Be it comics, cartoons, or movies, Cyclops often seems to be the victim of poor writing, intentionally or not, generally at the hands of writers who either A) don't like him or B) don't understand him, or C) are too busy drooling over Wolverine.
Why do you think this is, besides the fact that people have an unhealthy amount of love for Wolverine (a character who quite frankly is grossly overrated)?
It's C
I have read the comics and still do. the comics does Cyclops justice. He has really expanded his role as a leader. Now that Wolverine has his own series and is a part of X-Force and the Avengers, the X-Men comics aren't focused on him that much. But as for the cartoons (most notably W&tXM) and movies, there always excuses where Cyclops is portrayed as a weakling in order to make Wolverine look great to the public.
Me personally never found WOlverine interesting. The movies made me even hate him more because he stoled the spotlight
I'm gonna have to go with a mix of B) and C).
shareI would say B & C cause A to occur.
The writers don't understand Cyclops because his character lies mostly beneath the surface. He makes incredibly difficult decisions, and leads a team of wildly different individuals in attempt to achieve peace among humans and mutants. On the surface, all one sees is his cold attitude and stoic nature, so if a writer that is unfamiliar with the character takes over, Cyclops is usually the "boy scout" leader. Additionally, Wolverine is the one who gets to be exciting and action-packed. While I don't hate the character, I find it dull that he is indestructible. Writers love Wolverine because he is a "bad-ass," but with him being un-killable, it really isn't so impressive when he rushes into a dangerous situation. What makes Cyclops amazing isn't his mutant abilities, but his leadership skills... which in a sense means it is the human side of Scott Summers that is extraordinary, not the mutant side.
Writers tend to not like Cyclops and make him weak mainly because it helps make Wolverine look strong. They almost make Cyclops look like that antagonist so Wolverine can be the spotlight hero. WatX and the films especially made Cyclops look bad in order to sell the Wolverine character. It stems from lazy writing, and an inability to comprehend each X-Men well.
Cyclops doesn't always get the short end of the stick though. In the 90's series he comes across as a highly skilled and capable leader who isn't afraid to stand up to loose cannons like Wolverine and Gambit who do secretely respect his leadership, despite their outward cockiness and defiance. In Evolution, considering the relatively minimal role of Wolverine, he is one of the major characters, far less stoic and more extroverted, a 'big brother' for the other X-kids who slowly matures into an inspiring leader. The first two episodes of Season Three are a perfect depiction of Cyclops as a great leader of the X-men.
When it comes to the movies, I feel Cyclops was portrayed pretty well in the first one, but in the second and third ones he didn't really have much screen-time...so it wasn't like he was the victim of bad writing...he simply wasn't THERE.
The only onscreen version of him I've liked was in X-men: evolution. He was actually an independent character, pretty likeable with a sense of humor, and acted like a leader.
share Are we all assuming the writing of his character in this series was bad? I actually kind of liked his role here. It was kind of like he and Wolverine switched places. And I could see how losing Jean would bring him to that state. And he's a character who has to make alot of tough decissions, mostly centered around deciding to be an independant and swayed by his emotions, or to fall in line with the team. It'd be a very uncomfortable place for a former leader to be.
"Inside my heart is breaking, my makeup may be faking, but my smile still stays on!"
Are we all assuming the writing of his character in this series was bad? I actually kind of liked his role here. It was kind of like he and Wolverine switched places. And I could see how losing Jean would bring him to that state. And he's a character who has to make alot of tough decissions, mostly centered around deciding to be an independant and swayed by his emotions, or to fall in line with the team. It'd be a very uncomfortable place for a former leader to be.
Well to each their own, but I was not impressed by the execution of the subplot. They never showed Cyclops having ever been the team's leader or even just a competent hero. Hell, his origin episode basically pegged him as an incompetent loser who could never do anything right and that the X-Men would have gotten by just fine without him; even his 'relationship' with Jean was unconvincing. So what does that say? It says that Wolverine didn't replace a leader, he became the leader of a team that apparently never had one. That's not exactly an emotionally involving story of a fallen hero; the hero apparently never had much of a grace period to fall from. And considering where season 2 was set up to go, I doubt things would have ever improved for him.
i found him to be pretty annoying in the Animated series and ok in this. I preferred him in Evolution he was abit more of a leader and more interesting.
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