X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

Scott Summers aka Cyclops

Scott Summers aka Cyclops

Concept Stage:

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a big fan of the X-Men leader, mostly because he seems to get the short end of the stick whenever the writers decide that they want to do something different in the storylines. I’m not totally convinced that he’s really supposed to be as bad as he is in the comic, what with the ‘dumping his wife and son for a girlfriend whom he later cheats on anyway and oh he kinda looses it when the mutants start to become extinct’.

Actually, that last part kinda makes sense considering how much he’s been put through over the years, something was bound to make him snap.

Regardless, as much as I don’t care for a character, I still want to do right by them and Scott is no exception. He’s billed as the leader of the X-Men, the stalwart boy scout, and that’s what I’ve created in X-Men: The (fan fic) Series. A man who earns the alt nickname ‘the Boy Scout’, but at the same time is not the ultimate stick in the mud either.

How do I do this? By making him a true leader. He’s the one who everyone turns too when they know that things are going wrong. He’s the one who takes on the responsibilities for creating the team, it’s his idea even. He’s the one who comes up with the plan of action in a situation. He’s the character willing to make the tough and sometimes unpopular decisions because they are the right thing to do, and not because the Professor or anyone else told him to.

Also, one storyline from the comics and movie I’m going to do away with is the Scott/Jean/Logan triangle. Part of the reason is that it was done to death in the movies (literally), but mostly because I don’t want Scott’s role as leader being defined by that relationship. When he butts heads with Logan it will be because these are two fundamentally different people who look at the world from skewed perspectives. I don’t want their conflict basically watered down to a “stay away from my woman” trope as it so often is.

In the end, Scott will be the leader because, as Jean will put it, “you got [the role as leader] because you’re the right man for the job.”

And of course the best leaders are often reluctant.

Character Background:

Scott has a closely traditional origin of being from Hawaii then after having lost his family in a plane crash he moves to Alaska to live with his grandparents. He finds his way to Xavier’s as a teenager where he grows up with Jean Grey and Warren Worthington III. Of course he has a little thing for Jean but never really thought he had a chance, not that Warren got much farther himself.

In an effort to cure himself of a fear of flying due to the incident which killed his family, Scott took flying lessons once he was old enough and is now a licensed pilot with his own personal plane.

After graduation he did a couple of years of college while helping out at Xavier’s seeing as the school has grown vastly in the past few years, picking up the likes of Robert “Iceman” Drake who becomes his best friend.

Currently Scott is Xavier’s math teacher, Algebra, Calculus, Trigonometry, etc.