A couple months back, the All New X-men crossed over with the Guardians of the Galaxy. The event ended with young Cyclops leaving the team to travel in space with his father. That’s what Cyclops’s new ongoing series is about, at least for the first story arc. I’m not sure if Scott Summers has ever had a solo title before (a quick google search only gave results relating to this series), but it’s about time Marvel has given the X-Men’s most important character a chance.
Written by Greg Rucka, Cyclops 1 is a wonderful start to this series. It opens with Cyclops propelling himself in space using his concussive blasts, which looks like so much fun. The comic plays out pretty much as you’d expect, with a lot of character development through Scott’s narration boxes and Nathan Summers doubting his abilities as a father, being so far away from Earth for decades. The drama is interrupted with a space fight, exciting Cyclops to no end. The comic ends with father and son taking a smaller ship and flying off into space, just the two of them.
While there are no surprises in the plot, there’s a great mix of fun, drama and humour. The ending is especially sentimental, promising a journey that will likely change young Scott forever (at least if his memory isn’t erased if and when he returns to the past). The dialogue is well written, with the aliens having different speech patterns than humans would have yet they’re still understandable.
The art by Russell Dauterman is also good. The opening pages start with a close-up to Scott’s face, with reflections of important moments in his life and characters he cares about. Then you turn to a beautiful splash page of Cyclops outside his father’s ship, with stars and small rocks in the background as he prepares to propel himself with his power. Character expression are consistently good, even making the aliens easy to read. The space battle is full of crazy sci-fi effects from shields and “shredder” weapons. There are even small details, including Hezabeth’s large tail brushing against Cyclops’s body at one point.
The only real flaw is that this comic feels more like a prologue than a first issue, but that’s a minor complaint. There’s a lot to like about this comic, and the only reason I can think of that someone won’t enjoy it is if they don’t like or care about Cyclops. Anyone who does should at least read this.
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Cyclops has had a mini before, back in 2001, by Brian K. Vaughan. There were also the two Adventure of Cyclops and Phoenix minis, back in the ’90s. And he’s had three one-shots. This is his first ongoing. And honestly, I wouldn’t say it’s “about time.” He’s my second favourite character, but he’s not a character I’ve been clamouring to get an ongoing. We’ll see how this series does, but I’ve never really looked at him as solo story material.
This issue was good. That’s about all I can say about it. I am disappointed Hepzibah and the other Starjammers won’t be hanging around. I was really hoping they would.
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