How Cyclops Became The Most Hated Marvel Character

As one of the original Uncanny X-Men back in 1963, Cyclops had a ton of potential.
He's always been a key member of the mutant squad, and his eyes can basically punch things,
so you'd think that would warrant a little more respect around the Marvel Universe.
But comic book writers have done a pretty great job of making Scott Summers Marvel's
most hated hero.
Let's take a look at the many ways this mutant leader went from being kind of cool to kind
of a creep.
A lousy lover
Cyclops has a pretty awful history when it comes to how he treats women, whether it's
his girlfriend, cloned wife, or just some random swamp floozy he's trying to move on
with.
When he believes his longtime girlfriend, Jean Grey, is dead from a volcanic explosion
in Uncanny X-Men #113, what does Scott do?
He gets over his grief pretty quick and starts dating Marvel mainstay Colleen Wing.
Then, Cyclops straight-up dumps Wing once he finds out that Jean is still alive, and
proposes in Uncanny X-Men #136… but Jean dies again as the Dark Phoenix an issue later.
By issue #144, he's back at it with some lady in Florida named Lee Forrester.
We'll chalk all that up to bad dating habits...but it gets worse.
Cyclops marries his dead fiancee's clone, Madelyne Pryor, in Uncanny X-Men #175.
And then he doesn't even treat his clone-wife well.
It's eventually revealed that Pryor was a tool in Mister Sinister's nefarious plans,
but well before that revelation, Cyclops had already started hanging out with Jean Grey,
back from the dead for the hundredth time after hatching from a weird ocean cocoon,
leaving his wife at home with a young Cable in some cyborg Huggies.
Madelyne does get her sort-of revenge, hooking up with Cyclops' brothers, becoming the Goblin
Queen, and raising some hell.
But when Madelyn dies later, Jean Grey actually mourns harder than Scott does for his own
former wife and baby-mamma.
And we can't even get into which of these Jean Greys were actually Jean Grey… and
which were actually the Phoenix in Jean Grey form.
It gets complicated.
Anyway, even after ditching his family for a back-from-the-dead-for-real Jean Grey, he
decides his new relationship is getting a little tired.
Since, like, constant death and resurrection isn't spicy enough.
Ever the loyal lover, Scott tries to liven things up with some telepathic "therapy" from
Emma Frost... who's dressed up as Phoenix.
Since he's married to another immensely powerful psychic, Jean quickly discovers his telepathic
tryst.
So what does Cyclops do?
He tries to weasel his way out of it, claiming their liaisons didn't count because they weren't
physical.
And did we mention this?
Somehow he also found time to hook up with Storm.
And who the heck is this?!
Maybe his eyes aren't the only part of his body that he can't control.
Maybe he should invest in some ruby quartz underwear.
And that is why you fail as husband material, Mr. Summers.
Work over family
Being the unpaid leader of Charles Xavier's mutant squad is not an easy job, especially
when humans mostly just hate you constantly.
Sometimes, an X-Man just wants to get married, settle down, and spawn an omega-level mutant
or two.
Not Scott Summers, though.
Despite getting married to the aforementioned Madelyne Pryor, Cyclops never left his super-villain
battling life behind, continually putting the needs of the team before the needs of
his growing family.
If Cyclops was the sole mutant out there capable of paying it forward, that'd be one thing.
But the X-Men and the Xavier Institute are both overflowing with butt-kicking mutants.
Like Dummy.
And Beak.
And…
Glob Herman?
Anyway, even Storm confronted Scott at one point over his dereliction of family duties.
His response?
Well, he challenged her to a duel, of course… and he lost, even though Storm didn't use
her powers.
He built a murder squad
The mutant team known as X-Force was always a bit rough around the edges, and often found
themselves at odds with both the X-Men and the government, as well as the anti-mutant
groups they battled.
None of these problems were helped by Cyclops being an extremely divisive leader.
In Uncanny X-Men #493, Scott Summers shows some early signs of being a total fascist
by reorganizing the team to kill his own son, Cable.
As if tracking and murdering your own kid wasn't bad enough, he took the traumatized
teenage killing machine, X-23, on board.
He encouraged her murdery tendencies rather than helping her reform, which went against
Wolverine's wishes.
And that, of course, earned him a good ol' Logan punch to the face.
"Prove it."
"You're a d---."
And naturally, Cyclops disavows any knowledge of X-Force's actions — until he's caught
red-handed by the rest of the X-Men.
And it's far from the last time Cyclops would be a dangerous extremist.
He brought Phoenix back
Over the years, the X-Men have dealt with more than their fair share of ridiculously
powerful beings.
But few of their foes matched the devastating Phoenix Force.
Cyclops didn't just deal with this cosmic firestorm on numerous occasions…he basically
married the woman who was possessed by it.
But despite enjoying far too much face time with a creature that once destroyed an entire
populated world out of spite, Scott Summers decided to welcome it back to Earth during
the Avengers vs. X-Men event.
The Phoenix Force breaks apart and chooses to join with him and four fellow mutants.
But it turns out that just one part of the Phoenix Force isn't enough, so he steals some
from his on-again, off-again girlfriend Emma Frost, making himself nearly omnipotent.
Insane with power, Cyclops goes full-Dark Phoenix and tries to kill pretty much everyone.
In the penultimate issue, the altruistic Professor X tried to help Cyclops escape his cosmic
power trip.
But Scott declined, forcing Xavier to lay the psychic smack-down on him.
Unfortunately, even an omega-level mutant like Professor X is no match for the intergalactic
might of the Phoenix, and he's absolutely, totally murdered by Cyclops.
All of this even before he's taken over by the Phoenix Force, so he can't even really
blame the alien entity for being a jerkbag.
In the end, he's stripped of his powers, and Scott winds up in prison, moaning about his
public image.
Because it's all about him, right?
From hero to radical
Merging himself with the corrupting Phoenix Force, and having it literally punched out
of him, would probably be enough to make most superheroes go cold turkey for a while.
But Cyclops never seems to learn his lesson.
Many readers agree that the downward spiral began with 2000's X-Men #97, when he merged
with Apocalypse, but things only got worse after the Phoenix thing.
In Avengers vs. X-Men: Consequences, Magneto and his crew bust Cyclops out of super jail.
The X-Man then goes on to declare a mutant revolution, threatening anyone and everyone
with the wrong end of an optic blast.
In the months following his "death" in Death of X, Summers even inspires a crew of brutal
mutant thugs to carry on his genocidal uprising, a not-so-merry band that calls themselves
"The Ghosts of Cyclops."
You guys, Cyclops isn't just a jerk.
He's kind of a full-fledged war criminal.
And that includes an earlier incident from Secret Invasion, where he intentionally infects
an invading force of Skrulls with the Legacy virus, which is incredibly bad news, and had
the potential to spread just about everywhere, very quickly.
Aren't there, like, laws about this kind of thing?
He incited war from beyond the grave
When Cyclops discovers that a weird fog has killed the mutants on Muir island during the
Death of X storyline, including Multiple Man Jamie Madrox, fingers are immediately pointed
at The Inhumans, and their transformative "Terrigen mists."
In an effort to destroy the mutant-blighting mists, Cyclops recruits a small army, including
a chemical whiz kid named Alchemy who pretty much wants nothing to do with a mutant war,
and ends up getting killed while neutralizing just one of a few of the toxic fart clouds.
At the end of the battle, Cyclops is killed by Black Bolt's ridiculous singing voice,
becoming a martyr for everything wrong with the pro-mutant cause.
Except Cyclops wasn't even alive at the time.
He was killed by the mutant plague before the first issue even ended, and from then
on, he was only a deranged psychic projection created by Emma Frost.
Sadly, dead men have no PR departments, so it's easy to understand why so many people
ended up hating Cyclops.
But his worst crime of all?
He's named Cyclops….
And he has two eyes.
What a freakin' liar.
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How Cyclops Became The Most Hated Marvel Character

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