IV: A Clock Without A Craftsman As a young man, all Scott remembered were foggy details of an airplane crash, and having a brother called Alex. Everything else was nothing but still images blinking in his mind's eye before disappearing as he was told by the State Home for Foundlings, in Omaha, that these were not memories, but fabrications his brain was prone to thanks to a head injury he had suffered as a young boy. Scott grew up alone, feeling different than other kids around him, awkward and reticent, unsure of what was real, something that gave him terrible nightmares at night, dreadful moments where thought he was elsewhere, in a lab, with a strange, pale monster. Unfortunately, nightmares with the 'pale monster' were dreadfully common among the children, who took to calling him... Mr. Sinister. Growing up, Scott felt increasing effects of this stress and the damage to his brain in the form of powerful headaches, every week after his fourteeth birthday growing more and more unbearable until the young man was given ruby qartz glasses by the local physician, Mr. Milbury. The headaches vanished, for a while, enough for Scott to be in the rec room with the other children when the Fantastic Four made their first public appearance, and heroes became more than ideas, they became a reality. Suddenly the weight of discovering the truth about himself became overwhelming. In an ordinary world maybe he could have been Scott, the orphanage loser, but in a world with heroes and villains, he had to make more sense out of life than it. With a world growing ever crazier and surreal, Scott became obsessed with the pieces of it all, and how he might fit in. His whole life was pieces of a whole, and like a craftsman, Scott became obsessed with assembling pieces into cohesiveness. He began to read on auto repair, on celestial navigation, Art of War, everything he could put his hands on to know more, to learn more, to understand how pieces moved, and how they might come together. The answer, ironically, came almost by happenstance, as local boys from the orphanage took Scott's books, and in the silly scuffle that followed the headaches returned, more powerful than ever. His glasses dropped, but Scott still saw red, and in the moment he lost time, it was enough for the entire roof of the orphanage to have been blown to pieces by something, and for all the children and staff to stare at him, aghast. Quickly, Scott ran, he ran as fast as he could, hitchhiked and left, hiding until a man found him, a man by the name of Charles Francis Xavier. V: The First X-Man Charles Xavier revealed himself as a mutant and provided Scott with something a boy like him sorely needed: direction and purpose. At the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters the ghosts of uncertainty and low self-steem were dealt not by cushioning the youngster, but by putting Scott's need for structure to its best use. Structured learning, rigorous training, scheduled psychic therapy and long conversations about the future of mutantkind shaped Scott Summers into a young man with desire for a better world, and a plan to get there. Among Charles' first students he was the first to train in the Danger Room, and he was the first to don his uniform and call himself by the callsign that would become part of his identity: Cyclops. By the time the First Class was assembled, Scott had already trained enough that he was a believer in Charles' dream of a world where mutants and humans could live side by side. While Bobby might have thought of him as stuffy, and Hank might doubt his friend's ability to think for himself, Scott's focus paid dividends when the Xavier's School was broken into by the unstopable Juggernaut, when he demonstrated his ability to think fast and lead his peers, as well as bravery in face of a threat much greater than himself. As he coordinated his friends, and together they worked to remove the man's helm so Charles could subdue him telepathically, Cyclops earned his friends' trust, and the X-Men were born. These were his first real friends, the first family Scott could remember having, and in the case of Jean, his first love. With them Cyclops even reconnected with his long-lost brother, Alex, after Professor X unraveled his identity from Scott's mind. With the X-Men he flew to the Cape Citadel army base where the mysterious Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants claimed to herald a new age of humanity, one where homo sapiens would bow to their evolutionary masters, the homo superior. Cyclops took the fight especially serious as he saw, for the first time, true opposition to Professor X's dream of colaboration between humans and mutants, the manifestation of his purpose. The fight, however, was not the X-Men's to win, as Magneto proved himself more than a match for the team, depiste the relentless attacks from the seven original X-Men, and Scott coming up with more than a few ways to struggle against the older mutant. In the end, Magneto left the base with the X-Men to keep them from being taken as prisoners, and offered them a place among his Brotherhood. Disavowing Magneto's acts and ideals, Scott denied the offer, and made an enemy in Quicksilver. Even though the X-Men remained active after the fact, it was with the Krakoa Incident that things changed for the Westchest-based team. Listening to a distress call and believing to have found a powerful mutant, Professor X sent his team to investigate, but upon arrival the seven youngsters found that the island itself was the mutant, and it trapped all of them to sap them of their strength. The only one to escape, Cyclops boarded the Blackbird and left for the School, where with barely any energy he recounted the tale to Charles before passing out. While Scott recuperated, Charles assembled a second team to rescue his children, a group composed of older mutants, such as Storm, Thunderbird, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Banshee, Sunfire and Wolverine. Leading this new team Cyclops returned to Krakoa and they freed the X-Men, but at great costs to the young mutants who were trapped there. After the Krakoa incident all original X-Men left to lead normal lives, something Scott felt was forever beyond his grasp thanks to his powers. Cyclops stayed behind to lead the new X-Men, and the members of the team pushed him to the brink, the likes of Thunderbird and Wolverine constantly forcing him to stand his ground. As time went by, Scott learned more about the other mutants under his leadership, and he befriended some of them, but it was Thunderbird's death that changed the young man's perspective for good. Taking blame for what had transpired and realizing the sudden nature of death, Cyclops debated on leaving the X-Men to maybe give him and Jean a real shot, but ultimately could not do it, sure he was where he was supposed to be. As he left the School to celebrate Christmas with his old friends in Manhattan, Cyclops did not foresee that their celebration would be interrupted by the Mk.II Sentinels in service of Project Armaggedon and Jean, Logan and Sean would be kidnapped by them. VI: Fire and Death The remaining X-Men found the location of Project Armaggedon's base, a space station in Earth orbit. The group arrived to find the three kidnapped mutants already engaged in battle with Dr. Stephen Lang, and eventually Stephen Lang crashed his aircraft against the station's walls. With no means to safely return, Jean decided to pilot the shuttle while protecting herself with telekinesis, a plan Scott knew would fail. Desperate, he tried to convince her against it, but Marvel Girl took him out and proceeded. When Jean miraculously survived the crash into Jamaica Bay, Scott did not understand the scope of what had just happened, but glad to take the miracle for what it was the two officially begun to date soon thereafter. Although things returned to normal after a while, they did not stay peaceful. As the X-Men landed in New York to attend to Jean's celebration for having bought her first apartment, they were attacked by their former allies Havok and Polaris. Although victory was secured the diversion served to allow Firelord to attack Jean and Charles in Manhattan. Going as fast as they could the group arrived to witness Jean standing over the powerful alien, the Professor nowhere in sight. Warning the team that the Shi'ar had taken Charles through a gateway, Phoenix proceeded to power it to allow the X-Men to follow suit deep into the cosmos, where Cyclops led the team against the Shi'ar Imperial Guard to defeat Emperor D'ken and allow Jean to heal the M'kraan Crystal. Scott and Jean continued their lives, and for a good while, things were good. Activity picked up again when Cyclops, Nightcrawler and Phoenix , while scouting for a newly-detected mutant in Dazzler, were attacked by Hellfire Knights, servants of the Hellfire Club Jean nearly killed in her attempt to protect her friends. Scott felt that was out of character for Phoenix, but the incidents started to pile up until the truth came out. At the Hellfire Club gala later that year Mastermind revealed, after the Inner Circle captured most of the X-Men, that he had been slowly seeding Jean's mind with his illusions, creating a new persona for her from abusive psychic surgery. With the team captured, it took Wolverine breaking into Hellfire's inner sanctum to free his teammates. The fight was won, and Mastermind suffered a brutal lobotomy from a rapidly deteriorating Jean, something Cyclops noted was far from normal. After the battle she was still not herself, begging for forgiveness, when the Dark Phoenix took over. As the Dark Phoenix left the planet it was clear Jean needed saving, and Cyclops did not allow for other outcomes. Thanks to his psychic link, he could feel Dark Phoenix, so while using that bond he formulated a plan to help his lover. Months after, when Dark Phoenix finally returned to Earth, she did so to find herself ambushed by the X-Men. Professor X and Scott both were to subdue the hungering entity. Cyclops felt the truth that the Phoenix Force was so deeply bonded with Jean that it couldn't find in itself to hurt him. He put himself on the line of fire, opening a small window through which Professor X subdued the Dark Phoenix, locking it inside Jean even if temporarily. As Phoenix laid in Cyclops' arms, she proposed to him, but the moment of happiness did not last. Teleported to the Shi'ar vessel, the X-Men witnessed Jean be trailed and found guilt of the billions of deaths caused by the Dark Phoenix while in space, which prompted Professor X to call for a trial by combat. Scott once led the X-Men, this time against the Black Guard, but one by one the X-Men fell. As he and Jean lasted the most, he watched as the Dark Phoenix manifested again, and realizing she could not control it, Jean accepted the veredict. Jean's mutant gift was nullified by the Shi'ar in efforts to make the Phoenix Force dormant within her. Phoenix was no more, and neither was Cyclops, and the two retired to go live in Alaska. VII: Family Reunion The life in Anchorage didn't quite agree with Cyclops at first. He could barely see anything remotely mutant-related on TV without the urge of contacting the X-Men, but like before, the man saw himself as being in the right place, at the right time, and there he stayed. With Jean he had a son, Nathan, and there he stayed even when the X-Men were featured on television fighting the Brotherhood and protecting Senator Robert Kelly of all people. That is how life remained for a while, until a stranger came knocking, a redhaired girl whose identity was quickly exposed as that of Rachel, his daughter with Jean from another timeline, a timeline where the Mk. III Sentinels dominated the United States and wiped mutants out. As she was allowed to spend time with them, Cyclops could see traces of himself and Jean in the girl, but their reverie was soon interrupted by the arrival of the Sentinels, as Project: Wideawake was activated. As Jean's mutant powers returned in the nick of time to help them, the three decided to return to Westchester and to the X-Men. For the remainder of the year, the X-Men spent fighting Sentinels, trying to discover their mysterious base, the Master Mold, and upon finding it they arrived at the same time as the Brotherhood of Mutants. Deciding to fight side by side, Cyclops and the other mutants managed to defeat the Master Mold, but by them the crisis had escalated too much, and Magneto took the fight to Washington. Cyclops had to follow, and follow he did, being instrumental for the man's defeat as he convinced Quicksilver to remove Magneto's helmet, so Charles could subdue his old friend. VIII: The Celestial Warlord With the start of a new year, a new threat arose in the form of the The Right, a mysterious organization leaving mutants dead in its wake everywhere in the United States. Cyclops led the X-Men in trying to find them, but at every turn they seemed to know where to go to avoid their mutant enemies. The more they successfully evaded the X-Men, the more frustrated Cyclops became, and after a few months of it the activity of The Right seemingly halted. Finding a moment of respite, Jean convinced Scott to take some time off, and as the couple, Nathan and Rachel enjoyed a day in Manhattan a dark shadow loomed over the city, heralding the arrival of En Sabah Nur and his Horsemen. While Jean assembled the team with telepathy, Cyclops helped protecting the innocent and allowed them to evacuate the Central Park area as the swarms of Akkaba servants descended upon it. As the Avengers took field to fight the Horsemen, Cyclops was still making sure no civilians were harmed, but with the arrival of Death he had no choice but to join the fight proper. The original X-Men on site recognized Warren immediately, despite his changes, but all attempts to make their friend see reason failed. As Apocalypse joined his servants, however, it was not enough to save Warren, they had to fight the first mutant. Cyclops tried every strategy and formation he knew, but Apocalypse was too powerful and too unknown, requiring Bobby to sacrifice himself to almost kill the ancient mutant, and for Angel to snap out of it. Before fleeing, Warren warned Scott that the Akkaba planned to take his son to the Blue Area of the Moon, and calling rachel he knew they had succeeded. Along with the X-Men, Cyclops stormed the moon-based sanctuary to find his son in the clutches of Apocalypse as he infected young Nathan with the Techno-Organic virus. En Sabah Nur survived the battle but Cyclops would not allow him any reprieve, giving his all in an attempt to kill the villain and almost managing so, destroying the life support modules of his celestial armor and realizing the ancient mutnat was in fact rapidly deteriorating for whatever reason. Apocalypse fled, but Cyclops swore to chase him. As the battle subsided, a time-travelling woman called Mother Askani made her appearance, claiming that technology in her future would be able to save Nathan. Distraught, Cyclops was convinced by Phoenix to send his son with the woman rather than watch him die in the present, but the consequences of such would remain with them forever. IX: The Missing Pieces Losing Nathan to En Sabah Nur's sickening trials changed Cyclops profoundly. Broken was the mutant who believed in protocol and high morals, and left behind was his shell, someone incapable of nurturing his lover when all he felt was hate. Every night a new nightmare, a new set of visions and hellish scenarios, each of them of him as a child in a laboratory, the face of the orphanage's boogeyman staring at him with pride even as his young self recoiled in fear. The gleeful words 'When you are ready, come to me, son' echoed in Scott's head and, eventually, he had to do something, thinking he was going insane. Instead of letting it fester Scott Summers found a place for that turbulent mental state, and decided to investigate his own past. Something was missing. He had to find the right parts. With Wolverine, Beast and Archangel he founded the X-Force, a squadron to do the things that the X-Men could not, and took off. His first stop was the State Home for Foundlings, and the question was if he would find something there, but what would he. As Warren and Logan led the way, sensing death nearby, the four mutants found their way into the lower levels of the orphanage, a mixture of science lab and butcher's shop. The nightmares vividly hit Cyclops, and revealed a truth he had been dreading the whole way there: that was no orphanage, but a pool of lab rats. Confessions such as 'I suppose a father shouldn't have favorites but... it will be our little secret' and 'En Sabah Nur is a dangerous specimen, but he is not immortal. He will need a new vessel next time. I will make sure of it' felt like his memory returning, until he saw her. Bound in a stasis tube, a young woman resembling Jean in her Marvel Girl years all too much. 'He knows how to pick them, doesn't he? Look what he found for you. An Eve to your Adam. That beautiful bald bastard...' echoed in his head. And yet, even though he was well aware of the designs for the girl, Cyclops could not bring himself to eliminate her. She had the right to choose, as he did, and along with his partners the girl was freed, clothed and fed. 'Madelyne Pryor', she called herself, and even as she tinkered with Warren's mind, unlocking Death's path back to the space station of the Akkaba, Scott was still figuring the clone out. She told Cyclops the name of their father, who called himself Mr. Sinister, just as the kids did. He took joy in their imagination, or so said Madelyne, from the thoughts she absorbed while asleep in the stasis tube. Before leaving to face the Akkaba, and find En Sabah Nur's vessel, Cyclops sent Madelyne to the School. If she were to have a shot in life, she could not see what lay ahead for the X-Force. The battle in the Usermaatra-setepenra space station was unlike anything Scott had ever subjected himself to. Despite the space station being littered with floating corpses, the leader of the X-Men was fully unleashed as he, Archangel and Wolverine tore through the strange insectoid army of the Akkaba to reach the final chamber, while Beast infiltrated the Akkaba network. As he stood before their goal, however, Cyclops stared grimly not at at some slavering cultist, but a young boy offering the men a piece of his meal, his gilded cage of a home isolated from the barbarism outside. Archangel argued the boy would become En Sabah Nur's only chance of survival. Wolverine stated that the X-Men saved mutants like this, they didn't just kill kids. Cyclops stared at the boy, unaware of his place in the world, and saw himself. Just a cog in someone's plan. Someone looking for pieces to make sense of a whole. He took the boy home to the School, and the young vessel of Akkaba chose his own name eventually, calling himself Evan. X: Whatever It Takes The months that followed were essential for Scott, as he spent them almost entirely devoted to the newcomers to the School: Madelyne, Evan and the daughter of the mysterious Cable, Hope. Focusing on them allowed Cyclops time to come to terms with the loss of his own son, and ponder that maybe one day they might meet again. His impetus to finish off Apocalypse turned into a grim resignation that the old way of things was done for, and so was the old Cyclops. No longer interested in moral high ground, he had finally realized his role was not that of a torch-bearer: he was to be the mutant that keeps the torch-bearer alive. With the Genoshan Genocide happening and sixteen million lives lost, many of his teammates broke down, and Cyclops allowed them their time to grief as he absorbed that last event as an expected gambit from their enemies. Scott felt for those people, but when asked how the pressure of leading the X-Men in times such as those did not break him, the answer was always silence to others, but known in his head: Cyclops was already in pieces, but he had become the best at putting them back together, in record time, his whole life. So when action was needed, he was at the forefront of it, visiting the blasted land of Genosha to rescue whoever he could find, and returning to assist the Professor in the construction of the Xavier Habitat for Higher Learning. Unbeknownst to most, Cyclops did travel with Professor X to Krakoa, their past together allowing more than mutual understanding: it lent itself to real communication. Like getting in touch to an old friend, the leader of the X-Men and his father slowly unraveled the wonders that eventually allowed for the miracles of a new age of the X, and even though many of the questions of his past remain unanswered, they are firmly in the back of Cyclops' mind. He finally has all the pieces, and a mission given: to keep the mutant race alive, whatever it takes.