RESPECT the CYCLOPS Thread!

[GyLocke]

"Realistic" is becoming the worst word I could think of to apply to comics, personally. It's used as an excuse to tear heroes down far too often. "Realistically, if someone kills people in your camp, you totally kill some people in theirs." No. Superheroes are superheroes in the first place because they're supposed to hold themselves to a higher standard. That was exactly the principle that Chuck founded the X-Men on. Winning by sacrificing all of the ideals that separate you from the people who've wronged you isn't winning at all, as far as I'm concerned. But I guess that's why I still consider Superman cool, whereas the vast majority of readers seem to think he's an obsolete boy scout.

Man, I love the **** out of Superman.
That’s why I don’t think all superheroes should have his character and morals, with a little twist on it. There is not The Superhero Character (Who Holds Himself To Highest Standard). At least there shouldn’t be.

Superman is Superman – he is above our heads. An ideal to aspire to. A guy, who's very existence changes the world. He holds himself to an incredibly high moral standard. He pretty much has to. But it's just him, not every guy who fights crime in spandex.

Cyke is just a guy who has a head that does something awesome and is pretty good on the battlefield. Yeah, he tries to live up to Xavier's ideals. But he deems the situation requires some more flexibility. He may be right, he may be wrong. He is not Superman you know.

I like my superheroes different. It gives me an opportunity to hate Wolverine, like Cyclops and love Superman, not only based on their powers oneliners and costumes.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

But he's not trying to live up to Xavier's ideals. The entire foundation of the character has shifted. He's changed his focus from being an example for the rest of mutantkind to aspire to (much like Superman) to being a militant hard-ass with a survival-at-any-cost philosophy. No wonder Magneto's happy to be a part of the X-Men at this point. Like fifthfiend said, they may as well just go the final step and change their name to the Brotherhood.

 

[Dread]

It's worth mentioning that if Cyclops' zero sum quest to protect Hope at all costs as "the last new mutant born after M-Day", it may already be moot. According to a preview of AVENGERS ACADEMY #1, a young girl "manifested" powers in high school mere months ago and while she would have been born before M-Day, unless we learn she was bathed in chemicals as an infant, she'd be a mutant. Even Trauma, the son of Nightmare, technically should be considered as much of a mutant as Franklin Richards is. What, one is a mutant if they're the children of mortal metahumans who become born with super powers, but one isn't if they're the children of mystical beings? If one of Hercules' bastard children somewhere developed his strength, they wouldn't count as a mutant? If teenagers who were born in the 90's can still manifest powers even after M-Day, how exactly has this changed into a dying species? Even if, say, 100 used to manifest a year and now only 2 do, that's at least something. But I guess that would require an editor to do more than ask, "How would you like your coffee, Mr. Bendis, sir?" and actually manage ****. Obviously inviting everyone to a Creator Summit once a year has not solved these sorts of problems. Maybe they should resort to new fangled technology like...email...or even telephones to keep stuff in line. I know, crazy right?

A lot of what defines what a mutant is has often been inconsistent, and so have a lot of things with new or old mutants since M-Day. That entire exercise has failed on just about every level. It has gutted the X-Men of their core metaphor. It has forced some characters into awkward corners. It has provided the wholesale slaughter of new characters who had potential. It has not increased sales for the X-Books one iota; if anything they often sell at historic lows currently. Writers from Brubaker to Milligan to Fraction struggle to wrest any sort of major storyline out of that status quo as if they were grease wrestling a boar. It is an editorial sledgehammer of a move that has unquestioningly failed in every recordable, fathomable level and I don't think the X-Men will ever move on until it is at least partly removed or reconciled away.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Uh, yeah, one would not be a mutant if one is born of mystical beings. Mutants' powers are tied to a specific gene. Having racial powers from being a hybrid doesn't qualify (unless you're Namor, whom Marvel likes to call their first mutant for some weird reason, even though he's an Atlantean/human hybrid). Phobos is not a mutant because his powers are part of his divine heritage, not the X-gene.

Think of it this way: Mutants are an evolution of the species homo sapiens. Phobos, Namor, etc. literally can't qualify because they're not and never were homo sapiens. They're hybrids of homo sapiens and gods or Atlanteans or what-have-you.

 

[Dread]

But Namor often DOES qualify. In fact, Marvel is once again going with calling him their "first mutant" for his next series, like they did in the 90's. So the inconsistency stands. Marvel can and has claimed anyone to be a mutant under dubious circumstances, whether hybrid or not. They'd say Spider-Man was a mutant if they thought it'd jack his sales some.

Hell, for the longest time Cloak & Dagger was considered mutants because drugs "activated" their powers. That's since been retconned away, but they still hung around the X-Men lately (the same X-Men who basically told all their depowered members to piss off).

As for Cyclops, according to a preview of UNCANNY X-MEN #525,

Spoiler

Cyclops just sent Cable on a suicide mission. Which makes him about the worst father ever, but I can't stand Cable, so it's a plus for me.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, but Namor being a mutant is stupid so I choose to ignore it.

 

[Dread]

But it counts. So did Cloak & Dagger for a while. So does the fact that Marvel's rules on who is and isn't a mutant change by the season.

Again, you can't have so many super powered teenagers falling from the sky in ACADEMY or projects like that unless some are mutants. And if they are, maybe that's the step back from sanity from M-Day.

If the Joe Q tenure has any major flaw, it is an intolerance for seeing an error for what it is, and reversing it. I have the feeling Joe Q would rather see an entire franchise destroyed than admit to being wrong and correcting it post haste. That was the same attitude that kept the Clone Saga going so long in ASM, and sales have STILL never recovered. It's a shame that the people in charge of things always have the tiniest egos in the room (of the sort who shatter to bits if they're ever wrong and do everything possible to deny it, hide it, ignore it, etc.), but it's a fact of life. M-Day is one of those mistakes, in some ways even worse than OMD.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Nobody in Avengers Academy is a mutant unless they're specifically called mutants, as far as I'm concerned. People develop powers for all kinds of wacky reasons in the Marvel universe, so the idea that because there are, what, like 5 students that we know of in AA, some must be mutants doesn't really make sense to me.

 

[Dread]

Cloud 9's powers have never been explained. Same for Veil in the preview for AVENGERS ACADEMY #1. You don't just magically pop super powers without being a mutant without an origin. Veil didn't know she had powers until high school, when they manifested beyond her control. That sounds like a mutant to me. How about Butterball? Or Melee? It seems to me they'd be mutants in any other era, but because of M-Day's editorial clamp, Slott & Gage had to purposefully keep their origins non existent. Which to me is a little underwhelming.

It makes no sense that suddenly 15,000 teenagers are suddenly taking chemicals or finding alien artifacts or being zapped by cosmic rays and all magically never being heard of or seen until very very recently if at least some of them aren't mutants. It stretches absurdity beyond it's breaking point. Being a mutant was the easiest way to explain how some random kid got super powers and no one heard about them before, and their powers suddenly "budded". The days when 10% of the world population were all undergoing ridiculous origin sequences all around the same time was supposed to be gone.

If you got your powers via some "accident", they don't just manifest randomly when you're stressed out in school. Unless you're a total moron. Or a mutant. And that would be fine. "No more mutants" has been a decree that has on occasion been ignored, but when it is obeyed, it does nothing but harm the X-Men line. A species that murders every threat it faces, sacrifices it's own and is dying off one by one doesn't seem like the sort of thing that fits into "HEROIC AGE". But Marvel usually never minded giving off mixed signals.

 

[peejayd]

Yeah, he tries to live up to Xavier's ideals.

not anymore! t:

 

[peejayd]

up!

 

[Doomed_hero]

i dont know, i have liked Scott's changes over theyears. Starting with whedons run. I dont see him as the *****e like magneto wannabe like everyone else. Norman Osborn was put in charge of the fing country and Scott, with a endangered race did what he felt was right. I did not agree with his death saquad, but leaders sometimes make mistakes and I think even he has started to tone down and relize it was a mistake. The will probebly lead to his falling out with Logan and him ****y embracing the dream again. But I love his character seems to have more scope to him and is currently the most intresting of all the X-Men.

 

[hopefuldreamer]

I only have a handful of X-Men comics and none of the ones I have have Cyclops in it. I can only go off the movies. He was an alright guy in the movies, he was just Wolverine's beyotch. Does Cyclops really listen to NSync or Backstreet Boys or whoever the hell was coming out of his car radio?

And this is the biggest of many reasons why I HATE Bryan Singer

 

[Kurosawa]

i dont know, i have liked Scott's changes over theyears. Starting with whedons run. I dont see him as the *****e like magneto wannabe like everyone else. Norman Osborn was put in charge of the fing country and Scott, with a endangered race did what he felt was right. I did not agree with his death saquad, but leaders sometimes make mistakes and I think even he has started to tone down and relize it was a mistake. The will probebly lead to his falling out with Logan and him ****y embracing the dream again. But I love his character seems to have more scope to him and is currently the most intresting of all the X-Men.

As far as I am concerned, Scott left the X-Men in Uncanny #138 and has never come back. And Jean was really Phoenix and Jean is dead.

 

[peejayd]

* this deserves a place here:

 

[peejayd]

* Cyke can be agile if he wants to...

 

[THANOSRULES]

One of my Favorite Cyke arcs was his Marvel comics presents stuff VS master mold.

 

[peejayd]

* re: Scott's attitude in AvX --- what drives him is his belief (or should we say "faith") in Cable... in X-Sanction he bluntly tells Scott that Hope is the Phoenix, Hope is the mutant messiah --- something Cap does not know anything about... that's why it's very uncharacteristic of him to just barge in to Utopia and demand for Hope without any considerations...

* and really, Cap emphasized he "respects" Scott as the leader of mutants when Scott questioned him where he was when there's mutant problems... but later, he admitted that he and the Avengers hadn't done enough to help mutants... so Cap just said he respects Scott just to "win" the argument... and in Avx #2, Scott resented that Cap went to Logan for advice instead of him, and that's a valid point really... Hope is in Scott's responsibility but Cap went to Logan, asked for his opinion, and just went to Utopia to take Hope no matter what, instead of sitting this out and collaborate a plan with Scott (some respect, huh Cap?)... and to make matters worse, Cap actually had a cloaked Helicarrier full of Avengers ready to strike anytime with a snap of his finger... so whether Scott blasted Cap first or not, the war is already inevitable (yet, Scott once again was labelled crazy and the one to strike the first blow or initiated the war)...

* again, in a nutshell, yes, Scott really did put the world's safety at risk when he planned to train Hope to control the Phoenix... but that's without considering what Cable said in X-Sanction... i don't know but if i were Scott, i would've done the exact same thing... that's the reason i understand the "triumph" which Scott felt when Beast informed him about the resurgence of new mutants after the war, and Scott is too kind to Cap and Logan by not slapping that to their faces... another "triumph" i see for Scott was, when Hope controlled the Phoenix because that's his plan from the very start...

* for someone who follows the continuity of the Marvel story arcs (which is not me), one can remember that Scott tried to put Wanda in custody for her crimes in the mutant race, the "no more mutants" in M-Day... but Cap retaliated that she is an Avenger and that they'll solve the problem by themselves, eventhough Wanda is a mutant... in contrast, over the years, the Phoenix - as powerful as it is - has always been an X-men problem, but here are Cap and his Avengers (apparently with lesser info and experience with the Phoenix) sticking their noses where it doesn't belong... well, it's not wrong to help, but to cast Cyclops' X-men out of the scenario is just plain wrong...

* still, for me, it's quite relieving that - eventhough the X-men are heavily "villainized" (esp. Cyclops and the Phoenix Four) - the outcome and solution went their (X-men's) way... Cyclops, no matter how huge destruction he did, was right all along (not that i concur with the phrase "the end justifies the means", but hey, it's there)... Hope fulfilled her destiny to possess the Phoenix and its power was used to reignite the mutant population...

* and in the said arc, Cyclops was proven to be the most sane out of the Phoenix Five, and he intends to hold his sanity until the end (which was heavily emphasized in AvX Infinite #6, where he talks to a simulacrum of Jean from moondust of his own creation)... he won't let the Phoenix change him... inside all this power, he has to preserve the man he's always been... Scott was very careful not to kill anyone esp. the Avengers which he/they can do in a whim, and that he extends that cautiousness to the Phoenix Four... it proved to be right when Scott was the last person to be finally corrupted by the Phoenix... but that's mostly because the Avengers (esp. Xavier in later issues) kept on attacking (and Xavier threatening) him/them wihout any attempt of reconciliation whatsoever...

* another injustice for Scott was that, everybody who's everybody has been blaming him for the wrongdoings of his fellow Phoenix avatars... it was Namor who attacked Wakanda; it was Magik who imprisoned several Avengers in limbo (with the assistance of Colossus); and it was Emma who went to a killing spree and forced the other X-men to worship her... but all blame goes to Scott, and maybe because of guilt, at the end, Scott chooses to accept full responsibility for everyone's actions despite the obvious corruption of the Phoenix (and that's pretty heroic and selfless action)... and yes, while Logan points out that eventhough Scott knew where it was all going and he still continued to walk with it; the thing that bothers me here is Logan's hypocrisy, treating Scott like a cold-blooded criminal and greeting him by "killed anyone lately?" why, Logan? you a saint now? Logan betrayed his own race, he betrayed Hope (when he revealed they are in the Blue Area of the Moon) and killed many people before and until now as the leader of X-Force, and yet he can get away with it...

* one thing i know is that, in a weird yet logically sane perspective, i want this attitude of Scott Summers... being an archetypal, goody-goody two shoes kinda guy is like him playing second fiddle to Cap's character, and i don't buy it anymore... people want a tough, anti-authority antihero like Wolverine, and i think we also need an antihero leader like Scott... gone are the days where he preaches "the day we lose compassion to our enemies is the day we become the enemy"... but Scott is now living with his other tagline, "the world's changed, people, the stakes are higher, the danger's greater, we have to be equal to them"... ironically, he said this line when he was still in his "boyscout" days... this Cyclops is badass and hardcore, this Cyclops embraced the "change" and his passion for the mutant race is incomparable... ODG said he admired Scott's defiance... me? i love every single bit of it... his iconic "DX sign" at the end of UX #19 spells triumph and is screaming, "***** you Cap, ***** you Logan, i was right all along!", and that, my friends, is the coolest thing i ever saw in this whole idiotic storyline branded as "Avengers vs. X-men"... thank you, Gillen...

 

[Havok83]

Cyclops used to be one of my favorite X-men but after Morrison handled him, I went to hating him for years. Thanks to Gillen and the writing for him over the past year and the events of AvX, Im back to loving him and think he's a great character.

 

[JewishHobbit]

Well, I agreed with you through the thing about how Morrison handled him. I hated that but grew to love him more under Whedon and even through the Messiah days until just prior to AvX. AvX just killed him for me. The only thing about him that I'm looking forward to is a redemption story of some sort and I can't even get too excited about that because I don't trust Marvel to give him one.


But hey, It's good to see the old thread bumped

 

[Havok83]

I thought he got a raw deal in AvX and was dragged through the mud so he could be the obvious scapegoat. Im not buying into Marvel's game and its made me appreciate him more as he wasnt all wrong in this. Its just that others arent taking responsibility and the fact of the matter was that he had a cosmic force forced onto him against his will and that exacerbated the situation and affected him. I dont feel he's 100% to blame I really dont think there's any redemption to be sought. He took the fall for his race and it stinks that everyone has turned their backs on him.

 

[The Englishman]

Seeing Wolverine ask him if he has killed anyone lately really made my blood boil...hypocritical little hairy prick!!

 

[KangConquers]

But he's not trying to live up to Xavier's ideals. The entire foundation of the character has shifted. He's changed his focus from being an example for the rest of mutantkind to aspire to (much like Superman) to being a militant hard-ass with a survival-at-any-cost philosophy. No wonder Magneto's happy to be a part of the X-Men at this point. Like fifthfiend said, they may as well just go the final step and change their name to the Brotherhood.

I remember when I was a kid, Cyclops was only a shade darker than Captain America in terms of portrayal. Now he's doing **** that even Magneto would flinch at.

 

[peejayd]

Seeing Wolverine ask him if he has killed anyone lately really made my blood boil...hypocritical little hairy prick!!

* same here, dude... that guy's a living hypocrite...

 

[Spider-Nerd]

Seeing Wolverine ask him if he has killed anyone lately really made my blood boil...hypocritical little hairy prick!!

I'm more mad that marvel's overexposure and mischaracterization has ruined one of my favorite characters. I miss wolverine.