X-Men - Part 1

[javi1024]

just seeing that promo image for 'Fear Itself' of Scott in Magneto's costume makes me really excited what they plan to do with him.

 

[runawayboulder]

Not for me. It's kinda backwards since he's shied away from that mentality lately. Based on the rumors, it should be Logan.

 

[javi1024]

well because he shyed away means he had fears and doubts. if this story is about coming face to face with you fears as it suggests, just because he was able to correct himself sooner doesnt mean it something he wouldnt have to confront and/or make peace with later on.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'm hoping the Fear Itself promo implies Cyclops will recoil from his current methods and go back to championing more heroic means. It's still a bit galling that he gets away with all the s*** he's done scot-free, though. Iron Man at least got his ass kicked repeatedly for like a solid six-month period as penance for Civil War.

 

[runawayboulder]

I thought Tony got off kinda easy personally. Everybody kinda forgave him after he rebooted his brain with that backup hard drive.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I think people just got tired of punching him. Clearly, he was never going to actually apologize or admit he was wrong.

 

[chamber-music]

Cyclops has a history of being a brood SOB so the rest of the X-Men are used to it I guess plus Cykes been going down the dark path since twelve storyline.

Scotts the same dude who used to get into fist fights with his brother and ditch his wife and baby when Jean came back alive. His *****eness isn't all that recent.

 

[javi1024]

thats why i loved Whedon's Astonishing run so much and what finally made me a fan of Cyclops. he treated Scott as confronting his shortcomings head-on and he having to overcome them. for over a year now ive been re-reading my entire X-Men collection and i have to control my urge just jump ahead to read his title.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Whedon's Scott is the best Scott.

 

[Panthro]

Scott has often been a victim of bad writing or writing that pushed him in extreme directions, usually by writers who either didn't like him or were too busy drooling over Wolverine to take a minute to try to understand him so they didn't bother trying. When Grant Morrison had Scott making out with Emma at his wife's grave I was like "Why are you so determined to piss all over this character?" This same question could be asked of lots of X-writers past and present.

 

[Manic]

I think Morrison was trying to make Scott a dark and tragic character after the incident with Apocalypse. Scott was starting to doubt his own life and his ability to love. We're used to seeing characters almost immediately bounce back from getting possessed by a malevolent force, but Morrison decided to show that there were major consequences for Cyclops after he got Apocalypse expelled from his system. Because the other characters, like us, expected Scott to just bounce back from it, there was no one there to support him. As Scott saw it, Jean wasn't there for him in the way he needed. Having just survived the most tragic event imaginable, Emma Frost found a kindred spirit in Scott (in addition to a sexual attraction). So Scott lost Jean and moved on to Emma.

As for making out on Jean's grave? Something tells me Morrison was going for the whole "Jean's spirit wants Scott to move on" thing by showing him passionately kiss Emma where they were supposed to have parted ways, but he probably wasn't thinking clearly about where that particular scene was set. I doubt "Scott should make out with his mistress on his wife's grave" was going through Morrison's mind at all. I mean, the dude was way into hardcore drugs in those days.


Then we moved on to Whedon's run. We saw a more introspective Cyclops. He was entering new territory in his life. Jean was dead again, and this time he was trying to move on to another women who doesn't resemble her in every way. His teammates are starting to question his decision making skills, which is making him question himself. But when you get right down to it, Scott is a Big Damn Hero and a clever strategist, and he pulled his crap together in Whedon's final 12 issues. This established that we were done with whatever milquetoast interpretations anyone might've had about Cyclops in the past. Screw Wolverine; Cyclops is the real badass of the X-Men, and here's the proof.

And then the mistakes started happening.

Whedon left, and everyone wanted to carry on his version of a badass master strategist leader who makes the tough decisions. The problem is, they went too far. And this is going to turn into another Kyle & Yost rant...

Kyle & Yost had the bright idea of Cyclops making a secret team that'd do the hard jobs. This new X-Force would be the team that was willing to kill to protect the mutant race. However, at least one half of this writing team has no self control when it comes to violence, and the comic became a mindless bloodbath. What's worse is that Marvel decided to introduce this new X-Force during Messiah Complex, where half of the story consisted of the X-Men assuming they were betrayed by Cable. So without realizing it, they had already started off X-Force on the wrong foot by making their first mission one where Cyclops tells them to murder his own son. Oops.

This isn't like Iron Man in Civil War. I don't think Cyclops' attempt to save lives was supposed to turn into a character arc about him taking things too far, going down the wrong path, and needing to eventually redeem himself (or get some sense beaten back into him. whatever). I think they wanted to make Cyclops the ultimate badass leader of Marvel, but they made a few notable mistakes along the way that turned the character into an anti-villain instead.

That's why when Second Coming was over and done, there was no comeuppance for ol' Slim. In fact, the story ended with Scott decorated in medals and praised for saving San Francisco from a vicious killer robot attack.

The creative teams must've realized things had gone too far, and with Kyle & Yost leaving, they decided to pull back. X-Force became independent from Cyclops entirely, and now we've got writers like Gischler still trying to tell those "master strategist" stories without anyone turning Scott into a cold blooded murderer again. Of course, it'd help if Gischler could write a story where Scott's decisions made sense.

The jerk that Cyclops has been turned into was a failed attempt to drum up new interest in the character.







Dear god, I've turned into Dread.

 

[JewishHobbit]

You left out the parts where Iron Fist took tips from Phoenix and a "but I digress" or two.

 

[BrianWilly]

Which is why he un-crossed it. I mean, he can't take away the deaths he authorized, but he realized it was going too far.

Disbanding your death squad when you don't need it anymore isn't really him realizing that it was going too far. That would be if he were man enough to not form a death squad back when he did need it. Unless I missed it being revealed somewhere in all those gallons of riveting X-books that have come out since Messiah War, Scott still thinks there was nothing wrong with forming X-Force in the first place...or, at the very least, that he was justified in doing so.

It's like Reed Richards at the end of Civil War. "Hey Sue honey, I've put away the nanites and clones now that I've won the war, so you can come home now!"

 

[Dread]

Dear god, I've turned into Dread.

Dear god, I've turned into a cautionary tale.

 

[Manic]

Disbanding your death squad when you don't need it anymore isn't really him realizing that it was going too far. That would be if he were man enough to not form a death squad back when he did need it. Unless I missed it being revealed somewhere in all those gallons of riveting X-books that have come out since Messiah War, Scott still thinks there was nothing wrong with forming X-Force in the first place...or, at the very least, that he was justified in doing so.

It's like Reed Richards at the end of Civil War. "Hey Sue honey, I've put away the nanites and clones now that I've won the war, so you can come home now!"

But crossing that line didn't make him stray from Xavier's dream, which is what I was arguing in the first place. It was the one thing Scott did that Charles didn't. It was different means toward the same goal: peaceful co-existence between mutants and humans, via humans learning to trust mutants who'll fight to protect them like the X-Men. Scott just added one more underhanded hidden layer to the mix. I'm not saying it was right, but crossing that line doesn't turn Scott into Magneto when he's still working toward Charles' goal.

 

[IFryKids]

Disbanding your death squad when you don't need it anymore isn't really him realizing that it was going too far. That would be if he were man enough to not form a death squad back when he did need it. Unless I missed it being revealed somewhere in all those gallons of riveting X-books that have come out since Messiah War, Scott still thinks there was nothing wrong with forming X-Force in the first place...or, at the very least, that he was justified in doing so.

It's like Reed Richards at the end of Civil War. "Hey Sue honey, I've put away the nanites and clones now that I've won the war, so you can come home now!"

I don't remember that panel directly referring to X-Force, just referring to the idea of the possibility of more mutants.

 

[javi1024]

Unless I missed it being revealed somewhere in all those gallons of riveting X-books that have come out since Messiah War, Scott still thinks there was nothing wrong with forming X-Force in the first place...or, at the very least, that he was justified in doing so.

that panel was referring to his faith in Hope being the key to the restoration of the mutant race, not proof his X-Force was a good idea.

 

[Marvel]

thats why i loved Whedon's Astonishing run so much and what finally made me a fan of Cyclops. he treated Scott as confronting his shortcomings head-on and he having to overcome them. for over a year now ive been re-reading my entire X-Men collection and i have to control my urge just jump ahead to read his title.

Whedon's Scott is the best Scott.

^THIS^

That's why I've actually bought a few copies of the "Gifted" motion comic and gave it to friends and family. Joss' X-Men is a great way to get them in to the comics.

 

[Panthro]

I think Morrison was trying to make Scott a dark and tragic character after the incident with Apocalypse. Scott was starting to doubt his own life and his ability to love. We're used to seeing characters almost immediately bounce back from getting possessed by a malevolent force, but Morrison decided to show that there were major consequences for Cyclops after he got Apocalypse expelled from his system. Because the other characters, like us, expected Scott to just bounce back from it, there was no one there to support him. As Scott saw it, Jean wasn't there for him in the way he needed. Having just survived the most tragic event imaginable, Emma Frost found a kindred spirit in Scott (in addition to a sexual attraction). So Scott lost Jean and moved on to Emma.

As for making out on Jean's grave? Something tells me Morrison was going for the whole "Jean's spirit wants Scott to move on" thing by showing him passionately kiss Emma where they were supposed to have parted ways, but he probably wasn't thinking clearly about where that particular scene was set. I doubt "Scott should make out with his mistress on his wife's grave" was going through Morrison's mind at all. I mean, the dude was way into hardcore drugs in those days.


Then we moved on to Whedon's run. We saw a more introspective Cyclops. He was entering new territory in his life. Jean was dead again, and this time he was trying to move on to another women who doesn't resemble her in every way. His teammates are starting to question his decision making skills, which is making him question himself. But when you get right down to it, Scott is a Big Damn Hero and a clever strategist, and he pulled his crap together in Whedon's final 12 issues. This established that we were done with whatever milquetoast interpretations anyone might've had about Cyclops in the past. Screw Wolverine; Cyclops is the real badass of the X-Men, and here's the proof.

And then the mistakes started happening.

Whedon left, and everyone wanted to carry on his version of a badass master strategist leader who makes the tough decisions. The problem is, they went too far. And this is going to turn into another Kyle & Yost rant...

Kyle & Yost had the bright idea of Cyclops making a secret team that'd do the hard jobs. This new X-Force would be the team that was willing to kill to protect the mutant race. However, at least one half of this writing team has no self control when it comes to violence, and the comic became a mindless bloodbath. What's worse is that Marvel decided to introduce this new X-Force during Messiah Complex, where half of the story consisted of the X-Men assuming they were betrayed by Cable. So without realizing it, they had already started off X-Force on the wrong foot by making their first mission one where Cyclops tells them to murder his own son. Oops.

This isn't like Iron Man in Civil War. I don't think Cyclops' attempt to save lives was supposed to turn into a character arc about him taking things too far, going down the wrong path, and needing to eventually redeem himself (or get some sense beaten back into him. whatever). I think they wanted to make Cyclops the ultimate badass leader of Marvel, but they made a few notable mistakes along the way that turned the character into an anti-villain instead.

That's why when Second Coming was over and done, there was no comeuppance for ol' Slim. In fact, the story ended with Scott decorated in medals and praised for saving San Francisco from a vicious killer robot attack.

The creative teams must've realized things had gone too far, and with Kyle & Yost leaving, they decided to pull back. X-Force became independent from Cyclops entirely, and now we've got writers like Gischler still trying to tell those "master strategist" stories without anyone turning Scott into a cold blooded murderer again. Of course, it'd help if Gischler could write a story where Scott's decisions made sense.

The jerk that Cyclops has been turned into was a failed attempt to drum up new interest in the character.







Dear god, I've turned into Dread.

And this is why writers need to stop and think about the consequences of what they write.

Good post, BTW.

 

[Specter313]

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Heh, Herc's awesome.

 

[Panthro]

Heh, Herc's awesome.

Yes he is.

 

[runawayboulder]

Lmao, that's great!

 

[BrianWilly]

But crossing that line didn't make him stray from Xavier's dream, which is what I was arguing in the first place. It was the one thing Scott did that Charles didn't. It was different means toward the same goal: peaceful co-existence between mutants and humans, via humans learning to trust mutants who'll fight to protect them like the X-Men. Scott just added one more underhanded hidden layer to the mix. I'm not saying it was right, but crossing that line doesn't turn Scott into Magneto when he's still working toward Charles' goal.

The difference between Charles Xavier and Magneto isn't always their respective end goals...sometimes, their goals are completely identical. The difference is in their methods. Scott may still have the same "dream," the same motivation and goal as Xavier. But I think we can safely say that his methods have been becoming more like Magneto's.

Not that I'm crazy fond of Xavier all the time either.

 

[Anubis]

Xavier is just as much a *****e as Mags. I mean Mags will just kill you. Xavier will erase large portions of his friends and students memory's.