Cyclops (comics)

This page is about the comic book character named "Cyclops". For other uses, see Cyclops (disambiguation).

Cyclops is a fictional superhero in the Marvel Comics universe, first a member of the original X-Men team and then X Factor, and his power is the ability to shoot beams of concussive force from his eyes. Unfortunately, he can't control these beams, so a special quartz-ruby visor was developed to enable him to control his power. He regularly serves as field leader for the team.

His real name is Scott Summers and he has an on-again/off-again love affair with Jean Grey.

When Cyclops was a boy growing up in Alaska, his father, Cristopher, took the family for a flight in their airplane. It came under attack by an alien known as D'Ken. As the plane caught fire and was crashing, Cyclops' parents fastended Cyclops and his younger brother, Alex (Havok) into a parachute and pushed them off the plane, in hopes that they would survive. Unfortunately, the parachute caught fire and the siblings landed hard with Scott suffering a head injury which resulted in damage to his brain in the location which would have eventually allowed him to control his future optic blasts.

Cyclops' mother, Katherine, and father were abducted by D'Ken and taken to his spaceship. Little is known about what happened to Katherine Summers, other than that D'Ken fathered a child by her. It is assumed to be a rape. Christopher managed to escapse D'Ken, after Katherine was killed. Feeling like he had nothing and nobody left to live for on earth, he remained in space and evenutally went on to become affiliated with a group of intergalactic pirates known as the Starjammers.

Cyclops spent most of his childhood in an orphanage alone (his younger brother Alex was quickly adopted). When he was sixteen, he was found by Professor Charles Xavier and became one of his students and a member of the X-Men.

As a member of the X-Men, Cyclops evenutally met his father, now known as Corsair, and the Starjammers, while they were attempting to kill D'Ken. Instead, D'Ken accquired an extremely powerful alien crystal called the M'Krann Crystal and attempted to build his own universe. It took the combined power of the X-Men, the Starjammers, the entity known as the Phoenix, which had possessed the body of Jean Grey, and D'Ken's former Imperial Guard, including his sister, Lilandra, to stop him.

It wasn't until years later though that Cyclops and Corsair each discovered the other's true identity. Cyclops briefly quit the X-Men after Jean Grey's death.

Cyclops later went on to marry Madelyne Prior, who was actually a clone of his dead lover, Jean Grey, and had been created by the villain, Mr. Sinister. Together they had a son, Nathan Christopher Summers. Eventually, Mr. Sinister took control of his clone and Prior became the villainous Goblin Queen. Together, Sinister and the Goblin Queen used baby Nathan's genetic mutant powers to open up a portal between earth and the alternate dimension known as Limbo. This dimension, which was first seen in the comic series ROM: Space Knight, and which later appeared in the X-Men as the throne dimension of the demon lord Bellasco, is full of demons and resembles mythological Hell. The demons terrorized New York City, and many of Marvel Comics' superheroes, including the X-Men, X-Factor, the New Mutants, the Avengers, Spider-Man, Daredevil, and the Incredible Hulk had to team up in order to contain them.

This saga, known in Marvel Comics as the "Inferno" storyline, ended with the death of Madelyne Prior.

However, before the Inferno storyline, it was discovered that Jean Grey was in fact not dead. She had simply been placed in a coma by the Phoenix force. Cyclops and Jean Grey, along with Beast, Iceman, and the Angel, had been members of X-Factor together, and Cyclops was falling for Jean Grey again, even though he was technically still married to Madelyne.

More recently, Cyclops and Jean Grey have gotten married. In 2000, Cyclops was killed while fighting Apocalypse, but he has recently been brought back to life.

In the X-Men movies, Cyclops has been portrayed by James Marsden.