Cyclops (Scott Summers)

**Scott Summers**, also known as the **Cyclops**, is one of the major characters from the *Marvel* Comics.

The first X-Man, Scott Summers possesses the mutant ability to draw ambient energy from another dimension through his eyes which are actually portals to the dimension, he usually channels this energy into concussive force blasts. He is visually distinctive for the ruby quartz visor he wears to control his devastating power. A born leader, Cyclops succeeded his mentor Professor X to command the X-Men.

In the AWA fics, Cyclops is set to appear in a future AWA storyline.

## **Appearance**

Scott is a tall, muscular man with a messy brown hair. He wears a blue full bodysuit with yellow & red X-Men symbol patch strapped on the left side of his shoulder and chest, a yellow utility belt with pouches and red X-Men buckle wrapped around his waist, he wears a yellow underwear beneath the bodysuit, yellow rings around his legs, boots and gloves. And wears a yellow eyewear with red visors.

## **Personality**

Scott is brave, self-less, a master tactician and first-rate leader. He has very low self-esteem however, holding a low opinion of himself and obsessing over his shortcomings and failures. Socially, he has described himself as an introvert. As a leader, he is very strict and no-nonsense, demanding seriousness, dedication and skill, usually earning him the dislike of more rebellious team members such as Wolverine.

Scott also has a plethora of mental issues, bottling up his emotions and refusing to confront his issues, despite this affecting him adversely. Being possessed by Apocalypse profoundly affected Scott, stirring up many emotions he had repressed, and making him question his life and his marriage.

After beginning his relationship with Emma Frost, Scott's personality softened somewhat and his confidence and self-esteem improved, despite having to face more hardships than ever. This is generally attributed to counselling he received from Frost, and his happiness with their relationship.

## **Abilities**

### **Powers**

#### **Optic Force Blasts**

Cyclops possesses the mutant ability to project powerful beams of heatless force from his eyes, which act as extra-dimensional apertures to a source of pure energy. Cyclops constantly absorbs ambient sunlight into his body's cells, metabolizing the energy in order to open the apertures.

Cyclops' mind generates a psionic field that is attuned to the same forces that maintain the apertures. This field envelops his body, protecting him from his own power. Even the thin membranes of Cyclops' eyelids are sufficient to block the emission of energy, allowing him to contain power by simply closing his eyes. The synthetic ruby quartz crystals used in the lenses of Cyclops' sunglasses and visor are resonant to his minds' psionic field, making them the only substance that can effectively block his blasts.

The width of Cyclops' optic blast is controlled by his mind's psionic field. As Cyclops focuses the apertures in his eyes are altered to control the flow of energy and the power of the beam, which is filtered through his visor.

The maximum force of Cyclops' blasts is unknown, but a commonly given description is that they can "punch holes through mountains", and he has been shown rupturing steel plates and pulverizing solid rock. It has been stated that Cyclops uses only a *fraction* of his vast potential energy output. His more powerful optic blasts can demolish fully-armored tanks, severely damage Sentinels, and obliterate entire icebergs.

Though the extra-dimensional energy supply of Cyclops' blasts is practically infinite, his own stamina is not. He can exhaust himself by projecting too much energy for a continuous rate, resulting in his blasts weakening in power. So long as Cyclops's psionic field is active (which is constantly) there is the potential to emit energy, with the only limit being the mental fatigue of focusing for an extended period.

Due to psychological trauma and a head injury, Cyclops is unable to shut off his optic blasts and must therefore wear ruby quartz lenses at all times to block the beams. Emma Frost revealed that the trauma of losing his family, and anxiety of hurting someone with his power, are primarily responsible for his lack of control. Mr. Sinister has claimed that Cyclops' eyes have become reliant on ruby quartz, making it harder for him to control the blasts on his own. After overcoming his past trauma, with some "help" from Emma, Cyclops gained control of his power for a period of time. He gradually began losing control however, and had to revert back to using his special eyewear.

Cyclops' mutation has been altered after his prolonged exposure to the Phoenix Force, resulting in a much greater power output. His blast strength has been increased to the point that Cyclops was able to briefly hurt Dormammu. Despite this upgrade in power, it does come at a price. Cyclops has lost further control of his optic blasts, causing him to overexert himself rapidly. Another side effect of blasts being altered is that he has many smaller blasts that branch off of the main blast. Instead of one focused beam, it is one large beam with a bunch of smaller ones that spiral off at the sides from the main beam, thus making his blasts much harder to dodge. Overtime and more use, Cyclops' blasts returned to their normal shape and power without any side effects.

#### **Spatial Awareness**

Cyclops possesses a uncanny talent for spatial geometry, enhancing his observation of objects around him and the angles found between surfaces of these objects. This inborn talent grants him the ability to ricochet and/or reflect his optic blasts off objects in a trajectory to his liking. Cyclops has honed this intuitive spatial awareness through extensive training in the Danger Room, enhancing his accuracy in the use of his mutant power. He has been observed reflecting beams off of half a dozen different surfaces in the course of a single optic blast, hitting multiple targets accurately.

#### **Energy Resistance**

Just as Cyclops is resistant to the effects of his own power, he is resistant to his brother Havok's power as a result of their familial genetic coding. Likewise, Havok is resistant to Cyclops' power. Both have only a limited resistance to their brother Vulcan's powers.

#### **Master Tactician and Strategist**

Cyclops has spent the majority of his heroic career as field leader of either the X-Men or X-Factor, and has developed exceptional leadership skills. According to Nick Fury, Cyclops' leadership skills are at their best in tense situations. Fury notes that the less time Cyclops has to think about a decision, the better it tends to be. Professor X entrusted Cyclops with the tremendous responsibility of leading the X-Men, sensing that he possessed a strong combination of analytical intelligence and tactical brilliance.

After years of intensive training in the Danger Room and leading teams of X-Men into combat, Cyclops has evolved into an eminent strategist and battle tactician. It is notable that regardless of their attitude towards his leadership style, the majority of the X-Men tend to obey Cyclops' orders in battle - because they know that he's usually right.

#### **Master Combatant**

As an X-Man, Cyclops has undergone intensive training since his teens to become the ideal mutant warrior. He is a superb athlete and martial artist with extensive training in hand-to-hand combat, holding black belts in judo and aikido. His combat prowess is sufficient enough to easily take down a gang of thugs with his eyes closed, disarm and beat down a gunman before he could get a shot off when Cyclops' back was turned, and effortlessly defeat a trio of brutish convicts.

#### **Mental Resistance**

Thanks to training from Professor Xavier, and due in part to his own emotional stoicism, Cyclops has developed a degree of resistance to psychic probing and manipulation. He is virtually immune to casual scans, and possesses an awareness that makes him difficult to read even for high-level telepaths. Cyclops has honed his mind to such a point that he can maintain his psychic defenses subconscious. He has done so to the point that his defenses even while he sleeps aren't easy to get through, as admitted by a telepath like Emma Frost. He was capable of trapping a sliver of the Void, a dark and powerful entity, in a psychic prison within his mind.

#### **Expert Pilot**

Cyclops is a talented pilot of fixed-wing aircraft, a skill that he appears to have inherited from his father. It has been implied that Cyclops' intuitive geometric sense improves his abilities in the air. He often acts as the primary pilot of the X-Jet.

### **Paraphernalia**

#### **Ruby Quartz Visor**

Aside from the usual advanced technology that is at the X-Men's disposal, Cyclops has one essential piece of equipment that he can never be without: his ruby quartz visor. Designed by Professor X for Cyclops when he became the first X-Man, the visor is the source of Cyclops' code name due to the single ruby quartz lens running from eye to eye.

Cyclops can open and close the battle visor's adjustable slit, precisely altering the amount of energy he emits. Although he has never gained complete control over his mutant power, Cyclops has successfully mastered the use of his battle visor to become an expert marksman with his optic blasts.

Due to his broken powers, Cyclops' old visor has become inefficient at containing his blasts, causing his visor to fly off of his face. He has now resorted to wearing an X shaped visor that is attached to his mask to prevent his visor from flying off of his face.

#### **Ruby Quartz Sunglasses**

Made of the same material as his visor, Cyclops usually wears his sunglasses under more casual circumstances. He has at at times gotten caught in battle with his sunglasses on and has mastered using them in battle if the circumstances calls for it. However, he does prefer to use his visor due to the precision and security it offers on the battlefield.

## **Trivia**

* Chris Claremont actually originally wanted to retire Cyclop's character from the X-Men comics. His original endgame was for Scott to settle down and start a family with Jean Grey, but then Jean got killed off and his plan then changed to have Scott settle down and start a family with Madelyn Pryor (who was basically just a Replacement Scrappy stand in for Jean), with his story being the "symbol" of a character graduating from Xavier's School. Editors vetoed this idea, and what we got was Scott eventually (and this is over simplifying things) attempting to abandon his family for the resurrected Jean Grey - and then it turned out Madelyn was an evil clone of Jean.
* Cyclops has been hit with a lot of this over the years, both by fans and by writers. Depending on the Writer he's either a kind, compassionate man who simply suffers from bad social skills or he's a stubborn jerkass control freak who may or may not have developed some very bigoted disdain towards the humans who have persecuted him and his fellow mutants.
* Scott's Eye Beams, which have had competing explanations over the years. Originally lasers and later "force blasts", the explanation for why Scott's body didn't suffer any recoil when unleashing that much force became that the blasts originated from a "non-Einsteinian" dimension or universe. Explanations as to how Scott can make his blasts reflect off of walls like lasers off of mirrors or how he can use them to cushion his body when falling (that is, recoil suddenly being a thing when useful) tend to be ignored.
* A common nickname for Scott is Slim, dating back to the first issue of the comic.