X-Men: 6 Times Cyclops Was Right (And Everyone Else Was Wrong)

The X-Men have introduced readers to some of the coolest characters in the history of the Marvel Universe. Characters like Wolverine, Gambit, Storm, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Jubilee, and many more have grabbed fans and never let go, and that’s before we even get to villains like Magneto, Apocalypse, Shadow King, Mystique, Bastion, Nimrod, and others. However, there’s one X-men character who is arguably the coolest, even though fans haven’t always thought so — Cyclops. Cyclops is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, leaders in the Marvel Universe and has grown immensely over the years, especially since House of M wrecked the mutant race for years to come. Before, Cyclops was always something of a boring boy scout, but he’s since grown into the perfect version of the character.

There’s a certain battle cry among Cyclops fans, one based off a phrase from the New X-Men classic “Riot at Xavier’s” — “Cyclops was right” (which was based off Quentin Quire’s “Magneto was right” poster and later t-shirt). Over the years, we’ve seen plenty of times when it felt like Cyclops was wrong, but he was proven right, vindicating his fans. Cyclops is the best of the X-Men, and the sooner the people of the Marvel Universe realize that, the easier (and free of painful optic blasts) their lives will be. These five instances show just how right Cyclops was when everyone said he was wrong.

6) Re-Forming X-Force

When X-Force first premiered, they were the former New Mutants, taken by Cable and made into his own personal black ops squad. That team eventually ended and the X-Force name was taken by a group of mutants trying to be celebrities by tackling the most deadly threats. The next incarnation of X-Force came during the early days of the X-Men’s move to San Francisco. The mutant race was down to 198 individuals. Their extinction was something that honestly wouldn’t be hard for humanity to make happen, and Cyclops needed something besides the X-Men to battle them. The X-Men were the public face of mutantkind, meant to help humans and make mutants seem less shady.

Cyclops didn’t need that, though; he needed killers. So, Cyclops went to Wolverine and had him form a team of mutants who would do whatever was necessary. Thus, the new version of X-Force was born. X-Force became one of Marvel’s most important teams; they did the dirty work to keep the mutant race going. Cyclops and Wolverine kept the team and their purpose secret from the rest of the X-Men, who would look down on Cyclops having a kill team. However, there’s no doubt that Cyclops was right. The mutant race was dealing with a world that had been trying to kill them for years, and just doing things the old way — beating up their enemies and leaving them to the authorities — wasn’t going to work. It was a controversial decision, but the correct one.

5) Bringing Magneto Into the Fold

The X-Men’s years in San Francisco are the time that showed just how right Cyclops could be. As leader of mutantkind, Cyclops had to make the toughest decisions imaginable, including which mutants to work with and which ones to turn away. Magneto, having regained his powers after losing them on M-Day, came to the X-Men’s base of Utopia and asked to be a member of the mutant society that Cyclops was building. It just so happened that Xavier was there as well, and he was very much against it. Xavier had experience with being betrayed by Magneto, so he counseled against Magneto joining Cyclops’s side (the funny thing about that was that Xavier wasn’t even a member of the X-Men at the time), as did other mutants on the island.

However, Cyclops didn’t listen to them and allowed Magneto to stay. Magneto made a huge difference almost from the beginning, using his powers to pull back the spacefaring bullet that Kitty Pryde had been trapped in. Magneto would become one Cyclops’s best soldiers during this era, and respected Cyclops and the changes he made to himself immensely. Magneto has been a key part of the X-Men since, proving his decision right in a number of ways.

4) Challenging Norman Osborn and His Dark Avengers

“Dark Reign” was one of the coolest story ideas that Marvel had in the late ’00s/early ’10s. Norman Osborn was given control of the Superhero Initiative after killing Skrull Queen Veranke in Secret Invasion and created the Dark Avengers, a team of villains disguised as heroes, in order to both protect the world and cement his power. When the Friends of Humanity, an anti-mutant group, marched on San Francisco and mutants decided to fight it out in the streets with them, Osborn decided to send in the Dark Avengers in an effort to cow the mutants. Cyclops, instead of rolling over or trying to make a deal with Osborn, decided to make a fool of the villain of the villain and his Avengers.

Cyclops showed his perfect tactical acumen, constantly staying ahead of Osborn and taking apart all of his plans. Osborn tried to use brute strength against the X-Men, using the force of HAMMER (his version of SHIELD), the Avengers, and his own team of X-Men against Cyclops, but Cyclops outplayed Osborn at every turn. Many of the X-Men thought this was the dumbest idea imaginable, but Cyclops stayed the course, and was able to bloody the nose of Norman Osborn. Osborn declared victory after his Avengers were completely outclassed by the X-Men, but he only did that because he was beaten and he knew it.

3) Cyclops Was Right in X-Men: Schism

X-Men: Schism was a major change to the San Francisco era of the X-Men. Cyclops had been doing a great job of keeping the mutant race safe and prosperous. He was working with Wolverine at a level that they had never worked at before; while they had always respected each other, there was a lot of bad blood between them. However, the two of them became the perfect partnership; whatever Cyclops needed done, Wolverine was there to do it. All of that changed when a new Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club, this time made up of young, sociopathic genuis children of privileged humans instead of mutants, decided to destroy the X-Men and mutants for stealing the Hellfire Club from the wealthy humans who created it.

They unleashed Quentin Quire on the UN, and sold cheap but powerful Sentinels to governments all over the world. Finally, they made a direct attack on the X-Men when a group of them went to a museum opening in San Fran. This group included heavy hitters like Emma Frost, Magneto, Namor, Colossus, and Iceman, as well as some of younger mutants, but the Inner Circle used their genius and technology to trump the team. The Inner Circle was going to kill everyone at the museum, and Cyclops and Wolverine could never get there in time. So, Cyclops ordered one of the younger mutants, a girl named Oya, to kill the Hellfire goons. Over Wolverine’s protestations, Oya did so. Wolverine was livid, and berated Cyclops, which led to a battle between the two of them. While Wolverine did have a point about Cyclops using child soldiers, there really was no other choice in this matter. Cyclops couldn’t lose his most powerful mutants and he couldn’t allow humans to be killed. It was a hard decision and one that Cyclops didn’t relish making, but it was the right decision.

2) Getting With Emma Frost

Jean Grey was Cyclops’s first love and the two of them became the X-Men’s marquee couple. Young love is grand, but Cyclops and Jean Grey’s relationship had its first stumbling block in the classic story “The Dark Phoenix Saga”. Jean’s death shattered Cyclops and he left the X-Men, eventually meeting Jean Grey clone Madelyne Pryor. The two married and had a child, but the return of Jean Grey saw Cyclops drop his family like a bad habit and run back to his high school girlfriend. The two of them fell right back in love and would eventually be married. Their relationship was the cornerstone of the X-Men, but it often felt like the two of them were only together because they didn’t know anything else and were scared to be apart. Emma Frost changed all of that. Emma joined the X-Men, and immediately decided that she wanted Cyclops.

Emma Frost got what she wanted and she was able to take the cracks in the relationship between Cyclops and Jean, gulfs widened by the time Cyclops spent possessed by Cyclops, and exploited them, with the two of them beginning a psychic affair. Jean found out and there was some drama for a while, until Jean’s death at the hands of Xorneto. Cyclops and Emma Frost got together (partly because the White Phoenix Jean saw that if they weren’t together it would doom the world and pushed them a bit), and the X-Men weren’t exactly happy about it. However, it was the right decision. Emma helped Scott make the terrible decisions he would have to make as the leader of mutantkind, and he grew immensely as a person and a character. Cyclops and Emma Frost are the best X-Men couple, despite what some fans and Marvel editors seem to think, as it allowed Cyclops to become the kind of person he needed to be to keep mutants alive in their most dangerous era.

1) Cyclops Was Right About Hope Summers in Avengers Vs. X-Men

Avengers Vs. X-Men seemingly went out of its way to show the Cyclops was wrong, but by the end proved otherwise. Cyclops had been training Hope Summers, the adopted mutant daughter of his son Cable, making her his granddaughter, to be the savior of mutantkind. When the Phoenix Force decided to make its way to Earth again, Cyclops had a plan. Hope would bond with the Phoenix and use the power to rekindle the mutant race. However, the Avengers also found out about the coming of the Phoenix, and Wolverine, an Avengers and highly critical of Cyclops in the days after X-Men: Schism, warned the Avengers that Cyclops was insane and shouldn’t be allowed to get near the Phoenix.

This led to the war between the two teams, where Tony Stark accidentally split the Phoenix into five while trying to destroy it. Cyclops gained the power of the Phoenix, along with Emma Frost, Namor, Colossus, and Magik, and for a time did good with the power. However, the Phoenix corrupts and the Avengers constantly attacking the X-Men and the Phoenix Five led them to get on the train to darkness. Cyclops would eventually gain the full power of the Phoenix and become the Dark Phoenix. He killed Xavier in the throes of the power and was defeated when Hope Summers took the Phoenix Force from him. Hope was able to use the power, with the help of Scarlet Witch, to rekindle the mutant gene in humanity and then gave up the power. Hope was everything that Cyclops trained her to be, proving that he was right when everyone else was wrong.

Do you think that Cyclops was right in these instances? Sound off in the comments below.

10 Best X-Teams, Ranked