Scott Summers: Cyclops Appreciation 2019

[FUBAR007]

Again, I don't see the point in looping back to a 9+ year old story line just to further disparage a key character, while your companies been disparaging the character pretty consistently the entire time since that run anyway. Does editorial want to end Scott as a moral leader of the X-Men permanently, ala Charles? Do they simply want to minimize him by sticking him perpetually in "I need to redeem myself" cycles, or is this really about putting the past behind him. If it is, the best course of action is to just move on rather than lingering even more on a sore topic more likely to drive his fans away than anything simply because it's just more of the same. I can't recall any other major Marvel character that is more continuously described as morally questionable or contemptible without actually showing it.

Keep in mind we don't know specifically which future stories JDW is referring to. My hunch is he's referring to the forthcoming end of Rosenberg's run. I could be wrong, but this doesn't seem like the sort of thing Hickman is likely to focus on.

Also, don't forget that not all Cyclops fans are RightClops fans; some genuinely prefer BoyScott.

The problem is that, in one key respect, the Extinction-era creative team did their job too well. It's obvious to me they were going for the dramatic irony of Scott, Xavier's prize pupil, turning into the new Magneto in order to subvert the traditional hero/villain dynamic. But, they did it gradually and incrementally over time to show what was motivating Scott, why he was making the choices he was making, and to keep him sympathetic to the reader. That way, when the final, heel-turn flashpoint came--Scott killing Xavier--it would have the maximum emotional impact for readers. What Marvel didn't seem to anticipate was that a sizable of contingent of fans shifted their own moral goalposts as Scott did. They didn't see Scott's arc as a fall from grace but rather as a liberation from a naive and weak morality and an embrace of hard-boiled, ends-justifies-the-means worldview. When the flashpoint came, they didn't see Scott's killing of Xavier as the final heel-turn but as him finally, truly becoming a man and righteously executing an oppressive, hypocritical father-figure.

I remember a parallel effect with fans of The Shield and Breaking Bad. Despite the fact he was a cold-blooded murderer and a cop-killer, lots of viewers thought Vic Mackey was a straight up hero and model cop because he bucked the system. Despite the fact he was a ruthless, manipulative ****-heel who ruined lives and got innocent people killed, lots of viewers thought Walter White was a hero because he subverted the system. (Their cases are far more extreme than Scott's--even I don't think he ever went full villain--but the effect among the fanbase is similar.)

It's like pro wrestling: people root for the heel, not the face. Marvel forgot that.

Now, Marvel's trying to walk Scott back to being a more traditional hero, but the fan contingent that prefers him as an edgelord anti-hero is going apeshit.

(The credible way to thread the needle is to explicitly reiterate that, throughout the Extinction era, Scott's world was crumbling around him. He was possessed by Apocalypse for months. He lost his marriage to Jean. Then, he lost Jean. Again. Then, aliens wiped out her entire family. Then, he found out he had another brother, a fact his mentor and surrogate father had lied to him about for years. Then, said brother turned out to be a raging psycho who killed Scott's friend and then went on to murder their father. Then, Scott's other brother disappeared in space fighting said psycho brother. Then, Scott thought he lost his son. Again. And on and on and on. And, all this is before factoring in M-Day, Bastion and Stryker, the Phoenix, etc. Scott's arc wasn't a case of a vanilla wimp discovering his inner badass; it was a case of a good, but flawed man gradually losing everything and cracking apart under the strain.

He doesn't need redemption so much as proper mental health care and a lot of it. Fortunately, a certain redhead is back and uniquely qualified to provide exactly the love and TLC Scott needs. If Marvel will let her.)

[Neocide]

^what you said about him going more anti hero and why is perfectly what had happened, will marvel use that as why? I doubt it, it's easier to just say he was always wrong and we were just following him on blind fanboy bias. To be honest, it just feels like marvel is talking down to us and we can't understand complex characters so he must be evil, or maybe marvel doesn't understand complex characters hence him being "evil" I don't know, nothing is ever black and white, and it shouldn't be.

[MechaJeanix]

I read Trent Seeley's article and I thought it was a very well written article. The only issue I had was I felt his conclusions were already widely known. I think we have discussed them in this very thread. I know I've had discussions with my brother about how Scott has been in a way rehabilitated by remembering Teen Cyke's reactions to what he had become in the future (and his actions in the future). Scott decided he was wrong and not right due to the fact of integrating Teen Cyke.

This seems very clear from reading the Uncanny Annual imo. So I wasn't surprised to see JDW agree with the article. For those of you who are die hard "Rightclops" I don't see why you are upset.. Scott just has had a change of perspective. Teen Cyke had a different perspective. It is ok to change ones perspective due to different points of view. Sometimes our points of view change.

I don't think it takes away from Scott's character that he acknowledges he should or could have done something differently. I think it makes him more human and a complex and flawed character. Plus it gives Scott somewhere to go. You know how writers like to reset characters (look at Jean after Phoenix Resurrection- back to late 80's/90's version). At least they didn't retcon Scott. He had a change of heart due to a change of experience.

Teen Scott meant something and also Beast may have made the right decision bringing the 05 to the present. He wanted to save Scott and even though it took a long time.. he succeeded.

[TheDeadSpace]

I feel like there may be a slight misunderstanding about the reasons for being upset with the current view of Cyclops (at least for me). I'm fine with Scott going back to a more traditional hero archetype and having a different point of view towards some of his past decisions. It makes sense when considering Scott's history. The problem arises when the past decade of Scott's characterization is generalized as a villain or a mistake. It's become redundant for me to repeatedly read about Scott's mistakes and screw ups as if that was the only takeaway. Hearing Scott express his concerns is fine, but it becomes a bit tedious when multiple characters do the same and Scott's credibility as a hero is continually brought into question. Scott should be moving forward, instead he seems to be stuck in a loop. A loop that does nothing for the character.

[Omega Alpha]

The problem is that Scott didn't need moral salvation, and the narrative Marvel wants to push doesn't make the character in anyway deeper or better, it's, quite simply, a way for them to try to push the version of events they want rather to admit THEY were wrong and move forward.

I feel like there may be a slight misunderstanding about the reasons for being upset with the current view of Cyclops (at least for me). I'm fine with Scott going back to a more traditional hero archetype and having a different point of view towards some of his past decisions. It makes sense when considering Scott's history. The problem arises when the past decade of Scott's characterization is generalized as a villain or a mistake. It's become redundant for me to repeatedly read about Scott's mistakes and screw ups as if that was the only takeaway. Hearing Scott express his concerns is fine, but it becomes a bit tedious when multiple characters do the same and Scott's credibility as a hero is continually brought into question. Scott should be moving forward, instead he seems to be stuck in a loop. A loop that does nothing for the character.

Yep. A simple "we don't need the extreme measures of the past anymore" would be enough. Hell, even during Utopia era, he disbanded X-force. But this insistence that he must be wrong is ridiculous, and like I said, smells of someone with a grudge or something.

[MechaJeanix]

I feel like there may be a slight misunderstanding about the reasons for being upset with the current view of Cyclops (at least for me). I'm fine with Scott going back to a more traditional hero archetype and having a different point of view towards some of his past decisions. It makes sense when considering Scott's history. The problem arises when the past decade of Scott's characterization is generalized as a villain or a mistake. It's become redundant for me to repeatedly read about Scott's mistakes and screw ups as if that was the only takeaway. Hearing Scott express his concerns is fine, but it becomes a bit tedious when multiple characters do the same and Scott's credibility as a hero is continually brought into question. Scott should be moving forward, instead he seems to be stuck in a loop. A loop that does nothing for the character.

I can understand the frustration. I do not think Scott was a villain, but I do think he went up to the edge. Though he did do questionable things as mentioned in the article. He was becoming more of a Magneto and less of an Xavier. He had a kill squad, he used the legacy virus, and he even killed Xavier. He went from edgy in Morrison's and Whedon's run to Dick Chaney light and though I do appreciate how complex and morally gray he became I do think they went too far with him. The creators tried their best to keep him as a hero who had to make hard decisions, but many fans (and some creators) felt he veered too far into villainy.

Obviously JDW by his past statements did not agree with Scott's turn. If you all recall (and you can google it) Morrison criticized the direction with Scott after X-men vs. Avengers. He did become a controversial character and I think there was a reason they briefly retired him (killed him off) and then used teen Scott to soft reboot him (without a retcon but by adding a new perspective). So I think they went about things well in this situation. I think and hope we will continue to enjoy Scott as a character even though he is not the same version he was when he was a radical general leading the mutant people.

[Omega Alpha]

Morrison (and Claremont) critcized him killing Xavier and going Dark Phoenix because they thought it was bad writing...and it was, but not because Scott had gone too far.l before.

[The Jeeper 2.0]

Cyclops was my favorite character long before Morrison and Whedon got to him.

The problem is that Marvel has been dedicated, since Schism, to try to paint Cyclops not only as wrong, but someone that has gone evil and needing of redemption for...reasons that weren't specified, even though none of that makes sense, because the actions of the people opposing him were absurd and the motives laughable at best and completely inconsistent with the history of the X-men. Even JDW himself in an interview (might have been Rosenberg, though) when asked what exactly he did wrong, only pointed him killing Xavier, even though it's absurd to blame him for that (and anyone suggesting that Jean killing billions should get the same treatment would get laughed at).

And not only that, we know the reason is that first of all Marvel wanted to make Wolverine as Xavier (and the good guy) and Cyclops as Magneto (and the bad guy, even if a sympathetic one)-Aaron even said this explicitly in interviews- so to return to the status quo after years of going in a new direction.

In the top of that, we have the Terrigen era, which was the worst nightmare of any Cyclops fan personified-he's killed, off-panel, and having even his best friends describing him as unimaginably evil for...reasons that weren't specified.

And then he returns- after he gets "redeemed" by having Emma thrown off the bus in a story that reeks of sexism- we have all the character progress he made in the last decade completely ignored and rather than a warm welcome from the (few) X-men left, he gets indifference and even his own brother blaming him for the dire state of mutantkind, even though when we last saw him, he was running a mutant nation and leading a successful peace march.

I actually dropped the X-Men during the Terrigen era. I couldn't bear to read books in which my favorite character was literally character assassinated.

[AHRNIHAL]

I read Trent Seeley's article and I thought it was a very well written article. The only issue I had was I felt his conclusions were already widely known. I think we have discussed them in this very thread. I know I've had discussions with my brother about how Scott has been in a way rehabilitated by remembering Teen Cyke's reactions to what he had become in the future (and his actions in the future). Scott decided he was wrong and not right due to the fact of integrating Teen Cyke.

This seems very clear from reading the Uncanny Annual imo. So I wasn't surprised to see JDW agree with the article. For those of you who are die hard "Rightclops" I don't see why you are upset.. Scott just has had a change of perspective. Teen Cyke had a different perspective. It is ok to change ones perspective due to different points of view. Sometimes our points of view change.

I don't think it takes away from Scott's character that he acknowledges he should or could have done something differently. I think it makes him more human and a complex and flawed character. Plus it gives Scott somewhere to go. You know how writers like to reset characters (look at Jean after Phoenix Resurrection- back to late 80's/90's version). At least they didn't retcon Scott. He had a change of heart due to a change of experience.

Teen Scott meant something and also Beast may have made the right decision bringing the 05 to the present. He wanted to save Scott and even though it took a long time.. he succeeded.

At least they didn't retcon Scott.


What????I mean What????

[Neocide]

I feel like there may be a slight misunderstanding about the reasons for being upset with the current view of Cyclops (at least for me). I'm fine with Scott going back to a more traditional hero archetype and having a different point of view towards some of his past decisions. It makes sense when considering Scott's history. The problem arises when the past decade of Scott's characterization is generalized as a villain or a mistake. It's become redundant for me to repeatedly read about Scott's mistakes and screw ups as if that was the only takeaway. Hearing Scott express his concerns is fine, but it becomes a bit tedious when multiple characters do the same and Scott's credibility as a hero is continually brought into question. Scott should be moving forward, instead he seems to be stuck in a loop. A loop that does nothing for the character.

This, this is how I feel, it's like every little step he takes there's 5,6,7 people pushing him back down 20, and most cases it's for reasons that don't make sense (see all of havok's complaining in the recent Uncanny run)I don't mind him going back, I don't really mind what cyclops we have, as long as he's respected and treated with dignity,what we keep getting is him getting s$%ted on and everything he did was all wrong and super evil and all bad, when in reality, it was what had to happen to keep his race alive, no one else wanted to do that and the ones who were "leaders" were happy being complacent and that was being good. I don't know, sometimes it feels we as readers, have evolved past simplicity, but some of the storytelling beats and aspects they are trying to repeatedly beat into our heads are getting played out.

[Ulfhammer]

Keep in mind we don't know specifically which future stories JDW is referring to. My hunch is he's referring to the forthcoming end of Rosenberg's run. I could be wrong, but this doesn't seem like the sort of thing Hickman is likely to focus on.

Also, don't forget that not all Cyclops fans are RightClops fans; some genuinely prefer BoyScott.

The problem is that, in one key respect, the Extinction-era creative team did their job too well. It's obvious to me they were going for the dramatic irony of Scott, Xavier's prize pupil, turning into the new Magneto in order to subvert the traditional hero/villain dynamic. But, they did it gradually and incrementally over time to show what was motivating Scott, why he was making the choices he was making, and to keep him sympathetic to the reader. That way, when the final, heel-turn flashpoint came--Scott killing Xavier--it would have the maximum emotional impact for readers. What Marvel didn't seem to anticipate was that a sizable of contingent of fans shifted their own moral goalposts as Scott did. They didn't see Scott's arc as a fall from grace but rather as a liberation from a naive and weak morality and an embrace of hard-boiled, ends-justifies-the-means worldview. When the flashpoint came, they didn't see Scott's killing of Xavier as the final heel-turn but as him finally, truly becoming a man and righteously executing an oppressive, hypocritical father-figure.

I remember a parallel effect with fans of The Shield and Breaking Bad. Despite the fact he was a cold-blooded murderer and a cop-killer, lots of viewers thought Vic Mackey was a straight up hero and model cop because he bucked the system. Despite the fact he was a ruthless, manipulative ****-heel who ruined lives and got innocent people killed, lots of viewers thought Walter White was a hero because he subverted the system. (Their cases are far more extreme than Scott's--even I don't think he ever went full villain--but the effect among the fanbase is similar.)

It's like pro wrestling: people root for the heel, not the face. Marvel forgot that.

Now, Marvel's trying to walk Scott back to being a more traditional hero, but the fan contingent that prefers him as an edgelord anti-hero is going apeshit.

(The credible way to thread the needle is to explicitly reiterate that, throughout the Extinction era, Scott's world was crumbling around him. He was possessed by Apocalypse for months. He lost his marriage to Jean. Then, he lost Jean. Again. Then, aliens wiped out her entire family. Then, he found out he had another brother, a fact his mentor and surrogate father had lied to him about for years. Then, said brother turned out to be a raging psycho who killed Scott's friend and then went on to murder their father. Then, Scott's other brother disappeared in space fighting said psycho brother. Then, Scott thought he lost his son. Again. And on and on and on. And, all this is before factoring in M-Day, Bastion and Stryker, the Phoenix, etc. Scott's arc wasn't a case of a vanilla wimp discovering his inner badass; it was a case of a good, but flawed man gradually losing everything and cracking apart under the strain.

He doesn't need redemption so much as proper mental health care and a lot of it. Fortunately, a certain redhead is back and uniquely qualified to provide exactly the love and TLC Scott needs. If Marvel will let her.)

Respectfully FUBAR, your points are out of date in my opinion. UXM vol 3, ANXM, DoX and UXM vol 5 put paid to whatever redemption was possible at the time given how the X-Men in general were dealing with Scott through those stories. If it was 2013, I'd agree you're making valid points. What JDW appears to be saying is that none of that mattered and he's basically in the same status quo as AvX Consequences which seems bewildering.

This isn't about BoyClops vs RightClops. In case you've forgotten, I tend to prefer Scott's classic characterization. That's said I can still call a spade a spade. The fact that editorial seems unable to move on from this one perspective of Scott and are unwilling to accept that anything's changed since AvX is the problem. Supposedly we are about to open up a new era for the X-Men, but not for Scott.

I'd be the first one to root for Jean and Scott getting back together, but I'd hate to think that we need to go to those lengths for Scott to be morally acceptable to the X-Men, or even himself. Could you imagine Marvel ever trying the reverse. They'd be tarred and feathered nine ways from Sunday. If we're to take anything from Jean's book, how about a convenient retcon that absolves Scott of all responsibly so we just move on from this broken and unconvincing narrative that Scott needs further penance.

[Ulfhammer]

I feel like there may be a slight misunderstanding about the reasons for being upset with the current view of Cyclops (at least for me). I'm fine with Scott going back to a more traditional hero archetype and having a different point of view towards some of his past decisions. It makes sense when considering Scott's history. The problem arises when the past decade of Scott's characterization is generalized as a villain or a mistake. It's become redundant for me to repeatedly read about Scott's mistakes and screw ups as if that was the only takeaway. Hearing Scott express his concerns is fine, but it becomes a bit tedious when multiple characters do the same and Scott's credibility as a hero is continually brought into question. Scott should be moving forward, instead he seems to be stuck in a loop. A loop that does nothing for the character.

I agree completely. Well said.

[MechaJeanix]

At least they didn't retcon Scott.


What????I mean What????

What I mean is a retcon like Jean got where we find that he's been manipulated, replaced, etc. Our Scott still did the same deeds, he made the same choices, it is just now he has gained a new perspective where he decided he made mistakes, was wrong, and if he could do things differently he would have.

So that is not retro-continuity though it may be a change some of you dislike.

My original thought still stands.

[PrezValentine]

At this point we should just accept Marvel thinks everything Scott did from Morrison and beyond was a mistake and we should conform to whatever JDW, Rosenberg and God knows who else says about him. It's easier to just turn your emotions off on this subject and accept the message that the fact that an arc made the character more engaging/interesting to you is irrelevant if the powers that be and those who give them money disagree. It's honestly less frustrating.

[MechaJeanix]

Morrison (and Claremont) critcized him killing Xavier and going Dark Phoenix because they thought it was bad writing...and it was, but not because Scott had gone too far.l before.

You haven't convinced me this is true. I went back and re-read the Morrison quote just now. You might be correct but I am not convinced yet. Morrison said "but I didn't recognize him and I don't think he'd do any of those things." He says things and so I believe it is more than just going dark phoenix and killing Xavier. Again I could be wrong. Morrison added an edge to Scott for sure but other writers took that and ran with it. Scott became a Magneto like character and was disillusioned with Xavier and Xavier's dream. He went on a dark path well before the phoenix (see the death squad X-force days). Scott became a very morally gray character and some loved this and others did not. As a character he had growth and he became very complex. I don't know if he was right or wrong but I like that we still have philosophical questions about Scott and the choices the character made. The rightclops version of Cyclops will always be controversial. Scott outgrew his boy scout version and became something darker and grittier.

I think most of us knew that Scott would come back changed and they would use Teen Cyke as a vehicle to complete this change of view. He couldn't stay the radical that he became. First thing it wouldn't fit the new direction we are in, and second the current editorial wants the X-men to be more heroic.