Cyclops

"This is Scott Summers, also called Cyclops."

- Professor X

Cyclops is a fictional superhero of the X-Men film series. Born Scott Summers, he is a mutant with the ability to produce powerful optic blasts from his eyes, forcing him to wear specialized glasses at all times and a specialized visor in combat. The character is one of the prominent members of the X-Men, and is featured as the field leader of the group.

Early life
Scott Summers was the son of USAF major Christopher Summers and his wife Katherine. Scott was born and grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and when he was a boy his father took the family on vacation on his personal aircraft. However, the plane was damaged in a storm, and Christopher and Katherine tossed Scott out of the plane with the only parachute available. The airplane exploded, killing Scott's parents, but he managed to jump in time. However, the flames of the explosion hit Scott's parachute, and he suffered a heavy fall in a nearby forest. He survived, but suffered a head trauma which left him in comatose state and made him loose the memories of his childhood.

Scott stood in a hospital during one year. After recovering, the boy was taken to an orphanage in Omaha, Nebraska, where he remained for a good part of his life. Years later, now a teenager, Scott started suffering intense headaches and pressure in his eyes, and a specialist discovered that special glasses with ruby quartz lenses could solve the problem. While walking near a construction site, Scott's mutant ability unleashed for the first time as an unstoppable optic blast that demolished a crane. Before the crane falls on the citizens, however, Scott used another blast to disintegrate the object and save their life. The crowd then attacked Scott, thinking he was trying to kill them, but he managed to escape. After this, he started to use special ruby quartz glasses at all times to control his blasts.

During a day at high school, Scott's teacher told him to took his glasses off, but knowing of what would happen if he does so, he claimed he was having a headache and kept it. He is then punished to copy words on a blackboard after class, but is suddenly attacked by Sabretooth, who wants to capture him for William Stryker's mutant experiments. During the chase, Scott's glasses fall off and his optic blasts damage the school building. He is then sedated by Stryker and finally taken captive. Summer's is sent to Three Mile Island, where Stryker extracts samples of his DNA to use on his Weapon XI. Blinded with a bandage, Summers is later freed when a vengeful Wolverine attacks Stryker's facility. While escaping, Scott makes use of his eye beams to annihilate Stryker's minions, being pointed in the right direction by Emma Frost. He then hears a voice in his head telling him the direction he must go to escape. He follows this voice and guides the other mutants to safety. Outside, he meets Charles Xavier for the first time and leaves with him on his helicopter. Shortly after, Xavier admitted Scott as the first member of the X-Men, training him in the use of his powers.

X-Men
"You've taught me everything in my life that was ever worth knowing. And if anything happens, I'll take care of them."

- Cyclops to Professor X

Summers became the first student of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. Doing much more than just teach Scott use his superhuman abilities, the Professor X transformed the young mutant in a honored and brave man using precise instruction and an unique example. Xavier became the father Scott never had. Over the years, Scott assumed the title of field leader of the X-Men, becoming the second-in-command and the most loyal disciple of Xavier. Natural leader, Summers was a teenager of little social life. Scott fell in love with his classmate Jean Grey, but he was too much shy to tell her his true feelings. After some time, however, they started a relationship.

For Scott, the X-Men are much more then just a team; they are his friends and his life. Despite believing in heavy training and strict discipline, Scott made lots of friends and obtained respect and their trust. His friends often nicknamed him “cyclops”, a joke on his special combat visor. Cyclops helped Xavier in the training of various young mutants in the use of their powers and became a teacher at the school. Also with the help of Xavier, Scott recovered some memories of his childhood and discovered that his grandparents were still alive and administrating a company on Canada.

Leading the X-Men with his conduct example, Cyclops found an enemy on the mutant terrorist Magneto, leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants and an old friend of Professor Xavier. Over the years, the X-Men fought the Brotherhood and made an effort on frustrating their plans. During these adventures, Scott and Jean became engaged. Alongside Jean and Storm, Cyclops became one of the three only founder members of the X-Men to remain at the Xavier School.

Mutant Registration Act
"Some mutants take pride on their gifts, especially those of us who are willing to fight for what we believe in."

- Cyclops to Wolverine

During the controversial Mutant Registration Act in the United States, the Brotherhood of Mutants became more active and made several actions around the world. Cyclops and Storm traveled to Alberta, Canada, to prevent Sabretooth from kidnapping the mutants Wolverine and his friend Rogue. Scott used his powers to save them before their truck explodes, but Sabretooth managed to dodge from an optic blast and escaped. They returned to the school, where Scott developed a certain hostility towards the sarcastic Wolverine, mainly because of his flirts with his fiancée Jean Grey.

After an accident at the school, Rogue decided to leave the mansion. Using his machine Cerebro, the Professor X located her in a train station, and sent Cyclops and Storm to try to convince her to return. However, after arriving at the station Storm is attacked by Sabretooth, and before Scott is able of helping her Toad uses his stretch tongue to remove Cyclops visor. The unexpected removal of his visor made Scott unleash a large optic blast that destroyed the roof of the train station. The Brotherhood then kidnaps Rogue and escape.

After returning to the school, Scott and the X-Men discovers Magneto's plan when Xavier read the mind of Senator Robert Kelly, who had been kidnapped by Magneto and artificially turned into a mutant, but had managed to escape captivity. However, while trying tho use Cerebro to locate Rogue, Xavier ended up in a coma thanks to a virus previously planted in the machine by Mystique. Cyclops then promises to an unconscious Xavier that he would take care of the X-Men if he dies. With great effort, Jean is able of using Cerebro and locates the Brotherhood of Mutants at the Statue of Liberty. Cyclops then quickly orchestrates a plan to reach Liberty Island in the X-Jet without being noticed by the harbor patrol and flees from the Xavier School, reluctantly taking Wolverine with them.

After arriving at the island, Cyclops notices Magneto's machine at the statue's torch and the X-Men enters the Statue of Liberty. However, Mystique uses her powers to impersonate Wolverine, but as she is about to strike Scott the real Wolverine attacks her. Cyclops is then attacked by Toad, who kicks and locks him in a separated room. Scott uses his powers to free himself and finds Jean with the face covered by Toad's goo. Summer's then uses a low intensity optic blast to help Jean, and later reunites with Wolverine and Storm.

At the Statue of Liberty's head, the X-Men are attacked by Magneto, who uses metal bars to immobilize them. Scott is placed in front of Jean, and Sabretooth removes his visor, in a way that if he open his eyes he would blast her at point-blank. However, Wolverine manages to free himself and take the visor from Sabretooth, and Jean uses her powers to bring it to Scott, who blasts Sabretooth and throw him of the Statue of Liberty. In a combined effort of their powers, Storm levitates Wolverine to Magneto's machine and Jean stabilizes him. However, even while weak, Magneto is able of immobilizing Wolverine. Cyclops then concentrates and is able of hitting Magneto with a precise optic blast, and Wolverine destroys the machine and rescues Rogue, preventing various artificial mutations that would kill the population of New York City as well as the world leaders that were reuniting at Ellis Island.

Magneto is arrested, and the X-Men then returns to the school. The Professor X then recovers from his coma, and the Mutant Registration Act looses its strength when Mystique starts impersonating the deceased Senator Robert Kelly. Wolverine then leaves the school and starts a lonely journey to learn details from his past, taking Cyclops motorcycle with him.

Weapon X
Shortly after the battle at the Statue of Liberty, Scott notices that Jean was starting to loose control over her powers. During a visit to a science museum with the younger students of the Xavier School, Summers noticed that something was really wrong with Jean. She told him that she felt something terrible was about to happen, and Scott promised he would never let something bad happen to her. The X-Men then discovered that a mutant had tried to kill the President of United States at the White House, and Cyclops suspected Magneto was behind this. Professor Xavier then used the Cerebro machine and located this mutant at an abandoned church on Boston, and sent Jean and Storm after him. During these events, Wolverine returned to the school, and Scott let him stay with his motorcycle.

Professor X and Cyclops then went to Magneto's plastic prison to discover if he was involved in the attack. However, while Xavier and Magneto talk, a soporific gas was liberated in the room and they slept. Cyclops then is attacked by Lady Deathstrike, who fires him with sedative darts, but he strikes back and hits her with an optic blast. Scott then hits another guard, but one of the security officers holds his hand and he is forced to confront them in hand-to-hand combat. After easily defeating them, however, Cyclops is once again attacked by Deathstrike, who immobilizes him against a wall and defeats him.

Cyclops and Professor X are then taken to the Weapon X complex on the underground of Alkali Lake. While Xavier is tortured by William Stryker (the man who captured Cyclops when he was younger and the one responsible for the attack on the President), Scott is handcuffed in an empty room and is made prisoner by a group of soldiers, who uses a bandage to contain his optic blasts. Stryker later injects a chemical on Cyclops neck to be able to control his actions and put him against his friends.

The X-Men then infiltrated the Weapon X complex to rescue Professor Xavier, and Cyclops is sent to confront them. He ended up finding Magneto, Mystique and Jean Grey, and almost hit them with an optic blast. Jean then decides to fight Cyclops alone while the others search for Xavier. She uses her telekinesis to push him against a wall, and Scott falls on a lower level after hitting a car with his beams. Jean follows him, and he attacks her by surprise with a strong optic blast, but she is able to defend herself with a telekinetic barrier. However, Jean uses her Phoenix force to push Cyclops, and this spreads the energy of his optic blasts all over the room and causes a severe damage at the dam structure. With the impact, Scott returns to normal and reunites with Jean, who had injured her leg.

While searching for the other X-Men, the pair is hit by the mental beam generated by Dark Cerebro to kill all the mutants of the Earth. However, Magneto finds the Dark Cerebro and manages to stop it, but he reconfigures the machine to kill humans instead of mutants. Scott and Jean then reunites with the other X-Men at the Dark Cerebro's door, and they plan how to stop the machine and save Professor X. Cyclops cogitates using his powers to destroy the door, but Jean tells him that if he do so Xavier and all the humans would die because of the mental link generated by the machine. Nightcrawler then teleports himself and Storm to the inside of Dark Cerebro, and they manage to stop the machine and save Professor X right before the complex desmoronate.

The X-Men then escapes the Weapon X complex with the help of Wolverine, who leads them through a safe exit. Rogue then pilots the X-Jet to their location, but the landing causes a damage to the jet. As the dam breaks, Jean decides to sacrifice herself so her friends and Scott can survive. She uses her Phoenix force to hold down the water wave, and uses a mental connection with Professor Xavier to tell her last words to Scott, saying goodbye. As the X-Jet (mentally controlled by Jean) flies away, she is hit by the wave and dies.

Phoenix
"Scott's a changed man. He took Jean's death so hard."

- Professor X to Storm

Scott was devastated by Jean Grey's death. He somewhat felt responsible by this, asking himself if there was anything the X-Men could do to save her. Cyclops then fell in depression, and started ignoring his obligations as the X-Men's field leader, not even helping them in the battle against Hydra and the Master Mold. Professor Xavier himself assumed Scott was not the same person, and even considered that Storm could be a better replacement for him. Even Wolverine told him that it was time to move on, but he ignored this, saying that not everybody heals as fast as him. However, the true reason behind Scott's grief was that shortly after Jean's death he started suffering hallucinations of her calling him back to Alkali Lake.

After the voices in his head became insupportable, Cyclops leaved the Xavier School and headed to the Alkali Lake. Desperate, he asked the voices to stop and unleashed an powerful optic blast at the lake. After the voices suddenly stopped, he noticed that his beam had caused some kind of anomaly at the lake, and then he is hit by an energy wave. As he stand up, Scott see Jean standing in front of him. He asks her how is she still alive, and she remarks she don't know. Jean then tells Scott that she wants to see his eyes, claiming that now she have the power to control them, and as he reluctantly removes his glasses his beams are contained and his eyes turns to their natural shade of blue. Scott then kiss Jean, but suddenly she turns into the Phoenix and caused a distortion on his face, apparently killing him. This anomaly is sensed at the Xavier School, and Professor X sent Wolverine and Storm to the lake, where they only find Scott's ruby quartz glasses and an unconscious Jean.

At the school, Wolverine asks Jean what happened to Scott, and she tells him to kill her before she kills another person. Shortly after, Professor X confronts Jean at her parents residence, saying that because of her lack of control she had killed the man she loved, but the Phoenix unleashes and kills Xavier, disintegrating his body. Later, Wolverine kills Jean at the battle on Alcatraz, finally finishing the Phoenix evil. Scott Summers' grave is then placed at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, located at the side of Jean Grey's and Charles Xavier's memorials.

Powers and abilities
"If Scott open his eyes without that visor, he can punch a hole through a mountain. I think its good for all of us if he has a sense of control, don't you?"

- Jean Grey to Wolverine

Cyclops is a mutant, capable of projecting powerful beams of ruby red colored concussive force from his eyes, which are often called optic blasts. The beams derive their power from the absorption of ambient energy, most notably sunlight; Cyclops' cells are constantly absorbing solar and other energy and transferring it to his eyes. Scott's optic blasts can project heat and cause things to burn sometimes, but normally the beam generates pressure which can pummel and subsequently, if desired, destroy objects.

Possibly because of a head injury suffered in his childhood, Scott was left unable to consciously control his powers&mdash;his optic beams are now constantly "on," and will project indefinitely when his eyes are open. Scott is immune to the harmful effects of his own powers&mdash;the natural psionic field which surrounds his body safely absorbs the energy of his beams if they should come into contact with his body. Hence, he is able to block the beams simply by closing his eyes, with even the thin material of his eyelids being sufficient. To allow him to function in day-to-day life, Scott wears a set of eyeglasses made of ruby quartz, a material which is resonant to his psionic field, and hence blocks his beams in a similar fashion. In combat, Cyclops uses a specialized ruby quartz visor (built with a single, long lens, hence Summers' alias "Cyclops") housing adjustable apertures that allow him to control the size and intensity of the beams.

The maximum force of Cyclops' optic blasts are unknown, but a commonly given description is that he can "punch holes through mountains". It is also stated that Cyclops does not use his powers at such a level due to the preoccupation he has regarding his control (or lack thereof) of his abilities.

Cyclops also has extensive training in martial arts and unarmed combat, holding black belts in judo and aikido. In addition, he has been known to incorporate the martial arts and fighting styles of his teammates into his own self-defense system, calculating the most successful features of their styles and adapting them for his own use.

Cyclops is an expert pilot of fixed-wing aircraft, a skill he appears to have inherited from his father. A master strategist and tactician, Cyclops has spent most of his superhero career as the leader of the X-Men and has developed exceptional leadership skills. It is notable that regardless of their general attitude towards him, all of the X-Men tend to obey his orders in battle&mdash;because they know that he's usually right.

In the comic books, Cyclops seems to possess an uncanny sense of geometry, in this sense used to describe his observation of objects around himself and the angles found between surfaces of these objects. Cyclops has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to cause his optic blasts to ricochet and/or reflect off those objects in a trajectory to his liking. This is commonly called a "banked shot" when applied to this talent. Cyclops has been observed causing beams to reflect from over a dozen surfaces in the course of one blast, and still hit his intended target accurately. It is possible he may possess a sense of superhumanly enhanced spatial awareness that allows him to perform these feats as well. Although, as these abilities are never shown in the films, it is unknown if the movie version of Cyclops also possesses these powers. In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, unlike his comic book counterpart and previous movies, it is revealed that Cyclops' optic blasts produce heat as the rubble from the school is set on fire, and when Weapon Xl attacks Wolverine with Cyclops' optic blasts, Wolverine defends by holding his adamantium claws to his face. The result causes Wolverine's claws to heat up and turn a bright orange/red.

Behind-the-scenes
Cyclops has been a mainstay character of the X-Men since the character was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. His first appearance was in X-Men (vol. 1) #1, September 1963, where he was one of the five original X-Men (alongside Jean Grey, Beast, Angel and Iceman). Summers has also been a regular in the first series of X-Factor, Ultimate X-Men and also Astonishing X-Men. Over the years, Cyclops has appeared in a few limited series including Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix, Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix, X-Men: The Search for Cyclops and his own self-titled series Cyclops.

In the traditional comics, Cyclops is similar to his movie counterpart, being the first student of Xavier and one of the original X-Men. However, there are some notable differences, such as his optic blasts being inter-dimensional apertures between this universe and another, his uncanny sense of geometry (wich he uses to ricochet/reflect his beams at some objects) and also his family relationships: in the comics, his father becomes Corsair, and Scott have two younger brothers named Havok and Vulcan. Apart from Jean Grey, he was also romantically involved with Madelyne Pryor, Emma Frost, Coleen Wing, Lee Forrester and Psylocke. Cyclops is the father of Cable, and have children from alternate realities named Rachel Summers and Nate Grey. He was also a former radio moderator and, apart from the X-Men, was affiliated with the X-Factor, X-Terminators and The Twelve. His other aliases includes Cyke, Eric the Red, Mutate #007, Slim and Slym Dayspring.

In the X-Men film series, Cyclops is portrayed by James Marsden. Although an important figure and leader in the films, his role is increasingly reduced in favor of other mutants, most notably Wolverine. This is most evident in The Last Stand, where Cyclops had very little screen time. It is thought to be due to Marsden's filming of Superman Returns, where he played Richard White. The Phoenix "apparently" kills him off-screen as they kiss. The fact that Cyclops' death is never shown on film has led many fans to believe that he may not be dead, and actor James Marsden himself expressed interest in returning in future movies. In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, wich is a prequel to the X-Men trilogy, actor Tim Pocock portrays a younger version of Scott Summers. The film shows Scott's first encounter wit Professor X. The movie version of Cyclops is a playable character in the video games X-Men: Mutant Academy, X-Men: Mutant Academy 2 and the Mobile version of X-Men: The Official Game, where he is voiced by James Arnold Taylor. He is also mentioned in X2: Wolverine's Revenge.

Cyclops optic blast visual effects in the films is a combination of practical and CGI effects. Visual effects supervisor Michael Finch used the concept of the blast having no heat or incendiary effect, and described it as "a powerful flow of water or cannon ball, wich destroys targets with its impact force". To create the blast itself, the crew used an initial spark animation to give a propulsion/heat feeling when Scott open his eyes, and when the beam hits something they used particle animation to create a splash and give it an almost liquid visual. The objects hit by the beam sometimes were computer generated, but in most part they were real objects that were destroyed. For example, for the known train station sequence, the crew built a smaller version of the station and destroyed it, and later combined it with the optic blast CGI effects. Actor James Marsden himself confessed being a fan of practical effects but enjoyed the optic blasts because they were different at every time, sometimes as "a concussive beam of force that can blow the roof of a train station, and also be razor tin". In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Cyclops beams are given to the character of Weapon XI, and the blasts do produce heat.

Appearances

 * X-Men Origins: Wolverine
 * X-Men
 * X-Men: Mutant Academy
 * X-Men: Mutant Academy 2
 * X2: X-Men United
 * X2: Wolverine's Revenge (mentioned only)
 * X-Men: The Official Game
 * X-Men: The Last Stand