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This guy.
Now, I know that this one is entirely unpopular, but let me tell you why Cyclops is the best mainstream comic book character ever.
See, here is the thing, yeah, he can be a dick. Yeah, he can be serious to the point of being literally no fun. Yeah, he has made some morally questionable decisions. Yeah, his romantic life is an absolute mess, 90% of which is his fault. But let's examine WHY, and then we'll get to the part about him that I think makes him one of the best comic book characters.
First, Cyclops grew up first in an orphanage, and then as an early teen was trained to be the leader of mutantkind. He has NEVER known any other life. He started off as the boy scout, never did anything wrong, was always serious, was always pushing everyone else to be their best, and almost never slacked off.
But let's be honest, how else could you expect him to act? He was Xavier's first student. He was always raised to be that one thing, He was always raised to take over Xavier's dream. He wasn't like Bobby or Warren or Jean or Hank. His only family (that he knew of at the time), was Xavier and his fellow mutants. He was never expected to take over a family business, or live a normal life. He was always trained to be a soldier.
Is it any surprise that he didn't know how to be normal or to relax. The only thing he had ahead of him was the mission. And then of course, Jean Grey, because let's be honest, dude was still a teenage boy.
But then of course, over time he consistently failed spectacularly at every relationship he was in. But let's be honest. He's a workaholic. Because he is doing important work, and he is the only person aside from Xavier who has EVER taken as much of it on his shoulders (perhaps Wolverine in more recent years). In his mind, the survival of the entire mutant race relies on him, and in a lot of cases, he was right.
And then, this is where it gets interesting to me. Unlike every other superhero ever, Cyclops changes. His core self, the soldier, the leader, the person who puts all the pressures on himself, that is still there. But as situations become more desperate. As he has more and more tragic things happen to him, he begins to use incredibly practical, but ethically questionable decisions to deal with them. He creates a literal death squad to kill threats to mutants before they can even harm them. He threatens the mayor of a city with having someone mind control her off a roof, or just give her an aneurysm. And he does it all without batting an eye. Because in his mind, it is what needs to be done.
His pain and the results of M-Day, they changed him. And the change made complete sense. And it has stuck.
He isn't so much a superhero as he is an icon. He is the leader, protector, and provider for mutantkind. He has more in common with great political or military figures like Churchill or Scipio than someone like Spider-Man.
But let's look at his powers and skillset:
Yeah, he has his optic beams. They are cool. He also has his superhuman spacial awareness, which both help him make crazy shots with his beams, as well as be able to track every step he makes while beating down a large group of people with his eyes closed to be able to walk back and pick up his glasses. But he also once managed to take down most of the X-Men without using his beams. The guy is just a master combatant.
On top of which he has one of the most disciplined minds on the planet. He is always in control. He is so in control he can basically wall off every mental weakness he has, as well as all his plans and secrets, into a psychic black box that not even the most powerful psychics in the world could penetrate. He also locked a psychic entity that was threatening to devour Emma Frosts mind inside of it without even giving it a second thought. And its never been an issue again.
In order to get him to lose control took him holding the entire Phoenix Force while also being poked like an angry badger by the entire superhero community. And even then, that at least got us one of the greatest burns in comics:
The thing that makes Cyclops great is that he has faced a horrible childhood, then was raised into a position that has no room for forgiveness, and has almost never faltered. And not only that, he has changed. Heartache, failures, it has all changed him. It has made him a different person than he was 50+ years ago when he was first created.
He has DEVELOPED. Which is something almost no other mainstream comic book character can claim.
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I think she is one of the most underestimated characters in the X-men series. She started off as a villain but with time found herself on the good side of the spectrum. Not only she is sexy, powerful but also protective, logical, intelligent and feared, a true example of a woman who has it all, looks and brains. She can read mind s well as change her skin at will into diamond. I love her so much <3 There should always be more love for Emma~
