Scott Summers: Dorky Dad

[auggie18]

So, recently I've been thinking about Scott Summers. He's worn a lot of hats over the years. Uptight leader guy, island nation militia leader guy, vague attempts at loner bad-ass guy. (This was mostly after the whole Apocalypse merge thing.)

But it was only going while going through my Essential X-Factor volume when I realized my favorite way that Scott has been portrayed: as a dad.



He's weirdly good with kids, when he isn't abandoning them or using them as child soldiers. I can totally see him as the dorky X-dad, driving the team around in a mini-van, telling waitresses dumb jokes and massively over-scheduling everyone.

Heck, sometimes he's even good with his own kids!









This is from X-Men Forever. It reflects Chris Claremont's original vision for Scott, which was that he would retire from being a superhero and raise his son with Maddie, only serving on the X-men in major emergencies. I really wish this had happened.

And heck, he's even kinda a dorky granddad.



Oh, Scott.
 

Comments

[doomisay]

Wouldn't the answer of "Who originally trained Nathan" actually be Rachel as Mother Askani? Doesn't she predate Redd & Slymm?

[sir_mikael]

Redd & Slymm raised him from when he was a baby up to his early teens. Rachel seems to have been in his head, providing small pieces of guidance every now and then during that time, but I'd call it a joined effort. If I had to guess I'd say the more hands-on knowledge and day-to-day survival skills probably came from Jean and Scott.
On the other hand Rachel would probably know more about that, both from growing up in DOFP and spending decades in Cable's future before Jean and Scott arrived.

[jaysonbyron]

"Who has two thumbs and a boatload of complicated time-travel family tree branches?

... THIS GUY."

[wake_the_dragon]

It must make holidays very interesting. Can you imagine what Christmas shopping must be like when you have to account for time-travel?

[glprime]

DAMMIT.

Here, take all the Internets.

Just... here.

[long_silence]

Well he's a better dad than Wolverine

[darkknightjrk]

In Logan's defense, Scott's been no where near as mindfucked as many times as him--plus he has a pretty decent record in raising surrogate daughters.

[nyadnar17]

That "this guy" picture is awesome. I love this man. Doesn't anyone have scans of when Cyclops and Corsair are meeting up to try to reconnect? Its starts off a bit tense with Corsair not know how Cyke's powers work and Scott yelling at Corsair for never coming back to look for him, but its a really sweet scene.

[robinzegblu]

The thing I remember about that issue is that it came out before "Search for Cyclops" ended but took place after it. It's like "I guess they found him, then."

The other thing I remember: "Can't you use your heat vision to start the fire?" Oh, Corsair.

[silverhammerman]

These are all really nice. As much as I like seeing Scott be all uptight, when it's written well that is, seeing him parent people is great. It's a shame this stuff doesn't come very often. I think this depiction of Scott would actually have made a great successor for Professor X, much better than crazy militant isolationist Scott.
I love those blocky wraparound shades in the second scan, I wonder if Scott and Matt Murdock ever get together and just enthuse about how much they both love red sunglasses.

[icon_uk]

To which Matt's reaction would be "They're RED?"

[salinea]

I started reading superhero comics with X-23, so the second mini I ever read was Target X. I spent most of it being confused because I thought that Matt was Scott.

[viredae]

Shhhhh! Don't say that he's a better character as a dad, or Joe Quesada might hear you and retcon his backstory because mature characters aren't cool!

...

Bitter? No, I'm not bitter that Quesadillia fucked up Spidey's history beyond belief! It's not like he was my gateway into comic books or anything and now everything that made him remotely interesting is trashed!

...

Wow, my rant was actually longer than my comment...

[nefrekeptah]

I wouldn't go that far at all. He's still Spidey, still the same guy who struggles with his personal life and his superhero life while doing the best he can to be a good person. Hell, alot of the changes OMD made have been undone - the spell was reversed, Mary Jane came back, they're still very good friends, and it's been strongly hinted that they might be getting back together in the near future.

One More Day was a piece of shit, but it didn't "ruin" him by any stretch of the imagination.

[whoha]

People say Scott Summers was ruined with AVX, but it was him leaving his wife and infant son for jean grey that did him in.

[ablackraptor]

Factual inaccuracy there: He didn't leave his family for Jean.
He was told over the phone that Jean was alive, and he wanted confirmation. Before he could leave to see if it was true, he got into a fight with Maddy which ended with her telling him not to come back. He met with the others and got invited to join a new team, and while he wanted to return he put it off to led the new team. When Jean found out, she told him to go back home and rebuild his marriage. He did, but came home to find her gone and had no way of knowing where she was (she had been attacked by supervillains and was hiding with the now-fought dead X-Men). He did't get back together with Jean until much later when writers forgot they weren't together any more, a while after the whole 'Maddy is a clone' revelation.
Not saying he was completely blameless, but they're understandable given the fact Scott has no idea how to deal with people and certainly not unforgivable. Plus, you know, it was all because one writer wanted to reunite the original X-Men for their anniversary because he read the original run as a kid. Like I always say: Don't blame the character, blame the writer.

[theflames]

When has he really used them as Child soldiers? Like really?

As in, they've refused to participate and then he's threatened them into acting? I don't think we know what the phrase child soldiers really entails. But with the X-men, the 'kids' as they've been for years, have chosen to go into action, or because the people trying to kill them forced there hands.

Hell, the children do more fighting in the new 'Wolverine and the X-men' series.

[auggie18]

I was being flip.

[long_silence]

Hell, the children do more fighting in the new 'Wolverine and the X-men' series.

Not really. Usually whenever there's a threat the teachers just stick all of the kids in a panic room pocket dimension.

[ablackraptor]

My problem with Schism exactly. The X-Men have always used young children to fight battles. Logan never had a problem before when they had kids on the team. People seem to forget that Scott's entire process is completely optional for them, they all have a choice in the matter. Same with X-Force when people/Wolverine were yelling at him for having a 16 year old girl on the team: He didn't force X-23 to do anything, he asked her, she said yes.

Its one of the first signs of Wolverine hitting Gary Stu status: Glaring hypocrisy in anything he says. Just like in the WATXM cartoon, when he would yell at them for going solo for an episode, then the next episode he'd be in Japan on a solo adventure.

[mrstatham]

All I'm taking away from this is that Scott can be okay when they're not foisting badly generated pseudo-racial and political issues on him, and also.. Goddamn, did they EVER put any effort into making Hope remotely likeable?

[salinea]

weirdly enough, I think that X-Sanction is the story portraying her in the most blatantly positive light.


Generation Hope (and Kieron Gillen in general) portrayed her as something of a brat. A brat because she drives herself as well as others very hard, but definitely something of a self centered, self righteous brat. Which I find endearing, but I'm not a hard sell on flawed characters in general. I think they tried more to be ambiguous about the Messiah position, to portray her as something very imperfect and very potentially a threat perhaps in order not to go in the direction of her being taken for a Mary Sue (which is pointless, people will call any female character a Mary Sue, really).

Not sure how she was portrayed in the Cable series though, since I very quickly gave up on it.

[ablackraptor]

That 'this guy' panel is hilarious. One thing that always endears Scott to me: On the battle field or in authority, he's a kickass commander. Around people and social situations, he's a bigger dork then Spider-Man.

Funny, I never noticed how good he is with children. Strange.

[icon_uk]

I've said it before, I'll say it again; depowered Scott instantly taking off his glasses to talk to Leech, so he can look this poor anguished kid properly in the eye when he reassures him, will never not be beautiful to me.

[auggie18]

It's probably my all time favorite Scott moment.

[joeyconqueso]

*sniffs*

I forgot how much I can like Cyclops

Now I've got Cat's In The Cradle playing in my head