* while Captain America was said to be the best leader and tactician in Marvel, Cyclops (esp. in the recent arcs before AvX) is shown to be better than Cap in most areas... in some instances they were together, Cyke ordered field tactics impromptu (when they are in the Negative Zone with Hope and Namor) and Cap obeyed like a soldier from a general... but most of the times, Cyke treats Cap with utmost respect, albeit because of his age, stature, position in government, etc., often addressing Cap as "sir"... given the age gap between them and their leadership and strategic skills are in paper-thin close, Cyke has the potential to surpass Cap...
He's fairly good until his personal life causes professional problems. Other than the X-Force problem and schism, he did cause inferno and all of its consequences.
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
Yes, I'm sure Sinister made him abandon his wife and kid and then hide his marriage from Jean and then avoid contacting Maddie after she disappeared and was nearly beaten to death by the Marauders and assumed that some random, horribly beaten redhead was Maddie and that his kid was dead. That's kind of why I like the original X-Factor it's three washed-up guys trying to regain their glory, a recently dead chick, and a horribly repressed walking nutcase being manipulated into starting a superhero team and hurting their own best interests by a genocidal terrorist posing as their friend.
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
What would you call walking out the door on his crying screaming wife and kid in X-Factor #1?
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
Yeah, after months of "nah, I won't call her, she dosn't pick up and she probably hates me and I definitely won't ask the X-Men...". It took Jean pressuring him after she coaxed the story out of him and Cameron Hodge leading him to a Daredevil style psychosis to go search for her. And then he sees the first redhead in a morgue, decides it's her, forgets his son, takes down Mastermold, and comes back in time to not prevent his friend's supposed suicide. Awesome.
As I recall, When those first 20 or so issues of X-Factor came out, people weren't defending Cyclops, they were going after Marvel exactly for the fact that they brought back Jean in a fashion that turned Scott Summers into an Ass Hole.
That's was one of the main themes of the original X-Factor's run (and possibly even before the with X-Men 201). Scott being horrible, facing the consequences of his actions, and then atoning for them.
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
Last edited by Darth Jello on Jul 11th, 2012 at 03:34 AM
* yes, it's the writers' fault, that's why they retconned some of it, like Madelyne messing Scott's head in his leadership duel against Storm... as far as i recall, the writers planned to make Scott and Madelyne "live happily ever after", and having him guest-star in X-men series in special occasions... but they really want to revive the original five X-men as the X-Terminators (X-Factor), so they went for it --- at Scott's expense...
I'm not saying that what he did was right, or that it was moral; I just don't consider it abandonment, because while it might have looked that way from Maddie's side, it never did on Cyclops' side.
Obviously the intention is that Cyclops is supposed to be a great leader and tactician. So he is up there with the best.
Now like most comic characters if you took the time to actually break down his plans you would probably think he wasn't but that's most comic characters.
Actually, the more I think about it, Cyclops' whole Arc from Uncanny X-Men 198 through 201, then through all of the classic X-Factor and up to the mid-90's really is a good story of coming of age, fall, and redemption.
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
For Kuurth alone, in the short span of time that they knew about him, he came up with over 26 plans to take him down.
Mayor: What if this doesn't stop him?
Cyclops: We go to Plan B.
Mayor: Plan B? You just keep going until you get to Z?
Cyclops: That would insinuate I only have 26 plans.
"Leader" and "tactician" are really seperate skills and don't necessarily go together.
Leader:
I think it's unfair to compare Scott to cosmic-level characters and gods, so we'll just keep it restricted to Earth.
Ignoring what happens when you put Cyclops in a room with a hot telepath unsupervised, and focus ONLY on his performance during combat and team interaction, he is in the top ten but not the top five leaders. Cap, Fury, Doom, Magneto and T'challa command more respect and loyalty in my opinion. Keep in mind that three of these men have ruled their own countries, the collection of M day survivors Scott leads is simply not as impressive in comparison.
Tactician:
This is my comfort zone. I have been studying real-life tacticians and strategists all my life.
Once again, Cyclops in in the top ten, but can't crack the top five. Given equal strength forces and battle conditions, I think Cap, Fury, Doom, Sage and Mentac, The Living Computer (look him up!) could beat him. Reed Richards could beat Scott if he had proper time to plan, and Cable could beat him if there was no time to plan and all decisions would have to be made on the fly during combat. There is also the Gamesmaster, but I won't count him since he might all well be cosmic. Smart Alec deserves honorable mention as well, but can't handle the pressure of combat. He'd smash Scott at a game of chess though.
I know it seems like I'm bashing, but I'm really not trying to. The company Cyclops is in regarding leadership and tactics is quite impressive.
p.s.
Darth. Stop it now. Just stop. Take it from me, trying to convince Cyclops fanboys that their guy is a dirtbag is like trying to teach Zen to a bunch of monkeys. You won't succeed and you will get frustrated.