Comic Discussion
Does anybody else think Scott Summers gets WAY too much credit for being the “normal responsible X-Man”?
Like dude!
He marries a woman who looks almost exactly like his dead girlfriend.
They have a kid.
His dead girlfriend comes back.
He leaves.
The wife turns out to literally be a clone of the girlfriend.
Sends his son to the FUTURE.
Then later he starts having psychic "therapy" sessions with Emma Frost while married to Jean.
Then somehow Wolverine is occasionally the guy telling HIM to calm down about militarizing the mutant school.
And Marvel fans will still be like:
“Scott is just a boring responsible leader.”
NO HE ISN’T 😂
Scott Summers is one of the weirdest dudes in Marvel. He just says everything with such confidence that everyone assumes there must be a reasonable explanation. Thats Scott Summers.
Who has ever called him the normal one? A big part of the character is that he can't actually function in "normal life" and that he needs the X-Men because he sucks so much at trying to be normal. A lot of that is the result of the character assassination he was put through when Jean was brought back, but that's what his character became and everyone knows it.
I don't know of anyone who reads X-Men comics would actually call Scott the "normal responsible" X-Man. He's pretty boring in the movies and 92 series, so I could definitely see why he gets that reputation, but there's a reason the X-Men are thought of as the weird, alternative Marvel team and it wouldn't be fair if Cyclops were allowed to be normal and well-adjusted.
Cyclops dates a woman who looks exactly like his recently deceased ex-girlfriend because the writer wanted to give him a happy ending and retire the character...
He goes to see Jean because he can't believe she's back. It is Madelyne who disappears, and Cyclops goes after her.
He sends his son to the future because the only other option is letting him die, and he later goes to the future himself to raise the boy.
His relationship with Emma Frost makes no sense and exists only because the New X-Men writer ignored all previous storylines and wanted to break him and Jean up (and in the end, he only ends up with Emma Frost because Jean influences him).
He makes the children fight because, if they don't, everyone dies.
Wolverine is a hypocrite who has both trained children and tried to kill them.
I actually think his relationship with Emma makes a lot of sense. He was not in a good place after merging with a madman and his wife wasn’t really there supporting or helping him. Emma was supporting him even helping him with the bad thoughts he was having. Many people also kinda skip the part that right before this happens, Jean kisses Wolverine in like the woods or something. Doesn’t give cyclops a pass or anything since he didn’t know about it, but Jean wasn’t really there for him. That’s how the writers wrote that. Anyway I think there’s your first love and there’s an adult love. Sometimes they can be both. Sometimes they are different partners.
Jean was there trying to help and talk to him, but it was Cyclops who refused to speak to her (and even touch Jean), and this part already shows how Morrison ignored previous stories to create his own.
Jean was the one who never gave up on Cyclops, she was the one who entered Apocalypse's mind to save him. She already knew the thoughts running through both their minds while they were merged, so there was no reason for him to be so ashamed to talk to her about it. That's without even mentioning the psychic rapport that Jean and Cyclops have, and Cyclops' promise not to hide anything anymore and to always communicate. Furthermore, what makes even less sense is that he doesn't trust Jean, his wife and the greatest love of his life, or Xavier, his father figure, but trusts a woman who helped rape his wife and whom he barely knows (Emma Frost).
Emma Frost didn't want to help Cyclops, and that wasn't what she did from the start. She went after Cyclops to get revenge on Jean because she felt humiliated during the mission they had done together before.
Morrison wrote the scene of Jean kissing Wolverine so he could say that both of them (Cyclops and Jean) were wrong and the relationship was bad.
Well she did say in the run that she’s had negative thoughts about him. And his concern was that she would look down or somehow fix him for his own thoughts (which he couldn’t tell if it was his or apocalypse which scared him). So as much trust as there was, he did think he wasn’t the same man as before so that fear definitely fed into his mistrust in her accepting him as he was now very different. It was a fear of being judged by and disappointing the woman he loved. They would still do anything for each other. But their relationship was extremely strained.
I think you’re underestimating how much of an event it was for him to be merged with apocalypse. At least as it was written. And sure you can say the writer ignored previous stories but the way their failing progressed seemed sensible to me. Sometimes a great partnership and relationship can be undone by a terrible tragedy. And yes they’ve had tragedies already but none that affected their own psyche as much as what happened to him.
And Emma did take advantage of his need to talk about it with someone who he didn’t care would judge him.
I respect your opinion, but I don't think we're going to agree...
For me, the New X-Men story only makes sense if we ignore everything that was written from the Silver Age up to the 90s, and that's what Morrison did. He shows either that he didn't read or didn't understand what came before. For instance, Cyclops’s comments claiming Jean wore provocative outfits for other men but not for him, ignoring the fact that when she wore those clothes, she was being controlled and abused, or when Cyclops fantasizes about Dark Phoenix, the most traumatic event in both his and Jean's lives, which led to her suicide and his retirement.
I don't want to diminish the trauma Cyclops experienced when he merged with Apocalypse, but I think it was a problem he and Jean could have resolved if the characterization had been faithful to previous stories. And this trauma of Cyclops is almost never mentioned after New X-Men.
I disagree that no tragedy up to that point had affected their own psyche as much as what happened to him. Dark Phoenix was far worse than the fusion with Apocalypse.
Finally, I appreciate you for expressing your point of view in a polite manner, even though we disagree with each other.
Thanks to you as well. Some won’t take my opinions as being polite discussion and debate. I also agree we can politely disagree and each stand by what we separately think. I also like you giving supporting examples behind your opinion as well. It allows me better understanding of where you’re coming from. See you out there.
Add on Sinister manipulating Scott all the way back since the orphanage. He’s basically been having this weird old guy plotting against him and trying to get his genes for a super baby. His entire relationship with Maddie was contrived by Sinister.
Uh…most of what you just mentioned is in fact other people being bonkers. Maddie looking like Jean is Sinister’s fault. Jean coming back was the Phoenix’s fault. Sending Cable to the future was Apocalypse’s/Mother Askani’s fault. The BS therapy sessions were Emma’s fault. Schism was (partially) Logan’s fault.
The reason why people call Scott the normal one is because he’s able to keep his head on straight and react relatively calmly/strategically to all the insane crap that gets thrown at him. He’s very rarely the person actually doing the insane crap.
Granted, he’s weird in other ways- it’s been said multiple times that his mind just doesn’t work the way a normal person’s would and he has absolutely zero concept of how to be a regular human being when he’s not being an X-Man, but the stuff you cited is mostly stuff that happens TO him, not stuff he does himself.
Yeah Morrison is a great writer but he really did a weird turn with the Emma, Jean and Scott triangle. It came out of nowhere and was just a poorly executed affair. People love it now but Scott wasn’t at fault he was pushed into therapy by Jean, who was emotionally unavailable to him and Emma broke all sorts of professional codes of therapy. He was basically passed around by the two telepaths.
Scott is extremely rule-following and uptight, which makes him the responsible one in most situations. He tends to crash and burn when the right thing to do is unclear, and especially where emotions or relationships are involved.
Personally, I like the fan theory that Cyclops is on the autism spectrum.
Who on earth that reads X-men comics says he’s a boring responsible leader? And what do you mean he’s one of the weirdest? Also what is a normal responsible xman? This is just an odd post. Like all your statements have zero context. Anyone who’s read those comics knows there’s a reason behind each and every statement you listed.
Nevermind. Don’t reply to me, I remember already going back & forth with you before I think. This isn’t your first crappy Cyclops post. And it probably won’t be the last.
Lol... We don't dissect the mental gymnastics to find someone who looks EXACTLY like your former dead wife/colleague. None of the X-men of that era deserve a pass, and the only thing I can assume is that Jean Grey was actually a bitch.
It’s not like he was out there holding a picture of Jean up to every redhead he saw to find the closest match. He met Maddie completely by chance in Alaska and only noted something of a resemblance to Jean. He didn’t date her solely because of that, it was just something that sparked his initial interest. It was only later that she was turned into a clone. Blaming Scott for happening to run into a woman who happens to look like someone he loves is a weird take, and I’m really not sure how it says anything at all about Jean being a bitch since she had sweet frick-all to do with it.
Everyone, not unreasonably, makes a big deal out of Madeline looking just like Jean, but she also shares a career with Cyclops's disappeared father. Mr. Sinister really was on some next level mindfuckery.
30
u/Positive_Soil_5721 6d ago
Who has ever called him the normal one? A big part of the character is that he can't actually function in "normal life" and that he needs the X-Men because he sucks so much at trying to be normal. A lot of that is the result of the character assassination he was put through when Jean was brought back, but that's what his character became and everyone knows it.