X-Men Legend Chris Claremont Reveals The Moment Cyclops Was Ruined As A Character

Marvel fans definitely have their favorites when it comes to the X-Men, and there are quite a few fans that will say Cyclops is simply the best one. I mean, if we’re honest, he’s one of my favorites too, but for famed X-Men writer Chris Claremont he’s never been the same since one key moment involving Madelyne Pryor, who he left along with his child once he discovered that Jean Grey was actually alive. For Claremont, that was it for him with Cyclops.

When a fan on Reddit asked “Why does everyone think Wolverine is the bee’s knees when Cyclops is the best X-Man?”, Claremont had an in-depth response.

“Logan is cool, Scott is not,” Claremont wrote. “My problem is I thought Scott was a wonderful character until he moment he walked out on Madelyne, and went back to Jean—and that was dishonorable and destroyed him as a character. Logan wouldn’t do that. He’d kill you but he’d do it for the right reasons.

Scott was the base, the foundation of the team. He’s the core around which everything orbits, which is why with Madelyne, it meant so much to me to give him a happy ending to resolve the whole Jean conundrum. To get that death out of his system, and get on with real life. And for me, for Scott, it was all about real life.

I was just reading the issue with the fight between Scott and Ororo. And the whole point is, Scott thinks, “I have to stay with the X-Men, they need me to lead them.” But he’s got wife and a kid now. Maybe it’s time to grow up. There aren’t that many families in the super hero universe, like the FF. Scott is not Reed Richards. Give yourself a break. Give your family a break.

And for Scott, it’s coming up to a point where he has to rewrite the patterning of his life, which occasionally is what happens when you grow hit your 20s. And it’s very, very hard. Falling in love, making the commitment of “I do,” is awesome. Finding yourself with a baby is the scariest, most wonderful thing that can possibly happen. And again, as a writer, I was selfishly looking forward to dealing with that over the years with Scott, as I tried to do in X-Men. What’s it like for him to be a father? How does he relate to things? How does he deal with being married? There was all sorts of stuff there on both a real world and a super hero perspective. And then it all got thrown away. And that’s why it took Louise Simonson two years, if not longer to figure out how to resolve it. To get to get them all as people back on track, so that we could resolve it.

But, you know, for me it was just a moment that you could not go back from—because it took away the opportunity for Scott to be a father, and it just remade him as tropes. And they deserve better than that. And yes, It’s been 30 years and I still bare a grudge. Sorry about that. – 30″

To be fair,most if not all comic characters have had awful storylines or angles over the years and they don’t ruin a character completely, but to each his own.

So, what do you think of Claremont’s thoughts on Cyclops? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk all things comics with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB?