I think that's more of Dread's fan-******* in wanting Cyclops to have proverbial vengeance on the show by going bad because he was not satisfied with how Cyclops was treated in being a whipping boy of sorts in the story.
You can see it that way. You will no matter how I explain myself. I see it as me being open to a new idea so long as it is handled well. That's always the key; execution. If Craig, Johnson & Yost are having a problem executing what they want for Cyclops given the format of the show, I am game for a more "out of the box" idea so long as it is handled well. I'd rather see him as a sympathetic villain then an unsympathetic hero.
TheVileOne said:
Fans have similar fan wank views of Naruto where they come up with ideas where Naruto suddenly becomes withdrawn and emo against the village of Konoha for shunning Naruto. Or Naruto starts insulting and hating Sakura for being a ***** to him when they were kids. **** like that.
Admittedly, I haven't watched NARUTO in quite some time. I lost interest during the "filler" arcs and haven't returned. I just always chuckled at the fundamental idea that the villagers of Konoha feared that Naruto would become a monster and destroy them all, yet by shunning him, all but encourage him to do so. It's akin to wanting to rid the world of the menace of the Hulk by continuing to chase and incite him. Thankfully for everyone, Naruto is too much of a slacker/wanna-be hero to do so.
TheVileOne said:
I think Dread just has to deal with that the guys that made the show don't share the same views as him, not necessarily on Cyclops, but on how the story will evolve.
I don't mind how the story evolves so long as it is executed well. The execution of this first season has been hit or miss at best. I just hope Season 2 improves on the writing aspect on all levels. Cyclops was just the one I usually found myself focusing on (and to be fair, he did get as much focus as Nightcrawler did).
TheVileOne said:
So more than anything it sounds like Dread's going with Cyclops, "Well guess what?! Payback time! You don't want me to be the hero or the leader so I'm going to be the big bad guy!"
That isn't it. Basically I want every major character to be handled well in a way that is entertaining and makes sense with what the TV show has presented (not theoretically from comic stuff that is never referenced and changed on a whim to mingle continuity with Ultimate and movie lore for the show's own unique history). Cyclops wasn't the only character who could have been handled better. Iceman was a cipher. Beast faded into background scenery after the first 4-6 episodes. Shadowcat is very close to a cipher herself. Jean is a walking Maguffin. The only sympathetic character on the team besides Wolverine was blown up. Wolverine himself is a satire of himself while being less of himself in the show's role for him who curiously is better in every episode he isn't the exclusive star of.
I am open to new ideas involving a few of them, including Cyclops. I'm not looking for him to wreck vengeance. Hell, if he became an outright villain in Season 2, he would eventually lose, so that doesn't fit your estimation. I simply am interested in him becoming a sympathetic character in some fashion. If not as a hero, then as a villain or anti-hero. I am merely open to the idea of a new tract for him, so long as it is handled well. X-MEN EVOLUTION forged ground on stuff that had never been imagined before, like a Scott/Rogue/Jean romantic triangle of all things. I believe once they get over their own fan-******* after being so held up by the network in EVOLUTION, they may get back to the sort of innovation and character stuff that made that show so watchable.
As a hero, Cyclops can't work in this series, at least that is what Season One showed. He's a Never-Was; he wasn't even a competent X-Man, much less a leader, before Logan rode along. He's inefficient. He's usually unmotivated. He is obsessed with Jean for pure ego-fulfillment, to the point of near anime-level masochism. He is no rival with Wolverine, because Wolverine is always physically, morally, and spiritually better than him, without question. Virtually the entire X-Men have ignored him, allowed him to near kill himself, and not even Xavier gives a damn about him. To remain on this team makes him, at best, yet-another-generic-statue in Wolverine's shaggy shadow. But as a villain, to take a post-ULTIMATE X-MEN twist on it (since Millar did have Cyclops join the Brotherhood within the first arc), could actually work better. This is all brain-storming, but I am, again, open to innovative ideas so long as they are executed well.
TheVileOne said:
Now obviously, in this new altered timeline you have the whole AoA scenario where Cyclops was "working" for Apocalypse, but in the comics that was all a ruse, but who knows how that will come up. But hey maybe Dread will get his wish and Cyclops will get a blast to crack at Wolverine's plot armor.
The idea of Cyclops joining the bad guys as a deliberate, "mole" type subplot would never been done in this show unless it was Scott going about Wolverine's idea, because only Wolverine could ever come up with any clever idea in this show (and has). If Cyclops joins Apocalypse and it isn't Logan's idea, there is no way possible it will not be treated as something legitimate. For a very simple reason; in this show, at least in regards to Logan/Scott arguments, Logan is always correct. Logan barks about Scott being unfit for Jean, and he's right. He barks about Scott being distracted and weak-willed, and he's right. He barks at Scott for being dead weight in a fight, and when he says that, he usually is right. There has been no situation in the show thus far where Logan has been wrong and Scott wasn't. Even with Emma Frost, Logan had to hear to "trust" her from his own future version of himself, so even across time, Logan is right in the end. With this pattern in mind, if Cyclops joined with Apocalypse in Season 2, he has to be outright wrong. He has to be the one doing something selfish or single-motivated because Wolverine is the selfless embodiment of all that is X-Men, as Season One showed. The only time he does anything bad that has any ramifications, he is being mind-controlled by someone else, which doesn't count (because at any moment any character could be mind-controlled).
Plus, from what I know of Craig from interviews/commentaries/teasers, he is the sort of fanboy who loves to re-create or fulfill at least some things that fans always debate. Across all of X-Men lore a Wolverine vs. Cyclops thing in terms of fighting has been drudged up a lot. It has never been done as a fight in the movies or any cartoon and I would be surprised if it never happened in any season of WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN, which in some ways acts as wish fulfillment for some things, such as Wolverine vs. Hulk or the Silver Samurai stuff. What better way to have a really cool Logan vs. Scott fight, regardless of who wins, by having Scott join Apocalypse? Again, no matter how the fight ends, Logan HAS to be in the moral right; there is no way that would be allowed unless Scott was an outright bad guy, or was seen as one, or was wrong morally in whatever caused the battle.
Of course, I assumed Craig would jump at the chance to be the first producer of an X-Men show to animate the bonafide Fastball Special, but instead Brett Ratner still is the king of doing that in another media.
TheVileOne said:
Its sort of out there because the season ends with Cyclops in a much better, more positive place. He got his piss and his girlfriend back, but there's still that lingering anguish over Emma. And maybe there's a conflict there if Emma comes back and is suddenly back in the picture again so suddenly Scott is dealing with both Jean and Emma like in Morrison's New X-men run.
I disagree, and sometimes I wonder how we watch the same cartoon. Cyclops is no better than he was in the pilot. He starts the series morbidly obsessed with Jean and ends it morbidly obsessed with Jean. He did nothing to redeem himself or any of his actions in the series; at the start he is willing to abandon his allies to whatever fate beholds them for his own desires, and he does that at the very end of the series (ditching them all to be arrested by the MRD because Frost dangles Jean at him like a carrot). Frost does all the work of saving Jean for him; he's barely her side-kick. And with Jean back, Scott doesn't have to redeem himself, because being a sad sack no-hoper paid off. He did nothing to display why Xavier was wrong in betting on Wolverine to save the team at every juncture. He never was efficient when it really, REALLY counted. About all he was reliable for was blasting Mr. Sinister's minions around twice a season, which I suppose is something. He was a man at the mercy of every emotion at the start of the season, and was the same at the end.
I'm a odd sort of fan; I've grown to like Cyclops over the last 8-9 years, but I've never liked Jean, or the shipping between them. Jean is rarely very interesting and frankly hasn't recovered from being "token female" in the original line up; the Phoenix just distracts from that; it's a cosmic temper tantrum and nothing more functionally. I've probably liked Cyclops with virtually any other woman other than Jean, even bloody Colleen Wing for like two issues. Nothing WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN has done so far has made Jean work; she's as much of a character as Princess Toadstool. We can only experience their relationship through Scott and it's as dysfunctional than Pym & Janet, with the average audience member wondering what Jean could possibly see in him. Women may like men who care enough to miss them, but not to the point where they abandon all their friends and commit suicide without them. Unless they're gothic lolitas, which Jean isn't.
Season One W&TXM sought to create a different sort of show for better or ill, than other X-Men shows. To that end they decided their way to handle Cyclops was to reverse all of the "trends" with him. Often he comes off as stiff and emotionless; here they made him an emotionally crippled introvert, to the point where he only attached to one person in his entire life and then wasted away without her. Often Cyclops is overly competent with the team from the start; here he is arguably the least useful X-Man besides Forge, always bogging down the team with his own petty baggage, and has been since he joined. Often Cyclops was a "token leader" in terms of morality, doing what was "good for the mission" or so on. Here, Cyclops only does for himself, and the mission and the X-Men can be damned. Often Cyclops can be a jerk; in this they dialed that up by a factor of eleven and a half million. He hits Logan in the back for any reason. He provokes fights for his own desires that the X-Men have to always bail him out of. He acts like so much of a tin pot spoiled brat that the average audience member doesn't feel it is too cruel for Future Xavier to tactically and emotionally shun him. Often Scott is attached to Jean; here that is also dialed up by a factor of eleven and a half million. Someone can blow themselves up in front of him as a sacrifice, and that barely gets a glance because Jean is there. Someone can mention Jean, and the rest of the X-Men can go pork themselves with the Sentinels. Frost can practically throw herself at him in every network censored way, and Scott just nags her about finding his dead girlfriend. Scott can't even handle Jean TALKING to another man without his permission. He is the cartoon version of a guy who has a date with a girl once and then forever sends her 444 nude texts every day, until it ends with a restraining order, a Stockholm syndrome marriage, or bloodshed.
Granted, you could say all this has been "different" for Cyclops. In EVOLUTION, the same creative team made him "different" by giving him a sense of humor and a social life, but this is 2008, damn it. That won't why anymore. In my estimation, all of the above twists to this version of Cyclops have worked poorly to make him a hero, and as executed made him unsympathetic, the embodiment of what those who hate him say he is, a block of his worst traits magnified a thousandfold. There is a chance that may change in Season 2, although I don't see any easy outs. If Cyclops pines for Frost after all his obsessive pathological melodrama in Season One for Jean, he will seem like the worst of cads. They've written themselves into a corner here, and the only way out may be to do something more unique, but be able to pull it off. I certainly think it is possible.
Cyclops as Apocalypse and Mr. Sinister's ally as a "ruse" is far too nuanced for the show's simplistic "rivalry" between Logan and him. But going that extra mile and making him a villain could work. He shares all of traits of many sympathetic villains; handled well it could be akin to something we all talk about later; "I never thought it would work, but man, they made it work!" And hey, in the end he still would get to lose and be proven wrong, but it might work as a character journey better for him. I'm just saying that I hope the writing quality improves in Season 2, the execution gets consistent, and if that means thinking a little beyond expectations, so be it.
