James Marsden Becomes X-Men’s Cyclops Again for Awesome Photo With Sonic Co-Star Ben Schwartz

X-Men movies star, James Marsden is currently on quarantine lockdown like the rest of us, due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. And, like so many of us, it seems that Marsden is turning to video calling services like Zoom as his main lane of social interaction. Well, Marsden recently scored a hit by starring in the Sonic the Hedgehog movie ($300 million worldwide). While on a video call with his Sonic the Hedgehog co-star Ben Schwartz, Marsden decided to go “Full Cyclops” again. It’s just a prop-gag using his signature Cyclops glasses, but to X-Men fans, it’s as good as nostalgia gold:

The X-Men movies first dropped in the early 2000s, giving comic book fans their first live-action version of Marvel mutant heroes. The X-Men movies became so popular that they ushered in the entire second wave of late-2000s comic book movie franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and The Dark Knight Trilogy, and the actors who made that happen are now icons of the genre. But while Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Michael Fassbender or James McAvoy tend to be the X-Men stars that get the most attention, James Marsden’s Cyclops has always maintained a loyal cult-following of his own.

Unfortunately for Marsden, the kind of superhero stardom he probably deserved was undercut by the X-Men franchise’s obsession with Wolverine (Jackman) as the front man – just one of several things about Fox’s X-Men movies that bothered some hardcore fans of the comics. Marsden’s Cyclops was treated as a glorified side character in the entire trilogy, with the most egregious wrong being the way Cyclops was cut out of the trilogy finale X-Men: The Last Stand. In that film, Jean Grey / Dark Phoenix (Famke Janssen) vaporizes her love Cyclops in the first act of the film, when he first discovers her where “Jean Grey” died in X2. Cyclops’ death shocked X-Men fans, as it was pretty much the deepest possible violation of Scott Summers and Jean Grey’s unshakable love bond in the comics. The Last Stand never gave Cyclops any real justice, and the character was all but dropped from the franchise thereafter, except for minor roles in the later First Class continuity films, and a silly cameo from young Cyclops in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Thankfully, Marvel Studios will (eventually) be rebooting the X-Men within the Marvel Cinematic Universe – hopefully with a proper version of Cyclops.

Marvel’s updated release schedule sees Black Widow arriving in theaters on November 6th. It is followed Eternals on February 12, 2021, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on May 5 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on November 5, 2021, Thor: Love and Thunder on February 18, 2022, Black Panther II on May 6, 2022, and Captain Marvel 2 on July 8, 2022. Disney+ also has The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Loki, What If…? Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, and Moon Knight on the way.