Cyclops’ New Costume Is Even More Tragic Than It Seems

The X-Men leader Cyclops has an official new costume in Marvel Comics, and it’s his most tragic one yet. Scott Summers is widely known as an unflappable fellow who stays calm in the face of danger and rarely lets his emotions get the better of him both on and off the battlefield. But X-Men #7 reveals Cyclops’ true feelings regarding his new costume, his new identity, and why he must wear both for the foreseeable future.

Ever since 2018’s X-Men relaunch penned by longtime writer Jonathan Hickman, the X-Men are effectively immortal. The properties of their island home of Krakoa, along with certain powerful mutants using their powers together, have created a system of resurrection for all mutants. When a mutant dies, a new body can be grown and a backup of their consciousness can be inserted into their new mind; this makes the X-Men a literally unbeatable fighting force. Resurrection is a closely-guarded secret, however; if humans learned that mutants can no longer be killed, they would mobilize against them en masse.

In X-Men #8, Cyclops is killed in a very public fashion, and bleeds out after a mysterious assailant slices his neck. To the world, Cyclops is dead, and must remain dead. Instead, the new “Captain Krakoa” is created to allow Cyclops to continue operating in the field without compromising his identity. As such, Captain Krakoa’s costume has a face-concealing visor alongside an entirely different color scheme for the mutant. Cyclops loathes his new suit, if for no other reason than it clashes with his desire to emulate his own personal hero: Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four.

Marvel’s Snapshots X-Men reveals a young Scott Summers idolized Reed Richards in the same way that the MCU’s Peter Parker idolized Tony Stark. He even wished that Reed Richards was his father instead of whatever father he was given at the time as he drifted through the American foster care system. The Fantastic Four are known for their complete lack of masks or identity-concealing costumes; while this may be commonplace in the modern era of comics, superheroes as public figures was a revolutionary concept at the time, and perhaps Scott Summers desired to emulate his hero.

Alas, with the “death” of Cyclops, this became impossible. The Captain Krakoa identity is for all intents and purposes Scott Summers’ new superhero name – one he did not choose. Cyclops‘ new role as the X-Men’s version of Captain America may appeal to the masses of the Marvel Universe – but inside, Scott feels as if he has disappointed his idol.