I can't hate cyclops anymore.

Captain America and Superman are fantastic heroes. They've existed since forever and are endearing because of how iconic they are, how inspirational they are, and how interesting stories about them can be. And, if they were real, I could certainly be friends with either of them. I would love to sit down and have lunch and a long ideological conversation with either of them. I have a good friend who, given an enhanced meta-gene and some sort of gaudy costume, could easily step into the shoes of either. That being said, being on a team with them, and taking orders from them would be infuriating. I would end up either running off on my own, stepping up and taking over logistics duties myself, or start a Civil War. A third character who I would have, mere weeks ago, put in the same category as those two is the embodiment of Professor Xavier's dream for mutant-human co-existence, his first pupil (haha! lol) Cyclops. Scott really "lives" Xaviers dream moreso than even Charles himself. Taking his teacher's lessons to their fullest potential and then even building on top of that, Mr. Summers really does stand on the shoulders of proverbial giants and reaches heights that truly make him the "star" of any X-Book he's in. However, when your primary character traits are being a by-the-book boy scout, and being the "anchor" character whose job it is to get angry when the more interesting characters get out of line, it makes it easy to just end up hating him. I admit, I fell into this rut from my first foray into the X-Books and my recent history lesson of trying to re-read the title from its roots to the present day had been doing pretty much nothing to open my eyes (God, I slay me!) to the character's potential. Truthfully, in order to make him anything but Ben Stein dull, you really have to spin him somehow. Lazy writers have done so by giving hime 'tude (Whedon, I'm talking to you.) However, Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis have both really made me love this character, each in their own special way. Morrison, when he took the reigns of "New X-Men" (still my favorite run on the book in it's entire history) gave Scott an almost scary Zen-like control over any situation. I'd still go to Xavier for any kind of spiritual guidance, of course, but with a field leader like this, it's suddenly easy to see why the other X-Men would lay their lives on the line for the dream. His core traits are seen as virtues instead of neuroses. Ellis on the other hand, shoved Cyclops closer to a different archetype that surprisingly really fits him. He turned him into mutankind's Batman. After the deaths of his parents, Cyclops threw himself into the X-phhilosophy, acting as an unwavering pillar behind which his teammated can rally. He also trained his body to physical perfection. There are much more powerful mutants to have to go up against, but Cyclops is still pretty damn scary to face on the battlefield. Even if you don't consider his mutant abilities, he's an unstoppable force in hand-to-hand combat, and he gets even more frightening when you take into account that his super-trigonometry (Wikipedia, bitches, it's listed there) allows his optic blasts to hit you from damn near anywhere. Suddenly, "Slim" Summers seems deserving of his place as a top tier X-Star.

Now, I really am not a fan of Wolverine either. Scott's antithesis on the team is more in line with my way of life (do what needs to get done, and if authority hinders your ability to do so, then circumvent said authority.) The over-exposure of being in every book, on 3 X-teams and the Avengers, a solo series, and Claremont's fan-fiction-gone-wrong romp through imaginationland do nothing to help matters and pretty much take a potentially good man and make you forget why you ever liked him in the first place. And at this point I'm not sure if I'm talking about Wolverine or Claremont. However, in what I like to call the Mighty Putty Effect (moment of silence for one of my all-time heroes) Cyke and Wolvie are magically an intriguing duo when placed together. Given the opportunity to play off each other, they can pull readers in the way that neither could on his own. It's hard not to take sides (I think I already told you which one I would be) in their war of methodologies, but at the same time, you really can't disrespect either. A Cyclops solo book would still, undoubtedly, be boring as balls, but as a team player, and a team leader, Scott isn't the pusoit (pronounced: poo-swah) I once thought he was. I'm off to go apologize to anyone I ever made fun of for liking the character.