Cyclops Was Marvel’s Best Villain 

As a hardcore Cyclops fan (hence my profile pic), I find a lot of other hardcore Cyclops fans to be annoying. They act like Cyclops is some perfect paragon who can do no wrong, when in actually, Cyclops' failures and questionable actions are huge aspects of what makes his character interesting

Cyclops has always been best as the combination of professor x’s and magneto’s philosophies

It was hilarious that in one of the runs everyone was shitting nonstop on Cyclops' horrible crime after he diedm making him out to be history's greatest monster... And then it turned out his horrible crime was changing the terrigen mists so that they did not murder mutants anymore.

Cyclops is a great leader, great villain, but he’s even better at being a soldier! He’s no slouch, he will kill, but he also reasons.

Cyclops be having too many secret family members

This is some of the craziest spin I’ve ever heard. He never wanted to “Eradicate” people who disagreed with the mutant cause with the Phoenix. He used the Phoenix to undo Scarlet Witch’s “No More Mutants” spell.

That conversation between Cable and Cyclops where Cable acknowledges Scott as his father, and tells Scott that he should stop before he would be killed both physically and in the eyes of the public was amazing. It sticks with me. One of the few conversations they had, and the only one I can remember where Cable acknowledges Scott as his father. A beautiful analog for Magneto and his children.

He was a revolutionary not a villain. Man said child soldiers but he was teaching them to defend themselves if they get attacked. Cyclops did what he thought was right to protect his people and he didnt sugar coat anything. Cyclops was right!

Obligatory Cyclops was right. Captain America was the villain of AvX.

Na Scott was right. This man has saved the Mutant race from extention several times, but for some reason, everyone hates him. I'm riding with Cyclops.

This era of Cyclops was FUCKIN WILD and I loved it!

Didnt like Cyclops as a kid, but as I get older i appreciate him more. Hes my 3rd fave Xman

Not sure i agree with some of your takes but love the video! He was only really defined as a “villain” in the framework of marvel comics we were meant to view him as such but it kinda backfired around this time and readers rallied around him Related regarding Schism I always thought the event made little to no sense with Logan as the opposing side and it should have been Storm. The argument itself was so odd when you realize X-Men were trained since they were teens to begin with

Cyclops didnt fall down.. he simply focused himself to the task as the commander he was raised to be. X Force was amazing. If someone proved this child was the only hope of your race what would you do? Also i loved his dialog with Cap.

Cyclops deserves "Big three" status in the next iteration of the MCU. He can fill Cap's role as the tactician.

Cyclops wasn’t the bad guy in that time. Iron man was

Wrong. The writers for spiderman are the true villains

That’s a bold claim, Rob, in a universe with Victor von Doom, Magneto, Owen Reese, and Galactus in it.

Super biased take against Cyclops. For example, an entire class of mutant students were nearly slaughtered. They were trained to be soldiers for their survival. Mutants exist only because of Scott.

Cyclops Was Right X

What's ironic is that now it's Beast whose gone down this path of "By any means necessary"

Cyclops was right.

Cyclops was Right and he preserved the mutant race🥰❤️❤️☺️

Cyclop was the true hero in AVX

When you talked about cyclops saying they could kill cable .. yeah cable is cyclops's son

Nope, Cyclops was right ❌️

The X Men finding out the Prof. had intentionally enslaved the Shiar AI; Danger (Room), made the team look at him a lot differently around that time as well. In "Astonishing".

I always found myself annoyed by how everyone treated Cyclops as this horrific monster. A lot of X-Men condemned Cyclops for X-Force during Second Coming, and for the longest time I wanted to jump into the panels and tell them all to grow up, their race was on the brink of extermination and hard choices had to be made. I also really didn't like how he was treated for killing Xavier. Look, it was wrong, he shouldn't have done it, but the writers have gone on record to say he was being influenced by the Phoenix at the time, and whenever that was brought up in the comics characters just dismissed that. Jean Grey killed billions of aliens when she was Dark Phoenix, but she was instantly forgiven by the others, and they even fought to protect her. I know it was retconned that that wasn't Jean after all, but the X-Men didn't know that at the time! The only difference between Cyclops and Jean in this scenario was that Cyclops killed someone they knew, while Jean killed a bunch of faceless aliens they hadn't met.

Schism era cyclops was where i truly came to respect the character. Read bits and peices of the saga along with x men vs the avengers and knew about the all the events that happened during this time (house of x, no more mutants, civil war, krakoa/genosha, etc). I loved cyclop's transition from the ideal golden boy of the mutant race to being it's leader and eventual savior through preservation. Also liked the fact that he took on more of magneto's idealogy and slowly backed away from professor x's ideals (nothing wrong with them, but with the way charles was written during this time, it slowly caused a rift everything cyclops was taught....).

None of these actions make him a "villain". This is Cyclops at his peak. I don't understand understand why people label this era Cyclops as a "villain". Just because Avengers fought him? What part of this version of Cyclops is not heroic? He saved the mutant species

Cyclops was like the Captain America of the X-men. So seeing his values that he holds dear be twisted and altered by trauma was ingenious. His fall from grace made him more empathetic as a character.

Beast bringing the pasr x-men into the present and Cyclops leading the mutant revolution was after Avengers vs X-Men, not before. Also this video is very biased against Cyclops, because if Cable Cyclops knew about Hope's importance, it wasn't just a supposition, Bishop was a psychopath during that era, he endangered countless X-Men. Also Wolverine was the ultimate hypocrite, criticising Scott for putting children in danger but he himself was willing to kill Hope who was still a teenager. Last thing, during the Revolution era, Cyclops never forced anyone to fight with him, on the contrary.

Always a firm believer of "Cyclops was right".

Cyclops is my favorite marvel character so good bad or bad guy the character is dope

As usual, thank you for this Rob. I love listening to these while working out 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

Villain? Or just doing what needed to be done?

You a little out of order. Avengers v X-Men happened before cyclops started saving and recruiting new mutants. Otherwise wow ur bringing back so many good memories, I have all of these major story arcs. I loved this era of cyclops.

Xmen Schism convinced me that cyclops was a great leader, dude was trying to protect what was left of the mutants and people try to label him a villain. The mans a boyscout or started out that way because Xavier need his child soldiers to be obedient, but all the betrayals made him more protective and militant so he could effectively lead honestly(he is a deadbeat dad though)

Rob's refusal to acknowledge Black Bolt was my favourite part of this video 😂

Thanks for doing this video Rob! You covered the X-Men pretty well there during my favorite stretch of Marvel. A little correction there; The Bendis titles, All-New and Uncanny, came after Avengers Vs. X-Men not before. Beast brought the O5 team back as a last ditch effort to get his old friend to admit all his wrongs up to and killing Xavier. I personally liked what they did with his character. I like when the big 2 do different and interesting things with their characters. We have decades of these characters being eagle scouts. It's good to shake it up once in a while. Take care and peace.

Hope they do him well in the MCU.

I would love a video on Cyclops' top general Magik. She's so unappreciated, and her growth has been amazing since her debut

I know you get burned out doing this stuff sometimes Rob, but thank you. This was awesome.

Great video! I'd love if you made more videos about X-Men history. This was a good era.

Cyclops has always been my guy. My hatred for Wolverine is infinite lol. Cyclops is literally the guy who always did the right thing and got fucked over anyway.

Indeed a hottake but a correct one. But he was not a villain but a revolutionary.

Thanks for the video, Robbery! It made me think and choose to communicate with the community. That felt good.

Those villain summers comics sound AMAZING honestly. Id love to see you cover them. Id love to buy and read them

Love your channel for a long time. And for some reason this particular vídeo reminded me the OG ones. Almost could hear the old sountrack in the background...

I remember you did Cable vs The Avengers, and you talked about it leading in to Messiah Complex and Messiah War. I’d love to cover that.

Omg that was all my teenage years reading comics resumed on a video! To be fair at the beginning People were complaining about the way that cyclops was being written but im glad they kept him that way, he becomes a more complex character and drops away the good boy persona that People usted to associate him to also, his black-red costume with the x visor was badass! Loved your video man!!

I'm not a comic book guy but I love this channel! The guy is so passionate about what he loves and he's really good at telling a condensed story even if the audience has little to no reference points.

Scott wasn't a villian he was just down for his people. As time went on he realized Magneto was right all along

I would like for you to cover "Cable& Deadpool". Probably needs to be a mini series, but you have already covered all the bigger happenings it touches. The even older Deadpool stuff is pretty great too.

Damn you covered a lot of ground with this one, Rob! Gotta say this was a good time to be an X-Men fan, after many years of forgettable stories. And yes, please cover Decimation, District X, and Schism/Regenesis!

One of my favorite parts of Avengers vs Xmen was when Rogue is explaining to Prof. Xavier why the mutants all rallied behind Cyclops. She talks about the gratitude and mutants feel towards Cyclops for all he has done for them as a leader and inspiration. The best part is that you only see the conversation from the POV of the person Rogue is talking to so it seems at that she isn't talking to Xavier, but talking about Xavier. It really establishes that in the eyes of the mutant community, Cyclops holds a place of respect and heroism on par with Xavier and Magneto.

Yes, New Xmen post AvX made Cyclops one of my favorite Marvel characters.

Damn, what a trip through memory lane. I stopped reading comics during secret wars, and it's exactly because X-men was getting so good but then it went nowhere and I was like, f this shit. Also, by that time even hank admitted that Cyclops was right.

Rob PLEAAAAASSSEEE keep making X-men content. I’ve stuck with your channel since my literal childhood. And everytime you release something I watch it, but I don’t click on it nearly as fast as I do anything X-men

Some of my times of reading x men and being a fan of cyclops. Loved telling my friends about the evolution of cyclops. Great video!

Sorry, but this is a bad take. There have been other "Cyclops is an ahole" runs, but these were not it. He was just being a decisive leader, making the best decisions he could given the circumstances. Was everything he did perfect? No, not by a long shot, but it was all motivated from a pretty clear concern for the future of his people. For example, Cyclops didn't say he would kill all his teammates to save Hope, he was saying that ALL of them (himself included) should be willing to lay down their lives to keep Hope safe, because her presence was clearly connected with re-creating mutantkind. In Utopia, he wasn't making child soldiers, he was teaching kids to fight for their home and to defend themselves from people who wanted to kill them. He wasn't trying to eradicate anyone with the Phoenix Force, he was trying to bring about the rebirth of his race. He also, as part of the Phoenix Five, spent tons of time and effort remaking the entire world (not just mutantkind) into an actual utopia, but after being attacked several times, the Phoenix Force had had enough and went to town on them all. AND at the end, he did indeed bring about the rebirth of his race. Cyclops was right. This overall run in the comics is what makes him the GOAT defender of mutantkind, in my mind.

Man, some of this is just blatant misrepresentation of what happens, both Cyclops' actions and the actions of others. Imo, at the end of the day he's the reason we're able to have the Krakoa era today. He is THE xman!

I loved parts of that Bendis run. It had so much potential with the new characters we were introduced to and Cyclops continuing to build his team up. If I remember correctly, he even made peace with Havok and it looked like Havok would join him. But Axis or Secret War plans derailed everything and the run ultimately meant nothing in the grand scheme of the characters. Even Dazzler's dark/emo phase was forgotten, and I thought it was the most interesting thing the character had ever done. So yeah.... maybe go back and look at the Uncanny run of Bendis in detail. I'd like to remember those days with a little trip down memory lane.

Thanks for the video ! You caught a new subscriber with it !

Anakin Skywalker is the best analogy ive seen. I used nick fury as an analogy. He's not a captain America type because hes not bound to loyalty to a single country. Hes pretty unique but thats a great comparison anakin because of the heel turn

Wow, am I the only one who didn't think nor look at Slim as a bad guy during this arc?

THE DIFFERENT SUITS OF CYCLOPS SHOWN IN THJS VIDEO WERE ALL COOL AF. i especially liked the cosmic looking one.

I'd love for you to cover those stories!

Agreed, if they don’t go down this route with his character in the cinematic or at least the All New X Men time travel run to bring back old and new versions of characters to get new actors to take over their roles and change their futures it’ll be a miss.

Cyclops was Right

Your videos are awesome.

Always down for more Cyclops videos

I forget which run it was on the AvX stores or the plenty of times they fought. But the words he spoke to Steve then (paraphrase) While the Sentinels hunted us, House of M & the other events, where were the Avengers, we fought beside you in your battles but left to ourselves to die" That line was the coldest lone every written to the Avengers to call them out since they had a all white team and someone called them out on that. So in a complete flip and see Steve take what is basically the X-Force mentality and form another Unity Squad that straight murked Orchid. It felt good to see, especially people like Tony who previously had a FWB relationship with Emma be a ally in the Fall of X & Kingpin using his street power to help as well is damn good to see. So seeing Marvel give this character development to Scott and the people he has went against is awesome

Off topic but who agrees that Jason Isaacs should be Magneto?

The answer is always YES for any new content! Cover it all!

Yes cover all these stories in full, id watch them all

I agree that this era was some of the best stories for Cyclops, but I highly disagree with people thinking he is a villain. X-Force? Not all wars or genocides are formally declared. When the species was facing extinction and groups are out to eliminate them all, they need to be dealt with. Child Soldiers? He literally said that if anyone doesn't want to fight, they can leave. And we all know that Sentinels spare children, right? RIGHT?! Killing Xavier? Phoenix did it. Literally. He didn't seek it out and wasn't made to control it. He also didn't conscript any mutant he liberated, they all joined willingly. That's a really wild and inaccurate take. I also love the notion that Beast breaking the time stream with the O5 is somehow ok and "move out of concern" and not just Beast being INCREDIBLY cavalier with time. Other than that, great vid Rob!

*Rob* Please Review *Zero Tolerance* That was my favorite X-Men series and the Artwork 🤌🏿

@ComicsExplained Speaking of Dark Reign, when are you going to cover that? I would really love it!

Great cover! I love this song

Absolutely cover those stories!!!

Is the future success of the MCU in the hands of a Henry Cavill Cyclops storyline??

Man, a perfect summary. People like you should talk to Marvel to handle the scriptwriting for the movies. People with passion and who know how to summarize without losing the essence. Great video

This was the era of X-men I got into reading the comics with. Seeing Scott Summers in the position to have to make the hard decisions when the mutants backs were pushed against the wall like never before made for some fantastic storytelling and I was there for it. When he could do nothing but defend, he had to figure out how to go on the offensive.

Hard disagree on this take, man made mistakes no doubt but saying he was a villain? comparing him to Vader? I think it really undervalues how much the 616 world was just absolutely attacking the mutants while the rest of the supers did practically nothing

You smoking rocks reading DC comic books if you believe that

As always you do an amazing job at explaining and retelling these stories. And as many would say this is Cyclops's "villain arc", I disagree with even calling him a villain. Someone else in the comments said it best, Cyclops is the perfect blend of Professor X and Magneto's philosophies. He was young and naive growing up under Charles, and grew to mature and understand Magneto. Even though Magneto tried to "talk some reason" into him, ultimately Cyclops reminded him that we are definitely in the times that Magneto was preaching back then on what he didn't want. And then ultimately when Magneto joins his crew, Cyclops never shied away from telling Magneto that their not doing things "his way", they're doing them better. Which in itself is a combination of both what Prof X and Magneto taught him. He's also younger than both of them and has lived in a world where both of them made an impact, and the govt has evolved. Sometimes helping mutants, but still often times oppressing them. And just like in the cartoon now where everyone easily says "Magneto was right", they too stated that "Cyclops was right". And he was. He definitely was unhinged and going off the rails, but circumstances pushed him there and he could no longer go about situations the same way Prof X would have advised. And again his distrust for Prof X had a great impact on him, because he now also distrusted those philosophies and ideals Prof X used to impose on him.

I was a kid when this run was coming out, that suit will always be the most memorable Cyclops suit for me

Always been a Cyke stan

Cyclops was just essentially Paul Atterides 😂

This was a good video.

My personal fan theory is that this goes back a bit farther to the end of the 90s TAS inspired stories to the start of the era inspired by the FOX Movie. Around this time, Cyke had merged with Apocalypse in order to get rid of the villain for good. However this was undone and both characters returned. However, Cyclops had clearly changed because of this. Right off the bat he goes on a mission with Wolverine and they find some guy who was slowly dying. Contrast to his old self, Cyke flat out kills the guy as an act of mercy by blowing his head off, which makes even Wolvie go "WTF?" And if you're shocking Wolvie with an act of violence, something's up. I think Cyke took something from Apocalypse when they fused and this corrupted him, turning him into a darker, more pragmatic, and less idealistic character. I feel like it all started there.

Cyclops was Marvel's best scapegoat for [CURRENT YEAR] politics...

I never liked cyclops. Always thought he was a goodie two shoes but when he was being evil and anti hero style I super dug it.

I would love it if you covered Deadly Genesis, The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire, and Realm and War of Kings. Also, the Messiah Complex trilogy.

Cyclops’s crazy missions were some of the best X-force comics!

emma frost + scott summers

Cyclops should've been written more as a hero instead of a villain because he showed his prowess as a leader of the X-Men. But after House of M, he went down a villainous path while to maintain the survival of Mutants which started from Messiah Complex to Avengers vs X-Men. But this makes me want to read more and more about Cyclops.

this really glosses over alot, and saying Xavier was a father figure to him, like he didn't berate, belittle, second guess, lie, and manipulate, Scott at basically every given opportunity to do so feels real weird.

I’m all for villain cyclops videos. Any cyclops videos really