Scott SummersCyclops

Whether leading the X-Men or X-Factor, Cyclops keeps his teammates and mutantkind alive by doing what’s necessary.

Rocky Start 

Scott Summers is the first of three sons born to Major Christopher Summers, a test pilot for the United States Air Force, and his wife, Katherine. One night while flying his family home from vacation aboard a vintage aircraft, a spacecraft from the interstellar Shi’ar Empire attacks their plane. To save their lives, Katherine pushes Scott and his brother, Alex, out of the plane with the only available parachute. Scott suffers a head injury upon landing, thus forever preventing him from controlling his mutant power by himself. With their parents presumed dead, the authorities separate the two boys. Alex is adopted, but Scott remains comatose in a hospital for a year. On recovering, he’s placed in an orphanage in Omaha, Nebraska that was secretly controlled by his future enemy, the evil geneticist Nathaniel Essex, AKA Mister Sinister. 

As a teenager, Scott comes into the foster care of Jack Winters, a mutant criminal known as the Jack O’Diamonds. When Scott starts to suffer from severe headaches and eyestrain he sees a specialist in Washington, D.C., who discovers that lenses made of ruby quartz correct the problem. Soon following, Scott’s mutant power first erupts from his eyes as an uncontrollable blast of optic force. The blast demolishes a crane, causing it to drop its payload toward a terrified crowd. Scott saves the onlookers’ lives by obliterating the object with another blast, but the bystanders believe that he had tried to kill them and rally into an angry mob. Scott flees, escaping on a freight train. Winters seeks to use Scott’s newfound talents in his crimes, and physically abuses the young boy when he initially refuses. However, Scott’s display of power attracts the attention of the mutant telepath Professor Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X, who teams up with FBI agent Fred Duncan in their mutual attempt to find Scott. Xavier rescues Scott from Winters’ clutches and enlists him as the first member of the X-Men, a team of young mutants who train to use their powers in the fight for human/mutant equality.

As Cyclops, Scott becomes deputy leader of the X-Men, and while he was a natural field general his social skills were somewhat lacking. Scott falls in love with his teammate Jean Grey, a young woman born with the powers of telepathy and telekinesis, but his reserved demeanor prevents him for years from expressing his feelings for her. When Xavier’s other original recruits leave the fold following an encounter with the living island Krakoa, Cyclops stays on as deputy leader of the new team.

Optic Energy Blast

Cyclops can project a beam of heatless, ruby-colored concussive force from his eyes that, at maximum force, is sufficient to tip over a filled 5,000-gallon tank at a distance of 20 feet, or puncture a 1-inch carbon-steel plate at a distance of 2 feet. His eyes are actually no longer just complex organs that utilize the visible spectrum of light to see the world around it; rather, they are interdimensional apertures between this universe and another. Cyclops’ body constantly absorbs ambient energy, such as sunlight, from his environment into his body’s cells, which allows him to open the apertures. Cyclops’ mind generates a particular psionic field that is attuned to the forces that maintain the apertures. Because this field envelops his body, it automatically shunts the other-dimensional particles back into their point of origin when they collide with his body. Thus, his body is protected from the effects of the particles, and even the thin membranes of his eyelids are sufficient to block the emission of energy. The synthetic ruby quartz crystal used to fashion the lenses of Cyclops’ eyewear and visor is resonant to his mind’s psionic field and is similarly protected.

The width of Cyclops’ optic blast is focused by his mind’s psionic field with the same autonomic function that regulated his original eyes’ ability to focus. As Cyclops focuses, the size of the aperture changes and thus acts as a valve to control the flow of particles and the beam’s relative power. The height of Cyclops’ optic blast is controlled by his visor’s adjustable slit, and its effective range is about 2,000 feet. If Cyclops exhausts the supply of optic energy he has generated, while he would begin generating new optic energy almost immediately it may be too little in amount to generate an actual beam. Cyclops can vary his optic beam for a variety of effects, such as pulsing it at a falling object to slow its descent.

Due to a head injury, Cyclops is unable to shut off his optic blasts at will and must therefore wear a visor or glasses with ruby quartz lenses to block the beams. The mask Cyclops wears to prevent random discharge is lined with powdered ruby quartz crystal. It incorporates two longitudinally mounted flat lenses that can lever inward providing a constantly variable exit slot of 0 inches to .79 inches in height and a constant width of 5.7 inches. The inverted clamshell mechanism is operated by a twin system of miniature electrical motors. As a safety factor, there is a constant positive closing pressure provided by springs. The mask itself is made of high-impact cycolac plastic. There is an overriding finger-operated control mechanism on either side of the mask, and normal operation is through a flat micro-switch installed in the thumb of either glove.

Cyclops is immune to the energy generated by his brother, Havok, but is vulnerable to the energy wielded by his other brother, Gabriel Summers, AKA Vulcan. Cyclops is also a skilled strategist and battle tactician who possesses an innate spatial awareness that allows him to ascertain complex geometric relationships in his mind through observation of objects and surfaces in his surroundings. As such, he can determine the angles found between them in order to cause his optic beam to ricochet so as to strike a target or targets in a trajectory of his choosing. He can successfully reflect his optic beam off over a dozen surfaces in the course of one blast. 

He is also an exceptional leader, extensively trained in unarmed combat, an accomplished pilot of various craft, and an experienced radio announcer. He trains his mind to be resistant against casual psychic infiltration.

Persistent Foes

Cyclops’ foremost foe is Mister Sinister, the mutant obsessive immortal scientist who experiments on Scott, using his genetics and others, like Jean, to create clones. He creates Madelyne Pryor, whom Scott falls for and has a child with, which is all part of Sinister’s plan to use their genetic potential against the mutant warlord En Sabah Nur, AKA Apocalypse. Scott also goes head to head with Apocalypse, even merging with him, resulting in an evil entity.

Close Connections

Scott’s allies are often mutantkind and his closest connections remain his mentor Professor X, his long-time love Jean Grey, co-worker and love interest Emma Frost, close friend Storm, and the X-Men. From his father Corsair and brothers Havok and Vulcan to his children—Nathan Summers, AKA Cable, and Rachel Summers, AKA Marvel Girl—Scott will do anything to protect his family and suffers grief when any one of them is lost. 

Scott shares a long-term on-again, off-again romance with Jean Grey and his love for her sometimes blinds his decisions. When fellow X-Man James Howlett/Logan, AKA Wolverine, holds a candle for Jean, a rivalry ensues between him and Cyclops, and sometimes affects their working relationship.

When Jean seemingly dies, Scott finds solace in a woman eerily similar in appearance to her, Madelyne Pryor, not realizing she’s a clone of Jean created by Mister Sinister. They marry and have a son, Cable, though Madelyne goes insane and seemingly dies while fighting a returned Jean. 

Scott then rekindles his relationship with Jean and they marry. Their marriage sees tough times following a merge of Cyclops with Apocalypse, and though free of Apocalypse, Cyclops later engages in a psychic affair with fellow X-Man and telepath Emma Frost. He ultimately ends things with Emma, realizing the damage it had on his life. 

When Jean perishes at the hands of a Max Eisenhardt, AKA Magneto, imposter, Cyclops falls in love with Emma and rekindles their romance. Though, they eventually have a falling out when the Phoenix Force overtakes them both, but work together later amicably. Following subsequent deaths and resurrections, he and Jean find each other again and together with their extended family, including Wolverine, they live on the Blue Area of the Moon.

Scott shares a friendship with fellow X-Men leader Ororo Munroe, AKA Storm, and when their powers combine, they are a formidable force to be reckoned with. Though they sometimes differ over their methods regarding mutant enlightenment and liberation, which sometimes causes friction between them.

Scott often leads the X-Men and X-Force with a marked determination to fulfill Xavier’s dream of peace between humans and mutants. He tends to lean into a more structured and militaristic team dynamic than say others like Storm, who leads the team at times and is more empathetic. His views on training the next generation of mutants to be prepared to fight for their right to live are sometimes so one-sided that it leaves little room for alternative ways, leading to a schism between himself and Wolverine for a time that divides the X-Men.

Keeping Both Eyes Open

After the cosmic Phoenix Force entity copied Jean's identity and replaced her on the team as Phoenix. When it committed suicide, Scott believed the love of his life had died and he left the X-Men. During his time away from the team, Scott met fishing boat captain Aletys “Lee” Forrester, who helped him work through his grief. Scott eventually returned to the X-Men whereupon he met Madelyne Pryor, a woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to Jean. Unaware that Madelyne was a clone of Jean created by Mister Sinister, Scott fell in love with her and they were soon married. Madelyne fell pregnant and bore Scott a son they named Nathan Christopher and Scott once again parted ways with the X-Men. When the real Jean emerged from suspended animation, Scott abandoned his wife and son and rejoined the other original X-Men in establishing a new team, X-Factor. During a demonic invasion of New York City, X-Factor and the X-Men fought against Madelyne, who had gone insane after developing superhuman powers. The invasion was thwarted after Madelyne perished in combat with Jean.

Later, Apocalypse infected baby Nathan with a techno-organic virus. To save his son’s life, Scott had to allow a member of the Clan Askani to transport Nathan two millennia into the future, where it had been foreseen that he would deliver the world from annihilation at the hands of Apocalypse. X-Factor disbanded soon after, and its members returned to the ranks of the X-Men. Scott and his longtime love Jean were married, and while on their honeymoon the Mother Askani—matriarch of the Askani Clan that had taken baby Nathan into the future—drew their spirits into the time stream. Arriving in the future of Reality-4935, they inhabited new bodies, and as Slym and Redd the couple raised Nathan for twelve years. When they returned to their own time and bodies, Nathan remained in the future and ultimately matured into his time’s greatest hero: Cable.

Returning from the future, the couple continued to adventure with the X-Men, and after Xavier’s arrest for crimes committed as the evil psionic entity Onslaught, Scott assumed the role of leadership of the X-Men once more. Soon after, the government sponsored mutant-hunting operation known as “Zero Tolerance” took effect, and the villainous Bastion captured the X-Men. In his attempt to destroy mutantkind, Bastion placed a nanotech bomb inside Scott’s body. The X-Men escaped, and the mutant doctor Cecilia Reyes saved Scott’s life. Scott and Jean then took a leave of absence from the X-Men for a period of recuperation.

It wasn’t long, however, before the couple led an ad-hoc group of X-Men in assisting the nanotech-cyborgs known as the Mannites against an agent of Apocalypse. Not long after returning to the team, Scott and Jean soon found themselves embroiled in Apocalypse’s bid for cosmic power by assembling what he called “The Twelve,” a group of powerful mutants who would determine the fate of their kind that counted Scott, Jean and Cable amongst their number. They were wired to a machine that would channel their awesome energies into Apocalypse, allowing him to absorb the body of the time-tossed powerful mutant teenager Nate Grey, AKA X-Man. As his teammates fell around him, a powerless Scott saved X-Man and merged with the would-be conqueror to create a new evil entity. Jean detected Scott’s psyche inside Apocalypse and prevented the X-Men from destroying him, however, he was presumed dead by most of his teammates. Only Cable and Jean refused to believe Scott had perished. Investigating rumors he was alive, the pair found him in Akkaba in Egypt, the birthplace of Apocalypse, struggling to reassert his mind over the villain’s psyche. Ultimately, Jean was able to physically rip Apocalypse’s essence from Scott’s body using her mental powers, and Cable destroyed the essence with his own telepathic powers. Scott left for a small period of recuperation, during which he met and reconciled with his father, now the interstellar adventurer Corsair. Afterward, Scott returned to the X-Men, but his association with Apocalypse had given him a grimmer, more serious personality than ever before. As a result, many of his personal relationships became strained, including his marriage to Jean. Scott sought the counsel of his teammate Emma Frost, another telepath, and the pair began a psychic affair. When Jean discovered Scott’s betrayal, he left the X-Men in order to sort out the mess his life had become.

Following the outing of Professor X as a mutant to the world, his school was rechristened the Xavier Institute of Higher Learning, and opened its doors to the mutant population at large, training and educating dozens of young new students to help them cope with their burgeoning abilities. After Jean’s death at the hands of the Magneto imposter Kuan-Yin Xorn, AKA Xorn, Scott fell in love with Emma and assumed the position of co-headmaster of the school alongside her after Xavier left to help rebuild the shattered nation of Genosha. In this new role, Scott oversaw the rebuilding of the mansion and the resumption of daily Institute life before being forced to deal with the Phoenix Force’s resurrection of Jean followed by the worldwide depowering of mutants dubbed “M-Day,” which decimated the school’s student body. Scott was also forced to accept the presence of human-piloted Sentinels at the Institute at the behest of the government’s Office of National Emergency (O*N*E). 

Soon after, an assault on the Institute’s depowered students by Reverend William Stryker and his Purifiers resulted in many being killed, forcing Scott and Emma to focus on training the remaining students as New X-Men. Scott was also confronted by the fact that he had a second younger brother, Gabriel, who was long believed dead but had returned to exact revenge on Xavier and the X-Men. After facing more threats including the alien Ord and the sentient Danger Room, not to mention the death of his father at Gabriel’s hands, Scott and his team of X-Men were forced into opposing an attempted destruction of Earth by Ord’s race of the Breakworld. Returning to Earth, Scott led the X-Men during an attempt by both Mister Sinister’s Marauders and Stryker’s Purifiers to lay claim to the first mutant child born since “M-Day.” After learning that his own son had taken the child, Scott was forced to send a new X-Force team to oppose him. Meanwhile, the mansion was attacked by the O*N*E Sentinels after they were compromised by former X-Man Bishop as part of his efforts to kill the child whose birth he believed was the catalyst that resulted in his dystopian future (Earth-1191). Ultimately, however, Scott allowed Cable to flee into the timestream with the child who would become known as Hope Summers. At that moment, Bishop attempted to shoot Cable but instead accidentally hit Xavier. Cyclops subsequently disbanded the X-Men, and he and Emma left for a sojourn to the Savage Land.

Returning to the United States, Cyclops and Emma opposed the threat of the so-called “Hippie Goddess” who had created a powerful illusion in San Francisco that made its residents believe they were back in the “hippie” era of the 1960s. Cyclops informed mutants that San Francisco was safe for mutants, though anti-mutant sentiments rose while they were there. In an attempt to bring the Morlocks from New York to San Francisco, Scott was possessed by Amahl Farouk, AKA Shadow King, and wasn’t free of him until he was electrocuted by a bolt of Storm’s lightning.

Cyclops soon returned as a psychic ghost and going by the moniker Red Queen, attacked the X-Men with the intention of possessing Jean’s dead body. Scott hired Neena Thurmna, AKA Domino, to move Jean’s body and thus foiled her plan.

Anti-mutant riots sprang up in San Francisco when footage was released of Cooperstown, Alaska’s destruction by Simon Trask. Cyclops bore the media backlash while Trask acted as if his new group, Humanity Now! were the actual victims of oppression and not the other way around. Norman Osborn, AKA Green Goblin, sent the Dark Avengers to arrest Cyclops and his X-Men, while Emma worked for Osborn but only to work against him from the inside. Captured mutants were sent to Alcatraz Island where they were being tortured until Cyclops and Illyana Rasputin(a), AKA Magik, liberated them. Cyclops moved the X-Men and their mutant allies to an asteroid in the Pacific Ocean, dubbed Utopia and supported by Namor McKenzie, AKA Namor the Sub-Mariner. 

While on Utopia, Cable and teenager Hope returned to Cyclops to find refuge from their pursuer Bastion, who then sent Nimrod sentinels after them. Kurt Wagner, AKA Nightcrawler, and Cable were killed during this time despite Cyclops’ efforts to combat the sentinels with X-Force, and Hope ultimately defeated Bastion. Cyclops was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom for Bastion’s end of tyranny, but losing his son was hard on him and he eventually disbanded X-Force, feeling responsible for the deaths of mutants since Hope’s birth. Cyclops lost Beast as an ally, who blamed him for Nightcrawler’s death and couldn’t get on the same page regarding his more militant demeanor when it came to protection of mutants. Hope also held Cable’s death against him until Scott threw his medal in the sea and she started to soften.

A schism formed between Cyclops and Wolverine soon followed when they disagreed over whether to use and train teenage mutant children as soldiers, with Cyclops wanting to train them where Wolverine landed on the opposite side of the argument. Wolverine and other X-Men left Cyclop’s and others on Utopia and started the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. 

Cyclops and his new team known as the Extinction Team fought against Mister Sinister who turned humans in San Francisco into copies of himself with the Dreaming Celestial, though defeated him.

When the Avengers came to believe Hope was the intended target of the coming Phoenix Force, Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, insisted on taking her into custody for protection, but Cyclops thought that the Phoenix Force was a good omen, that it would signal the rebirth of mutantkind. Meanwhile, Hope was hiding in another dimension, K’un-Lun. This disagreement led to a couple confrontations between the X-Men and the Avengers that culminated on the Moon where the Phoenix Force arrived and possessed five mutants, including Cyclops, Emma, Namor, Piotr Rasputin, AKA Colossus, and Magik. The others were ultimately defeated at the hands of the Avengers and the Phoenix left them, leaving Cyclops and Emma remaining with the additional power from the Phoenix now in their possession. Cyclops used this increased power to open the magical doors of K’un-Lun and defeated the dragon there, Shou-Lao. Hope though copied Shou-Lao and Wanda Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch’s powers and defeated Cyclops, sending him to the Moon where a final confrontation with the Avengers ensued. Cyclops felt he needed more power and when he attempted to take it from Emma, he couldn’t actually follow through with it. Professor X arrived and with the Avengers, they took down both Cyclops and Emma, until Cyclops took the Phoenix from Emma and lost control, becoming the Dark Phoenix. Hope and the Scarlet Witch teamed up to remove the Phoenix Force from him, but not before he killed Xavier. The resulting dissipation of the Phoenix Force helped to rekindle mutantkind.

Cyclops was taken to prison where he was visited by Mister Sinister who taunted him. While there, he met fellow mutant Jake, who ended up slain by mutant-haters, a murder allowed by the prison’s warden. This spurred him to action and he reached out to Magneto asking for help to break out. Magneto came to his aid with the help of Danger and Magik. Afterward Danger left to take a different path and the remaining three went on to free imprisoned mutants. 

With the former Weapon X facility as their new homebase, Cyclops and Magneto attempted to free Emma Frost but found their powers were out of control. Cyclops hoped to help them all but soon encountered his younger time-lost self along with the five original X-Men, including Jean. When Jean’s powers were out of control, it caused Cyclops to lose his visor and his ensuing optic blast made the young X-Men believe he was attacking them, so they responded in kind. Magneto intervened but it didn’t stop Cyclops from feeling regret over their impression of him. He started training himself and other students in Canada in another Weapon X facility, naming it the New Charles Xavier’s School for the Gifted. He soon became known as a mutant revolutionary and updated his costume to feature an X prominently on his head in honor of Charles. He chastised the Avengers for standing by and doing nothing about discrimination against mutants, and then invited students from the Jean Grey school to train and battle against the inevitable battle to come. 

Cyclops later survived the collision of his reality Earth-616 and Earth-1610 thanks to the Phoenix Egg, which he bonded with, and found himself on a patchwork planet ruled by Victor Von Doom, AKA Doctor Doom. Cyclops and other heroes who survived found themselves pitted against The Cabal but Doom intervened. Cyclops attempted to kill Doom but was no match for him even with the Phoenix’s power and Doom killed him for the attack. 

After the restoration of the Multiverse, Cyclops was resurrected by the Phoenix Force as was Jean Grey with the latter as its host. But Cyclops didn’t believe he should have been resurrected to which Jean agreed and she killed him. But a teenage Cable brought his father back to life, with help from Paul Douek and residual energy from the Phoenix Force that lived in Cyclops’ corpse. Cyclops recruited Wolverine and James Maddrox, AKA Multiple Man, who helped him rescue his brother Havok, Magik, Danielle “Dani” Moonstar, Xi’an Coy Mạnh, AKA Karma, and Rahne Sinclair, AKA Wolfsbane from a program run by Sentinel Squad O*N*E*, and reformed the X-Men. With this new team, Cyclops faced the Mutant Liberation Front, a new iteration of the Brotherhood of Mutants, Dark Beast, Kim Il Sung, A Scrambler. He also recruited Chamber, Hope Summers, Kwannon, AKA Psylocke, Sean Cassidy, AKA Banshee, and Cain Marko, AKA Juggernaut. 

When the War of the Realms arrived on Earth, Frost Giants attacked Queens. Cyclops and the X-Men protected people hiding out in the city’s stadium and they soon received medical supplies from Víctor Álvarez, AKA Power Man, and Qureshi Gupta, AKA Pinpoint—members of the the Champions, a teenage Super Hero team. Cyclops overheard Kamala Khan, AKA Ms. Marvel, on comms, who was under attack and recognizing her voice, immediately came to her aid. Upon arriving, Cyclops helped the Champions beat the attacking Trolls. When Ms. Marvel claimed to know his time-lost younger self, Cyclops confirmed that he knew who she was too, recounting how they were captured by the Atlanteans, fought the Freelancers and beat the High Evolutionary together. He explained that when the younger Cyclops returned to his past, it reset the time loop and his memories got added to his own. He called the Champions friends and Ms. Marvel hugged him, recognizing him, too, as her friend.

After Xavier, Magneto and Moira MacTaggert established the sovereign mutant island nation-state of Krakoa, Cyclops joined them as did many other mutants. Xavier and Magneto ordered Cyclops and a team of X-Men to take out the Mother Mold to prevent the mutant-killing machine Nimrod from being created. The team succeeded but most of them lost their lives. When Cyclops and Jean made their escape, they encountered Dr. Alia Gregor who killed Cyclops out of revenge for the death of her husband, Erasmus Mendel. The team was soon resurrected by the Five into cloned bodies.

The X-Men were then disbanded by the Quiet Council of Krakoa as they had their own nation and didn’t see a need for them. Meanwhile, on the Blue Area of the Moon, Scott moved into the Summer House with his family including Jean, Vulcan, Havok, Prestige, Cable and Wolverine. During a fight between Krakoa and Arakko, Cyclops and Jean reformed the X-Men so that they could rescue their son and other mutants in the Otherworld dimension. They made the team’s selection process open to election, which was held annually at the Hellfire Gala. The first team’s elected members included Lorna Dane, AKA Polaris, Anna Marie, AKA Rogue, Shiro Yoshida, AKA Sunfire, Everett Thomas, AKA Synch, and Wolverine. The new team’s base was on land Emma purchased in Central Park where it doubled as a memorial for fallen mutants who couldn’t be resurrected. There were gateways to Krakoa within the park so they could easily travel to and from and the park was open to both humans and mutants.

The new X-Men soon faced the Mind Reaver and an Annihilation Wave, Herbert Wyndham, AKA High Evolutionary, and Cordyceps Jones. Though Cyclops perished in a battle against a creation by Doctor Stasis and died in a public place, he was soon resurrected on Krakoa by the Five per their process. To protect their resurrections from the public eye, as journalist Ben Urich had already surmised was happening, Scott began wearing a different costume and going by the name of Captain Krakoa, while Synch erased Urich’s memory with help from Jean. But Cyclops and Synch soon discovered that Doctor Stasis was in fact a clone of Sinister and after a confrontation with him, Cyclops and Synch thought it pertinent to reveal the truth about the mutant resurrections to Urich, which he published in the Bugle.

The next Hellfire Gala saw several X-Men leave the team, with Angelica Jones, AKA Firestar, Forge, Havok, Bobby Drake, AKA Iceman, and Magik joining the ranks. Though during a mission to defeat the Children of the Vault, Scott and his brother Alex got into a heated argument, with Scott thinking that Alex wasn’t a good fit, and therefore he was replaced with Laura Kinney, AKA Talon. Cyclops and the X-Men soon fought the Brood, a parasitic race, but he and Jean came to blows over how to handle them. Where Cyclops’ believed they should be eradicated, Jean sought mercy. The third path was to leave the Brood on Knowhere under the care and guidance of their trusted ally, Broo.

Cyclops was then captured by Orchis, an anti-mutant organization led by a new iteration of the mutant-killing machine Nimrod and Omega Sentinel. They attacked the next Hellfire Gala, leaving many mutants dead, including Jean. Following the attack, mutants were hunted and killed with Cyclops facing the death penalty for his role as a prominent mutant leader.