Your Unpopular/Controversial Opinions on the X-Universe

[Ra-El]

Agree with all of this, especially the Magneto kneeling before Cyclops moment. Starting with Astonishing X-Men, I felt like that whole era was an attempt to make Cyclops "cool".

And it was successful in many levels, for many years... I miss it.

[yogaflame]

Danger's backstory never made any sense.

The Danger room has been completely take apart, stripped bare, wiped, dissected and rebuilt several times since they got the Shiar tech and nobody noticed any high sentien AI in it, not Forge, who's very power tell him how things works, or Bastion, who's a sentient AI himself. As for it not being allowed to kill because of the safeties, the saftey switch would get cut off all the time in the Danger Room and in some cases, the people training wouldn't have it turned on at all.

If I recall correctly, the Shi'ar Danger Room upgrade happened when Charles was already infected with the Brood queen who gathered the original New Mutants. So it would be either her fault, or Lilandra's for not explaining how the tech worked.

I never liked that Whedon run anyways.

[Omega Alpha]

Agree with all of this, especially the Magneto kneeling before Cyclops moment. Starting with Astonishing X-Men, I felt like that whole era was an attempt to make Cyclops "cool".

And it was successful in many levels, for many years... I miss it.

The era wasn't made for the sole purpose of making Cyclops look cool, that's ridiculous- the idea of that era from Morrison to Schism was to move away the X-men from the traditional "X-men are a team of a dozen superheroes sitting in a mansion, pretending to be a school, taking orders from Xavier" mode that more or less characterized the franchise pretty much for it's whole existence, with a few outliers, in late Claremont's era specially.

First, Morrison made the school an actual school and mutantkind an actual relevant minority, rather than a bunch of weirdos here and there, and then he made Xavier leave. Astonishing had as Cyclops arc him moving on from both Jean and trusting Xavier entirely (Deadly Genesis was around the same time, which reinforced it).

Then House of M pretty much did a 180º on mutantkind and the X-books didn't really know what to do until Messiah Complex, where they begun to explore the facing extinction angle. This is really when Cyclops became the most important character narrative-wise for the franchise, but that's a natural consequence of the fact that, if you're gonna play that angle, then the X-men have to become even more of an army than they originally were, and the person in charge of it is going to be the main focus; if you have mutantkind prospering, like now, then you can have dozens of different books each with a different focus, and the most important character storywise (Moira) can even be missing for a year, but if you're having them facing complete annihilation, then any book and any story not focusing on that looks superfluous or downright silly.

The problem was that at some point, with changing editors and whatnot, Marvel panicked and wanted to go back to the status quo, because it was very different from the most recognizable status quo of the brand, and, of course, was not the X-men the people in charge were reading when they were growing up, and these are the people that think it was a good idea for Spider-Man to have a deal with the devil to undo his marriage because it makes him look old.

And not only that, rather than reaching the natural ending of that storyline- mutantkind is reborn, and is prospering again, so now, like what happens with essentially every victorious people or group- without the clear focus of facing a common enemy, every goes to do their own thing- they decided they needed to split up the X-men while they're still facing their biggest threat ever, and not only that, they need to have a clear hero in their mind and a clear villain, even though it doesn't make sense (they are all heroes) and they pick essentially the worst possible people for the roles of clear hero and clear villain they want, and have the split be about some bullshit reason, and then double down on that on AvX, and then insist on that for 7 years.

Like I said many times, you can't just explain Marvel's plans for that era and attitude toward Cyclops specially right until the end of Rosenberg's run by purely rational arguments. You just can't.

[Devaishwarya]

^^ he's absolutely right, you know.

I do enjoy reading post from those who clearly understood on multiple levels what they've actually read. I always end up learning a thing or three.

[Sin Nick]

The X-men should never be relegated to being yesmen and that's exactly what they were pre Schism. They did not have to become mindless foot soldiers in the name of getting things done. And Cyclops most certainly dominated the franchise, the so called leader and face of all mutantkind. Magneto kneeling before him was beyond cringe inducing. I stand by my opinion that Scott needed to be challenged and pushback of some sort was absolutely necessary. Cyclops was only ever the team field leader and that only meant calling the shots on missions. However making him the undisputed leader of all mutants and effectively giving him Carteblanche to turn the X-men his personal army and have no one challenge him was a bridge to far. Other characters were essentially sabotaged to elevate Cyclops. A properly written Storm would never step back and allow herself to be sidelined. A properly written Logan would never let himself be Cyclops yesman/attack dog. A properly written Xavier would never allow himself to be kicked out of his own house or degraded by Scott and Emma. And a properly written Magneto would never kneel before anyone much less Cyclops. Schism most definitely needed to happen.

And it was successful in many levels, for many years... I miss it.

I mean, outside this lil corner of the internet, Cyclops is still seen as a dork. He still has ways to go before he reaches the levels of relevance of say Storm. Even sidelined over the years, she still a more popular character. As it stands, Cyclops will always be 3rd banana after Storm and Wolverine.

[Omega Alpha]

^^ he's absolutely right, you know.

I do enjoy reading post from those who clearly understood on multiple levels what they've actually read. I always end up learning a thing or three.

Happy to help. I just with more people didn't read the books on a "my favorite character is not getting enough spotlight" or "the character I HATE is getting too much spotlight" levels alone, though of course that's a part of the experience, and Hickman is a writer that invites deeper analysis (Morrison too).

While we're at it, I am not sure how controversial it is, but I think people that genuinely hate fictional characters are disturbed. Sure, that are characters that I think that are vile, but fun to read, or those I genuinely dislike, but I think someone that hates a character like a normal person hates a corrupt politician, a mass murderer, or someone that hurt you or someone you love can't be right in the head. Even more to spend time in boards like this one insisting on how much said character deserves to be hated.

[Ra-El]

I mean, outside this lil corner of the internet, Cyclops is still seen as a dork. He still has ways to go before he reaches the levels of relevance of say Storm. Even sidelined over the years, she still a more popular character. As it stands, Cyclops will always be 3rd banana after Storm and Wolverine.

Outside this lil corner of the internet, I know exactly 3 people who enjoys comics, and two of them don't read mainstream superhero stories.

How much a character I'm not a fan of is popular don't matter, not even how popular a character I like is popular is that important. What I really care about is getting good stories about the characters I like, and during a period of time on Marvel, I was getting some really good stories with Cyclops, that is what I miss.

If/when Marvel sideline Cyclops, I probably wil stop reading the X-Men, because I'm not a great x-men fan, but the only comic book character I like more than Cyclops is Superman.

[Hizashi]

The era wasn't made for the sole purpose of making Cyclops look cool, that's ridiculous- the idea of that era from Morrison to Schism was to move away the X-men from the traditional "X-men are a team of a dozen superheroes sitting in a mansion, pretending to be a school, taking orders from Xavier" mode that more or less characterized the franchise pretty much for it's whole existence, with a few outliers, in late Claremont's era specially.

First, Morrison made the school an actual school and mutantkind an actual relevant minority, rather than a bunch of weirdos here and there, and then he made Xavier leave. Astonishing had as Cyclops arc him moving on from both Jean and trusting Xavier entirely (Deadly Genesis was around the same time, which reinforced it).

Then House of M pretty much did a 180º on mutantkind and the X-books didn't really know what to do until Messiah Complex, where they begun to explore the facing extinction angle. This is really when Cyclops became the most important character narrative-wise for the franchise, but that's a natural consequence of the fact that, if you're gonna play that angle, then the X-men have to become even more of an army than they originally were, and the person in charge of it is going to be the main focus; if you have mutantkind prospering, like now, then you can have dozens of different books each with a different focus, and the most important character storywise (Moira) can even be missing for a year, but if you're having them facing complete annihilation, then any book and any story not focusing on that looks superfluous or downright silly.

The problem was that at some point, with changing editors and whatnot, Marvel panicked and wanted to go back to the status quo, because it was very different from the most recognizable status quo of the brand, and, of course, was not the X-men the people in charge were reading when they were growing up, and these are the people that think it was a good idea for Spider-Man to have a deal with the devil to undo his marriage because it makes him look old.

And not only that, rather than reaching the natural ending of that storyline- mutantkind is reborn, and is prospering again, so now, like what happens with essentially every victorious people or group- without the clear focus of facing a common enemy, every goes to do their own thing- they decided they needed to split up the X-men while they're still facing their biggest threat ever, and not only that, they need to have a clear hero in their mind and a clear villain, even though it doesn't make sense (they are all heroes) and they pick essentially the worst possible people for the roles of clear hero and clear villain they want, and have the split be about some bullshit reason, and then double down on that on AvX, and then insist on that for 7 years.

Like I said many times, you can't just explain Marvel's plans for that era and attitude toward Cyclops specially right until the end of Rosenberg's run by purely rational arguments. You just can't.

Yeah, no one wanted this to be the status quo forever, there was a way forward. Marvel just messed it up, and that's putting it mildly.

[SpiderClops]

I mean, outside this lil corner of the internet, Cyclops is still seen as a dork. He still has ways to go before he reaches the levels of relevance of say Storm. Even sidelined over the years, she still a more popular character. As it stands, Cyclops will always be 3rd banana after Storm and Wolverine.

I mean, teenage Cyclops solo managed to outsold Storm solo.

And outside of this lil corner of the Internet, not many people even know Storm's real name.

[Kitty&Piotr<3]

They don't know James Howlett's name either. Lol

[Hizashi]

I mean, outside this lil corner of the internet, Cyclops is still seen as a dork. He still has ways to go before he reaches the levels of relevance of say Storm. Even sidelined over the years, she still a more popular character. As it stands, Cyclops will always be 3rd banana after Storm and Wolverine.

I'll never argue that Cyclops has the same pop culture presence as Storm or Wolverine, but I think people do associate visors with him (and Geordi).

Popularity isn't really a priority for me anyway, but I will ask this: if Cyclops is third banana, what does that make every other X-Man? If I've learned anything in the few years I've been on here, it's that virtually every character has fans and virtually all of them are passionate about those characters.

Outside this lil corner of the internet, I know exactly 3 people who enjoys comics, and two of them don't read mainstream superhero stories.

How much a character I'm not a fan of is popular don't matter, not even how popular a character I like is popular is that important. What I really care about is getting good stories about the characters I like, and during a period of time on Marvel, I was getting some really good stories with Cyclops, that is what I miss.

If/when Marvel sideline Cyclops, I probably wil stop reading the X-Men, because I'm not a great x-men fan, but the only comic book character I like more than Cyclops is Superman.

I read X-Men Red because I wanted to see the real Jean (go away Jeen) back in action but was disappointed. That was probably the last x-book I'll pick up that doesn't have my boy in it.

As I've gotten older I've grown to appreciate Superman more and more, I'd say comfortably that he is my #1 favorite DC hero. Green Lantern (Hal) and Nightwing are tied for second.

[Kisinith]

I mean, outside this lil corner of the internet, Cyclops is still seen as a dork. He still has ways to go before he reaches the levels of relevance of say Storm. Even sidelined over the years, she still a more popular character. As it stands, Cyclops will always be 3rd banana after Storm and Wolverine.

I'm not sure thats right, a couple of years back Jordan White did a poll on twitter on who people's favorite X-Man was and as I recall Cyclops got the top spot over Storm and Wolverine, and not by a small margin either. Now I'll be the first to admit that was probably an outlier, especially among more casual fans, but among comic fans he routinely ends up damn near the top in most lists and polls.

Now any reasonable person will acknowledge that Wolverine is more popular but after Logan I think it's far more of a toss up than you credit, and Cyclops is much closer to the top than you give him credit on. The biggest thing I've observed that differentiates his popularity from most other X-Men (aside from Wolverine really) is that he has a relatively small but very vocal group that hates him with a passion.

[Omega Alpha]

Storm and Wolverine have way more casual fans, Cyclops' fans are nearly all people that actually read the books regularly, and among those I'd say he's more popular than the former.

[TheDeadSpace]

I mean, outside this lil corner of the internet, Cyclops is still seen as a dork. He still has ways to go before he reaches the levels of relevance of say Storm. Even sidelined over the years, she still a more popular character. As it stands, Cyclops will always be 3rd banana after Storm and Wolverine.

I mean, it's Storm and Wolverine. Not sure how this is really a jab at the character.

[Agent Z]

Forge should have been a technopath.

X-Men Evolution wrote Scott and Alex far better than most of the comics did.

I'd like the next adaptation to have Scott and Rogue date.

Risque and Shard should be brought back.