Xavier brings in two of the villains that most tortured and violated you and your loved ones? It's bad writing. I like a lot of Hickman's work, but he completely abandons tons of established character development and interpersonal dynamics--which are a huge part of the X-Men---just to make this big idea work. But very little of the Krakoa era made much sense if you thought too much about it. Hickman just writes this kind of thing in a way that seems very smart so people buy into it, but none of it really made much sense. I'm always surprised at how much people liked it when it destroyed so much previous characterization and made the X-Men seem so cult-like and alien.

I offered a deent enough explanation for that with his teen memories being unlocked right before hickman took over. Teen Cyclops did not agree with everything he heard and saw about his older self and those memories and experience put him in a position to recontextualize his views


This happened right before Hickman and this is the Scott that he as basing his writing off of. I definitely had my issues with Apocalypse and Sinister as well but the X-men have a long history of accepting former enemies as allies. Magneto was trying to kill Scott throughout his teen years, yet he became one of his closest ally. He had an affair with Emma and fell in love with her despite what she did to Jean which ultimately drove her crazy and led to her first death. Besids its not like he as working alongside Apocalypse and Sinister. He openly opposed the latter and h barely had any interactions with them

Also I wouldnt blame Hickman for the lack if interpersonal development. His book wasnt about htat. It was there for world building and putting chess pieces on the board for other writers to utilize. We saw some of the stuf he created expounded upon in other titles, Scott's thoughts on Sinister in Hellions. The only place I would have seen him express those on Apocalypse would have been in Excalibur but Tini didnt bring him in. BTW Scott became used in an ongoing, Apocalypse had already been written out

[Ra-El]

Krakoan era had many problems to me, as a Cyclops fan.

The two main ones, were his lack of importance to the overall story and in the books he was in, they gave him an "important" position as Captain, but it was in fact empty one, because the writers did nothing with it. That's the main thing here the writers did nothing with it.
The second main problem to me was that all his character was reduced to family and Jean, they basically turned him into Don Toretto, if Toretto wasn't important to Fast movies plot.


At the end of the day it all comes down to what the writers wanted to tell. At the begining of Krakoa Scott was written primarily by Hickman, Hickman's book was, as he said later, just a anthology introducing different aspects of Krakoa and storylines to be explored later by other books, so Cyclops would go somewhere with some other character, meet some threat, usually get his ass kicked and the next issue would go to different place with a different someone and get his ass kicked by some different threat. So Cyclops for the first year or so had not real objective as a character beyond serving as a introdutory view point to whatever Hickman was setting up for later.

With this in mind let's look at the open relationship, as an example. While Cyclops was doing random stuff in X-Men, Percy was writing Jean in X-Force and decided to explore the open relationship. Just that. As Hickman said later he didn't care either way, when they were planing the books he gave editorial and the writers the option to either have all couples set in stone without possibility of change and triangles or in open relationships, the room voted for open relationships. The reason Jean was with Wolverine in X-Force while apparently Cyclops wasn't with anyone else, was because none of the writers cared enough either way.

[NearlyEnough]

There's no way the open relationship **** wasn't mean-spirited towards Cyclops, no way. Why is Scott and Jean's relationship the only one ruined by a stupid open relationship? why aren't Rogue and Gambit hooking up with other people? I'm pretty sure Percy has admitted that he doesn't like Scott, and he probably just wanted his self-insert Wolverine to cuck him, that's all there is to it.

It's so badly written because they ignore decades of characterization and make characters behave in a way they never would, Scott would never accept to share his wife with anyone, let alone the creepy ******* who's tried to steal her from him for a long time, tried to destroy Utopia, kill Hope, kill him, talked **** about him to anyone, etc, we have a lot of evidence that shows that Scott would never accept such a stupid idea but the X-Office is plagued by Cyclops haters and writers who couldn't care less about his character like Hickman so they decided to go against common sense just so their precious Wolverine can be with the married woman he's shamelessly pursued for years despite being in a relationship, basically rewarding him for being a disgusting creep while punishing Scott.

This era has permanently ruined Scott and Jean's relationship imo, they tried to portray them as a married couple but ended up looking like glorified friends with benefits or worse, Scott is a Jean simp while she can't even be committed to him and cheated on him with Wolverine... being just one of the two men your wife loves is absolutely pathetic, that moment at the last gala when Jean leaves Scott while he's begging her to stay to tell Wolverine that she loves him is such an insult to Scott's character that I don't want to see them together ever again.

[Ra-El]

Maybe Percy had this intentions, I don't know, but I don't think Hickman actually cared about it enough. In the same interview, he said he chose Scott and Jean because they are the most famous x-couple and the love triangle with Wolverine is the most famous one, so instead of showing a bunch of characters in open relationships he just showed the most famous couple of the franchise.

Look, I didn't like it either, I just don't think he was aiming at Cyclops. My impression of Hickman is that to him much of this was secondary to the actual story he was telling.

[NearlyEnough]

Hickman might not hate Cyclops but he couldn't care less about his character either, it would've been better for him to be dead the whole era and come back now after the whole Krakoa experiment failed, written by someone who actually wants to write him.

Seems like MacKay actually likes Cyclops and the way they describe him in the Marvel article is great and shows a better understanding of his character than both Duggan and Hickman ever could, so I'm actually excited to read Cyclops again and not whoever was pretending to be him the last 5 years.

[whitecrown]

I just want to say that the way many Cyclops fans feel he was humiliated or sidelined for the last couple of years is how fans of most the other X-Men characters felt for the entire 2000s-2010s dark age. I think there was a karmic justice necessary to balance the scales because in the dark age, I couldn't think of any character more butchered and more overexposed than Cyclops. He needed a desperate reset and I'm glad he got that.

[NearlyEnough]

I just want to say that the way many Cyclops fans feel he was humiliated or sidelined for the last couple of years is how fans of most the other X-Men characters felt for the entire 2000s-2010s dark age. I think there was a karmic justice necessary to balance the scales because in the dark age, I couldn't think of any character more butchered and more overexposed than Cyclops. He needed a desperate reset and I'm glad he got that.

"Dark age"? lol, that era was really good in terms of X-Men comics and during those years Cyclops wasn't overexposed, he just had the position he deserves, a well-written Scott will always be relevant, and he wasn't butchered, he just went through a lot of great character development and had one of the greatest character arcs in Marvel comics. Maybe you just hate Cyclops' character.

Also, it's literally impossible to be more overexposed than Wolverine.

[Mantis-Ray]

Maybe Percy had this intentions, I don't know, but I don't think Hickman actually cared about it enough. In the same interview, he said he chose Scott and Jean because they are the most famous x-couple and the love triangle with Wolverine is the most famous one, so instead of showing a bunch of characters in open relationships he just showed the most famous couple of the franchise.

Look, I didn't like it either, I just don't think he was aiming at Cyclops. My impression of Hickman is that to him much of this was secondary to the actual story he was telling.

Honestly I always thought the trouple was to provide a consolation prize for Logan so he can finally bang the woman writers have made him obsessed with for the last 50 years.

Like the open relationship is conceptually interesting but they did not explore it like laying down the rules of their relationship. I know some people who are in a polyamorous relationship, and rules are very important there because it necessitates a lot of emotional honesty. Its not an excuse to just sleep around, if you want to bring in someone new, you have to run it by with your other partners to make sure its okay.

Meanwhile we don't even get Scott and Logan's thoughts on being in a whole thing together. It just feels like an excuse to have some romantic moments with Jean and Logan as well as Scott and Emma despite Jean and Scott still being married.

[Refrax5]

I offered a deent enough explanation for that with his teen memories being unlocked right before hickman took over. Teen Cyclops did not agree with everything he heard and saw about his older self and those memories and experience put him in a position to recontextualize his views


This happened right before Hickman and this is the Scott that he as basing his writing off of. I definitely had my issues with Apocalypse and Sinister as well but the X-men have a long history of accepting former enemies as allies. Magneto was trying to kill Scott throughout his teen years, yet he became one of his closest ally. He had an affair with Emma and fell in love with her despite what she did to Jean which ultimately drove her crazy and led to her first death. Besids its not like he as working alongside Apocalypse and Sinister. He openly opposed the latter and h barely had any interactions with them

Also I wouldnt blame Hickman for the lack if interpersonal development. His book wasnt about htat. It was there for world building and putting chess pieces on the board for other writers to utilize. We saw some of the stuf he created expounded upon in other titles, Scott's thoughts on Sinister in Hellions. The only place I would have seen him express those on Apocalypse would have been in Excalibur but Tini didnt bring him in. BTW Scott became used in an ongoing, Apocalypse had already been written out

I blame Hickman for it because his whole idea was built on it.

Cyclops hadn't done anything nearly as bad as his enemies and writers trying to paint him as Magneto 2.0 there were always not getting it. He was never portrayed as putting mutants above anyone else. He literally said, "And for our human brothers and sisters, we'll fight for you too." The only villainous things he ever did were mostly when he was under the influence of the Phoenix.

You're really understating the level of life-destroying trauma Sinister and Apocalypse did to Scott and his loved ones. Sinister is a full on psychopath that should never have been there and no matter how much they try to make Apocalypse suddenly morally neutral, his entire massive lifespan was one of being a mass murdering eugenics enthusiast.. We saw exactly what he was and what he wanted to do in Age of Apocalypse. It's not like he was some young a misguided soul when that timeline was created. He makes Magneto look like a pacifist in comparison.

Much of the dark path Scott went down was precipitated by what Apocalypse did to him, which was an intimate violation of his body and soul. Much of Scott's trauma (and the attempted murder of his infant son) is something Sinister is directly responsible for.

Scott suddenly cowtowing to Xavier's obviously flawed orgy utopia with the two people that abused and tortured him the most, makes him a toothless, weak-minded lackey.

The whole idea of all these mutants completely embracing an entirely different culture and way of life, Scott and Jean suddenly being "Oh, whatever" about sharing each other with other people after a long history of being the most jealous people alive, the longtime leader of mutantkind suddenly embracing an obvious house of cards created by some of the most megalomaniacal failures in mutant history?

Nah, it's dumb. I like Hickman normally and I tried to give it a chance but it was just too preposterous and up its own ass.

Also, they really never explained how the resurrection protocols are different than cloning besides "they go all Pet Sematary if they die in another dimension for some reason" and even Hickman in an AMA admitted he didn't really care that much about how it worked and that people could just say the souls just floated around until they had a new body if they wanted an explanation. That's a whole other discussion, though.

But, yeah. Hickman was more concerned with doing the whole cutesy "let's make internet jokes and subversive comments canon" stuff with the open relationships and having a million other seemingly intellectual ideas that required ignoring any story or character logic.

I appreciated the attempt at doing something different, but none of it made much sense and really threw away a lot of interesting growth in the characters. I also think he managed to turn comics biggest underdogs into a creepy, elitist ethnostate that was very sinister-feeling and impossible to relate to or root for. I honestly thought Hickman was setting it up to be something really dark that Xavier had done, that these "resurrected" X-Men had been genetically or telepathically made more obedient and I wondered if he even WAS Xavier under that helmet. It all seemed like such an obviously weird and foreboding setup (Hickman even acknowledged that aspects of Krakoa were deliberately meant to make readers feel uncomfortable and alienated) that it seemed obvious there was way more to this than meets the eye. But apparently, their weirdo behavior is just what the plot required to work. "You have new gods now." We're supposed to like these guys?

Also, the utter ruination of Moira as a character and yet again going down the hackey cliche of "evil Xavier" right after he'd been reckoning with his past and trying to do better just felt like Hickman was just way more into his big, super smart concepts than he was into the characters or their history. And of course the whole thing became a big, bloated inconsistent mess.

[whitecrown]

"Dark age"? lol, that era was really good in terms of X-Men comics and during those years Cyclops wasn't overexposed, he just had the position he deserves, a well-written Scott will always be relevant, and he wasn't butchered, he just went through a lot of great character development and had one of the greatest character arcs in Marvel comics. Maybe you just hate Cyclops' character.

Also, it's literally impossible to be more overexposed than Wolverine.

I'm borrowing that name from other fans on here who first coined that term. Storm fans always come up with the best names. I came into X-Men during that era and hated it. Thank goodness the older comics were readily available from the 60s-90s. There is absolutely a reason why the X-Men were at their creative peak in the 80s and their commercial peak in the 90s but by the 2000s, they lost their A-List status to the Avengers. It wasn't the movies because in the early 2000s, the X-Men were the ones getting movies, not Captain America or Iron Man. But the comics were butchered by Morrison's run and all the damage he did to the X-Men (namely Scott), which is why the New Avengers became Marvel's flagship book and the films would follow in due time. So I can't think of a more apt term to describe the era where the X-Men lost their relevancy in the comics and how hard they fell.
I never considered him well-written unless Magneto 2.0 is your idea of Scott. His death was long overdue as a mercy killing. Thank goodness the real Cyclops is back now after basically two decades of being gone and replaced by that maniacal dictator.

[Gray Lensman]

I'm borrowing that name from other fans on here who first coined that term. Storm fans always come up with the best names. I came into X-Men during that era and hated it. Thank goodness the older comics were readily available from the 60s-90s. There is absolutely a reason why the X-Men were at their creative peak in the 80s and their commercial peak in the 90s but by the 2000s, they lost their A-List status to the Avengers. It wasn't the movies because in the early 2000s, the X-Men were the ones getting movies, not Captain America or Iron Man. But the comics were butchered by Morrison's run and all the damage he did to the X-Men (namely Scott), which is why the New Avengers became Marvel's flagship book and the films would follow in due time. So I can't think of a more apt term to describe the era where the X-Men lost their relevancy in the comics and how hard they fell.
I never considered him well-written unless Magneto 2.0 is your idea of Scott. His death was long overdue as a mercy killing. Thank goodness the real Cyclops is back now after basically two decades of being gone and replaced by that maniacal dictator.

If you think he was a maniacal dictator I can only ask what comics you were reading because it doesn't seem like any of them were X-Men. When people wanted to leave Scott allowed them to go, and he even offered to hold a vote and step down if he lost. Those are not the actions of a dictator. Now if all you read was author interviews I can understand having that view, as post-Schism many of them used such language, even though no writer actually SHOWED it on panel outside of when he started to break down due to Flaming Cosmic Turkey Possession.