Cyclops (Scott Summers, occasionally nicknamed "Slim") is a comic book superhero in the Marvel Comics universe and the field leader of the X-Men. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, he first appeared in The Uncanny X-Men #1 (1963).
| Cyclops | |
|---|---|
| File:Cyclopsjc.jpg Cyclops, by John Cassaday | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | The Uncanny X-Men #1 (1963) |
| Created by | Stan Lee Jack Kirby |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Scott Summers |
| Team affiliations | X-Men tactics and leadership teacher, X-Factor, X-Terminators, Hounds, The Twelve, Beginagains |
| Notable aliases | Apocalypse, Slim, Slym Dayspring, Mutate #007, Eric the Red |
| Abilities | Continuous ocular energy beams Immunity to Havok's powers Trigonometric computation |
Character history
When Scott was a boy growing up in Anchorage, Alaska, United States, his father, USAF Major Christopher Summers, took the family for a flight in their airplane. It came under attack by an alien Shi'ar spaceship. As the plane went down in flames, Scott's parents fastened him and his younger brother Alex into a parachute and pushed them off the plane, in hopes that they would survive. Unfortunately, the parachute caught fire and Scott struck his head upon landing. This caused brain damage to Scott, which is responsible for his inability to control his optic blasts, as well as prolonged amnesia about his childhood.
Scott spent most of his childhood in an orphanage in Nebraska and subjected to batteries of tests and experiments by the orphanage's owner, Mr. Milbury, an alias for the geneticist Mister Sinister. When he was sixteen, he was found by Charles Xavier and became one of his students and the first official X-Man. He soon graduated to become the team's field leader, a position he would traditionally hold over the years.
Cyclops had long believed that his parents had died in the plane accident. In fact, they had been captured and sold into slavery by the Shi'ar. As an adult member of the X-Men, Cyclops met his father, now known as Corsair, leader of the Starjammers, a group of aliens opposing what they saw as the tyranny of the Shi'ar empire. Several more years passed before the two learned of each other's true identities.
Cyclops had an on-again/off-again relationship with Marvel Girl during their time in the X-Men, culminating in her tragic death as she tried to pilot a space shuttle through a solar flare, her rebirth as Phoenix and her suicide on the Moon. Cyclops left the X-Men for a while after this, drifting for several months until reunited with the team against Magneto. Not long after, Cyclops met Madelyne Pryor, an uncanny double of Jean Grey and they married. Cyclops and Madelyne had a son, Christopher Nathan Charles Summers, who was later sent into a future timeline to become the cyborg Cable.
However, the original Marvel Girl was not dead. The Phoenix identity turned out to be a cosmic entity who had supplanted her, placing her in a healing pod at the bottom of Jamaica Bay, to be eventually revived by the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. Cyclops left his wife and son and returned to Jean. She joined with Cyclops and the other original X-Men as X-Factor.
The demons S'ym and N'astirh corruputed Madelyne's feelings of self-despair, transforming her into the Goblin Queen. Madelyne sought revenge on Cyclops for leaving her. When it was revealed that she was a clone created by Mr. Sinister, essentially for the purpose of becoming a broodmare, Madelyne couldn't take it anymore and killed herself. Scott then went on to pursue a romance with Jean.
Several years later, Scott Summers and Jean Grey married. During their honeymoon, they were brought into the future where they raised Cable for the first 12 years of his life during the Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix miniseries. After their return, she assumed the Phoenix identity. Whether this is the same cosmic force or just a further manifestation of her powers, is unknown. Sometime afterwards, Cyclops was unwillingly merged with the villain Apocalypse, but Jean and Cable tracked him down and separated them, apparently killing Apocalypse in the process.
As a combination of the latent influences of Apocalypse's mind and Jean's emergent Phoenix persona, Scott and Jean gradually became more distant. Emma Frost, once known as the White Queen, a former villain who had reformed and joined the X-Men, took advantage of this situation to get close to Scott. Under the guise of counselling him, she was able to instigate a telepathic affair. Her original motives are unclear though she eventually fell in love with him.
When Phoenix discovered the affair, she psychically assaulted Emma who refused to tell Jean what was going on. Scott subsequently left the X-Men to mull over what was happening in his life. As he returned the sentient DNA known as John Sublime, wearing the guise of Magneto, attacked the X-Men killing Jean in the process.
Due to the telepathic intervention of the Jean of an alternate future, in an attempt to prevent said future from coming to pass, Cyclops and Emma Frost are currently romantically involved, a fact that several of their teammates are none too happy with. They serve as co-headmasters of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. Cyclops also tutors a squad at the institute named, The Corsairs, named after Cyclops’ father. The team consists of Dryad, Quill, Specter and the three remaining Stepford Cuckoos.
Deciding that the X-Men need to play more of a role in emergency rescue and aid, Cyclops has handpicked a team in order to get out into the world more. This team recently faced an alien named Ord of the Breakworld. The team subdued Ord, but not before learning that one of their own will be responsible for the destruction of Ord's homeworld in the coming year, leaving the X-Men divided.
His grandparents are still alive and own a shipping company in Canada.
Powers and abilities
Cyclops is a mutant, possessing the power to project beams of pure solar energy from his eyes. Contrary to common assumption, no heat is involved. Due to an injury suffered in his early years, these beams are always "on" and can only be blocked by either closing his eyes or by a barrier of ruby quartz, which is what his sunglasses and visor are made of. The solar power of the beam is drawn from the rays of the sun. Cyclops' cells are constantly absorbing the solar energy and transferring it to his eyes, which is why he is immune to the effects of his own powers. He is also immune to his brother Alex's (Havok) discharged plasma waves, which are created from absorbed cosmic rays.
The visor is designed to open the quartz shield to varying widths to allow his optic blasts to fire freely when Cyclops desires it. He originally had to manipulate controls on the visor itself for firings, but his costume was later equipped with controls in his gloves for convenience. In addition, the visor has a backup spring loaded shutter mechanism to shut the visor should the regular powered system fail. He can absorb ambient energy from his environment (such as sunlight and electricity) and store it within his body cells, metabolizing the energy and changing it into laser like blasts of energy with concussive force.
The maximum force of Cyclops' optic blasts are unknown but a common example is that he can "punch holes through mountains" and rupture a half-inch thick carbon steel plate. During a particular battle, Scott says that he hit Cain Marko (aka the Juggernaut), with enough power to split a small planet, though he may have been indulging in hyperbole.
Cyclops also possesses a superhuman sense of spatial awareness, which enables him to pull off often quite absurd trick shots with his optic blasts, such as ricocheting a single shot to destroy half-a-dozen separate targets. This sense also makes him a dynamite pool hustler and enables him to engage in hand-to-hand combat with his eyes shut.
Skills
Cyclops is an expert pilot of fixed-wing aircraft, a skill he appears to have inherited from his father. It has also been implied that his trigonometric sense improves his abilities in the air.
A master strategist and tactician, Cyclops has spent most of his superhero career as the leader of either the X-Men or X-Factor and has developed exceptional leadership skills. It is notable that regardless of their general attitude towards him, all of the X-Men tend to obey his orders in battle - because they know that he's usually right. During his twelve years raising Cable in the distant future, Cyclops and Phoenix, under the alias' of Slym and Redd Dayspring, helped organize a resistance to Apocalypse's rule, becoming one of the leaders of Clan Rebellion.
Cyclops also has extensive training in martial arts and unarmed combat, holding black belts in judo and aikido. His level of skill is sufficient to defeat six normal men with his eyes closed and he has in the past held his own against such dangerous enemies as Wolverine and Ghost Rider.
Metaphorical nature condition
As is the case with a number of other X-Men, Cyclops' power imbues him with certain metaphorical connotations, both reflective of his persona and related to the X-Men's overall theme of "The Outcast", as explored through the isolation felt by the discriminated mutants.
From early on, Cyclops feels disempowered by what is potentially an enormously destructive ability which he must keep under check at all times, for the sake of all those surrounding him. This cuts him off from the rest of the team and makes him believe it impossible for anyone and specifically, early on in the series, Jean to feel attracted to him, such is the stigma of his mutation.
Also, the fact that his power affects his eyes in particular, forcing him to wear a special visor at all times, contributes to his feeling of isolation, as he is unable to establish regular eye contact with anyone at all. It is in fact his first experience of pure eye contact in over a decade, with Jean Grey, thanks to her wildly developed powers as Phoenix that defines one of the most important points in their relationship.
Cyclops' resulting condition, as a mutant and person, is therefore ultimately both a reflection of the weight of the condition of the outcast, in the way that he is cut off from all those he comes across. And somewhat ironic illustration of his own personality or possibly one of the causes for it, in his constantly repressed insecurities and feelings of inadequacy and difficulty in relating open-heartedly to others.
To be noted is that the appearance of new X-Men with other, more serious physical limitations, such as the freakish looking Nightcrawler and the untouchable Rogue, have made his state and specifically his need for little more than some appropriate gear for a normal life, comparatively rather bearable and almost banal: in the X-Men: Evolution his shades actually made him popular, because his classmates (especially the girls) thought they made him look cool.
Relationships
Although being type-cast as the sensible, stiff loner, Cyclops has had many serious relationships. One striking feature is the fact that he seems irresistable to women with telepathic abilities. He was married to both Jean Grey and her clone Madelyne Pryor, who are both Omega-class psi talents, and his current girlfriend is Emma Frost, a telepath as well. Psylocke, another psi talent, once blatantly tried to seduce him.
He has also dated non-mutant women. Cyclops (during a time he thought Jean was dead) went on a date with Coleen Wing. After Phoenix killed herself on the moon, he briefly dated Lee Forrester. (prior to meeting Madelyne).
Ultimate Cyclops
In the Ultimate Marvel continuity, Cyclops starts as the Boy Scoutish field leader of the X-Men. His parents died in a plane crash, and he is estranged from his older brother Alex.
In the beginning arcs, he was portrayed similar to the mainstream version, as a shy, aloof loner who cannot bring himself to ask his love Jean Grey out for a date. When Jean started an affair with Wolverine, he was so heartbroken that he defected to Magneto, but snapped out of it in time.
When Jean dumped Wolverine and began a relationship with him, he and Logan had a violent brawl, and Professor X sent them on a joint mission to the Savage Land in an attempt to resolve the rivalry. Wolverine threw Cyclops off a cliff in an effort to kill him and, for a time, Cyclops was forced to survive in the harsh environment by eating insects. When he eventually reunited with the X-Men he blasted Wolverine to the ground with a violent optic blast, but then made clear that Wolverine's best chance for redemption is with the X-Men.
Since this incident, Cyclops has gained much self-confidence, is the unquestioned field leader of the X-Men and Professor X's right hand.
Appearances in other media
- In the feature film X-Men and its sequels X2 (2003) and X-Men 3 (2006), Cyclops is portrayed by James Marsden. Although an important figure and leader in the films, his role seems to be shadowed in favor of Wolverine, especially in X2. Cyclops is rumored to have little screentime in X3 due to Marsden's filming of Superman Returns.
- In the TV animated series X-Men: Evolution, Cyclops was voiced by Kirby Morrow and voiced by Norm Spencer in X-Men: The Animated Series.
- In X-Men Evolution, Scott Summers the X-Men's field leader. In contrast to his mainstream version, this version of Scott is a confident and self-assured leader; his teammates all look up to him, especially since he was Xavier's original recruit. After graduating from Bayville High, he has become an instructor at Xavier's Institute for Gifted Children and is currently romantically involved with his long time crush Jean Grey. He also shares a close big-brother/little brother relationship with Nightcrawler.
- Cyclops is also included in games such as X-Men Mutant Academy, X-Men Mutant Academy 2, X-Men Next Dimension, X-Men Legends, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse and the Marvel vs. Capcom series.
