When you're a superhero, parental issues are just part of the package deal, along with supernatural abilities and colorful tights. The X-Men are no stranger to that, especially their field leader, Scott Summers, aka Cyclops. A new one-shot titled X-Men: Marvels Snapshots #1 is taking the time to examine the force-blasting mutant's origin story from a new, more deeply emotional perspective, and it reveals that Cyclops became the hero readers know thanks to an unexpected father figure who's well-known in the Marvel Universe.
Cyclops, one of the first and oldest X-Men, lost his biological parents in a plane accident. The crash also left him with a head injury that gave him memory loss issues and interfered with his powers; not only did they manifest late, but he was unable to control them, making his trademark ruby quartz glasses necessary. He drifted through foster care before he arrived at the Xavier School and began to train as one of the X-Men.
Marvels Snapshots is a miniseries, inspired by the 1994 story Marvels, which shows the early years of Marvel superheroes through the lens of an average bystander. The X-Men issue is unique because the bystander is a mutant with powers of their own, even if they don't know it yet. The story follows young Scott as he watches the Fantastic Four on the news and feels inspired; he's a bullied outsider at his orphanage, but they use their status as outsiders surviving tragedy to do good. When Scott finds out that Mister Fantastic himself, aka Reed Richards, is speaking at a local university, he resolves to attend and see the superhero in person.
At first, Scott wants to talk to Dr. Richards, but then he realizes he doesn't have anything to say... at least, anything that isn't personal and embarrassing. He rehearses the meeting in his head: "Hi, Dr. Richards. You don't know me, but my name is Scott, and I don't remember what my dad looks like, but sometimes I have dreams about him where he has your face." He decides it would be better to stay in the audience.
Cyclops' feelings give an extra dimension to what we already know about the character. His search for a father figure leads him to Xavier; as we see here, it leads him to the military strategy before he ever approaches the X-Men, as watching the Fantastic Four's heroism makes him look for an authoritative manual on how to react in a crisis.
Scott later finds out that his father survived and became a vagabond space pirate, the opposite of a doting dad like Reed. Snapshots shows the man Cyclops became is much more like Reed, someone who wants to fix everything and prepares for it. They say "don't meet your heroes"; the X-Men's greatest tactician became his hero instead.
X-Men: Marvel Snapshots #1 is written by Jay Edidin with art from Tom Reilly, color by Chris O'Halloran, and lettering by Tom Orzechowski, and is available now.