I'm a Wolverine fan and I love Wolverine. I've never been in denial of that.
Dread though hates Wolverine and loves Cyclops so of course he thinks his favorite character is getting shafted. Even though his favorite character in the comics married his old girlfriend's visual twin, had a kid with her, and then when he found out his girlfriend was still alive, he dumped his family for his old girlfriend and failed to tell his girlfriend HE MARRIED A WOMAN AND HAD A FREAKING BABY!
I don't hate Wolverine. I hate what is often done with him at the expense of other characters. I have explained my position many times and I don't want to do again. To be honest I think popularity has become a sword without a hilt for Wolverine as a character.
I also have never denied Cyclops' character faults in the comics or this show. What I feel was an error was to define him solely by them and to have him quite literally be the only character who succumbs to such faults and is all but at the mercy of them.
Wolverine's faults become strengths. A "bad temper" is always handy in a nasty fight. Even his occasional impulses to leave the team to either track a lead or research his past always become strengths when he saves someone or even comes up with some lead to save the day. And while Wolverine has enemies from his past that sometimes haunt the X-Men, like Weapon X or Ninja, you can't rationally blame them on Logan. It's not his fault his enemies are obsessed or dishonorable. It's akin to when Wolverine at one point calls himself a "monster", but it rings hollow because aside for strapping Wraith into his own torture machine in the pilot, Wolverine never does anything "monstrous" in this show. His worst acts are when he is being controlled by another, like Mojo, which is not being a monster, but a victim. If anything, Wolverine is the pinnacle of what the X-Men strive to achieve, putting the greater good and the team above himself.
Rogue eventually turns out not to be succumbing to faults but going undercover for the greater good.
Nightcrawler only stayed away from the X-Men to protect mutants going to Genosha, and his own lone quest leads him to Scarlet Witch and quite a vital relationship dynamic (which was cool; obviously someone liked Exiles' Nocturne).
Even Frost in the end put aside the ideals of the Club to put the wrong things right by the X-Men and Cyclops.
Cyke, though, never really overcame his faults, did he? He started obsessed with Jean, and he's still there by the end of Season 1. He's still more concerned about his love life then anyone and anything else. He didn't even save Jean in the end, Frost did it for him. On the contrary, in some ways he wound up the worst. Unlike Wolverine, Rogue, or Nightcrawler, Scott never had to overcome his character dilemma. He never got to redeem himself. He never had to step up. He just stood pact and the situation changed for him so he got Jean back, and they're almost the poster children for dangerously co-dependent relationships. Cyke needs Jean to tell him to do everything, and Jean needs Cyclops to help get over her own introverted nature because by comparison she's a WILD CHILD compared to "sulk on a bench" Scott.
Every character has faults. My issue was Cyke was all but defined by his and nothing else. He's a sack of walking faults in a costume. He's W&TXM's version of The Sentry. Least as of Season One.
Yeah I've seen the whole Series on online (thank god for free tv online!)
First off thanks for the welcome, very much appreciated. Secondly, I think the acting emo is their way of trying to show grief on a kids show. In my view, his selfisness and constant stressing is their way of showing how helpless he is without Jean, and perhaps the fact that Wolverine still asks for him to join again shows how desperate the X men are (due to their loss of Jean and Xavier). I think perhaps his lack of concern for his own life, for example when he takes on about a hundred multiples of Multiple Man, and going after Sinister by himself. What does not help him is his closeness with Emma, the whole needs her to find Jean thing doesn't really fly, especially to the people who've read the comics. In addition the fact that he sat in an apartment watching tv not bothering to try to find Jean doesn't help portray him as the devoted boyfriend (I'm assuming they arn't married). It would have been more believable if Wolverine had found him getting his ass kicked while already trying to find her.
SPOILER:
I think it's interesting that Cyclops in XM:E is mentioned as I feel that this show's Cyclops reaction to Jean going missing is less bad than XM:E's Cyclops would have been.
Similarly, XM:E's Cyclops seemed to be happier (or at least as happy) to see Jean in the episode where Mystique drops him in Mexico, than this show's Cycops was when he found Jean again.
The Cyclops in XM:E I thought had plenty of the flaws that he usually has in the comics; he was at times stiff and authoritarian, and he clearly missed how hard Rogue was crushing on him because he was devoted to Jean, who often was unaware. But he wasn't defined by them. He still held the team together when he had to. He wasn't useless in missions. He wasn't selfish. He also had a sense of humor. Ironically, he often had to be bailed out in the end of missions by Jean or Rogue, but it didn't diminish him. He outright admitted to other students that he sometimes screwed up. It was a good enough depiction that it convinced me at age 18-20 as the show ran to actually become invested in his character in general and give stuff re-reads in the comics. When I read reprints in the 90's I usually just read 'em for Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler.
I'm fine with showing Cyke devastated without Jean in W&TXM, the problem is I think they overplayed that hand too much and it verged on making him sad sack and unsympathetic. What is shown in Episode 20? That Cyclops was a tool even before Jean went MIA. He washed out in training simulations; he was the runt of the founding team. He needed Jean to lead him by the hand and do something as basic as blasting Magneto 5 feet from him for him. He becomes so obsessed with Jean that the first time in his life he has some competition for her, he handles it like a dishonorable spoiled brat. You cannot root for someone who blasts Wolverine in the back when he expresses no interest in fighting. You cannot root for someone who all but exploited a promise Logan made to Jean to blast him whenever he irritated you. Cyclops was the only person who believed Jean was alive to be found, and all the other X-Men either saw his quest as obsession and/or abandoned him to his own depression. The impression I got from Season 1 was that Scott was a Never Was, someone who Xavier hand picked and coddled for years who never once lived up to his potential, who needed Jean to even be competent, who now was bitter that Xavier has now picked a better horse in Wolverine.
The finale ends with Cyclops not having to change, or man up, or grow up. Frost all but takes the brunt of things for him. Yet another woman having to do what he can't.
I admit I am likely a minority voice regarding this version of Cyclops. Most viewers of the show seem to like him. I just can't fathom why. I wonder how many episodes in they are and how they interpreted some of the episodes. He's fleshed well in the show, he has reasons for being the way he is. But then again so most Batman villains.
He still blasts things now and again. I will admit that despite not making him very sympathetic, WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN probably gave Cyclops his best fight sequence since XM:E's "Stuff of Heroes" with episode 12. Some of his in episode 23, I think with Archangel was pretty smashing. Then again I see it as "energy beams" being fine for BS&P, while claws sometimes take staging magic with the boards to "imply" injuries or deaths.
I feel that Cyclops and Jean were not meant to be in this story. I feel Cyclops had a greater connection with Emma and I think that's who Cyclops will ultimately end up with.
And honestly, I think this show does a much better job with the dynamic then how they went about it in the comics.
Frost as I have said many times is one of the characters Season One handled very well. SHE was sympathetic; Cyclops wasn't. The fact that she so clearly loved him despite him having nothing worth loving and didn't even realize her feelings made her more sympathetic. Alas, she wound up in the same pattern as Jean. Doing all of Scott's work for him. He never makes it worth it, but assumes the right to it. He never earns Jean's love, but feels entitled to it. He never earns his place as Leader, but sulks when Xavier picks someone who does (Logan at least had the initiative to TRY to lead the X-Men without Xavier, and in fact does).
I do believe that Kyle probably gets more of a kick out of Frost than Jean, if only by his commentary in HULK VS. THOR regarding Enchantress vs. Sif, and that's fine; so do I. Season 2, unfortunately, leaves things in a very awkward position to try to get those two together. It isn't even the feat of reviving her; being shattered failed to kill her in the comics, so why would it here? That's all exposition. The challenge would be having Frost and Scott gravitate without Scott seeming like a complete cad for ditching Jean after all the misery he put the X-Men through for losing her. I can think of no way to do it writing wise without Scott just seeming like more of an unlikable, selfish jerk. "I was willing to let all my friends be murdered after losing you, but now I found a better woman to be passive-aggressively enslaved to." It's quite a narrative pickle honestly. With the benefit of hindsight, they may have been better off icing Jean in the finale instead. But I understand why they didn't. It was the ending that was proper for the season, even if it lead to quite a pickle for the second. But with stories you sometimes have to write for the Oomph NOW rather than LATER and then solve later LATER. If that makes sense. I wish 'em luck.
You will like this show if youl ike Micheal Bay esique action.
What? While some of the characters did need to be fleshed beyond cipher, that's a bit of an unfair comparison.
Also... for a show called Wolverine and the X men, Cyclops features heavily in the last episode/s, infact you could go as far to say that Cyclops is THE hero of the last episode, or at least he is the most active, given that Wolverine's role is somewhat downplayed, at least in the present.
He's very active but does little consequential. Frost saves him from the Hellfire Club. Frost saves him from Phoenix, and literally beats Phoenix for him (and Jean and the X-Men). If anything, Frost is the heroine of the finale. The tragic heroine.
Cyclops also said, "yes dear" when Jean pinned Frost to a wall and left her there. Wolverine was the one who freed her and that led to saving their time. And Logan didn't even guess to "trust" her from Cyclops; he learned it from Future Xavier, who learned it from a Future version of Logan himself. If Frost was the heroine of the finale, Logan had an assist.
And let's not forget the secondary threat of the season; Master Mold. It wasn't Cyclops' battle savvy or Forge's tech genius that stopped that threat completely. It was Logan stabbing the console with his claws. Nothing beats that, man. It was unintentionally hilarious when Cyclops is trying to step up and lead what is left of the X-Men and Brotherhood against the Sentinels, when Wolverine has already disabled the threat, thus making the gesture worthless. But hence is the frustration of Slim.
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