User blog comment:Colby Cheese/Team Cyclops or Team Wolverine?/@comment-1538701-20111221200956/@comment-1538701-20111223020806

But, that's one key variable that seperates Xavier from Scott: When Xavier was in charage, they had multi-millions of mutants across the globe with thousands attending the Xavier Institute. Now, they have barely a hundred with almost all of them in the X-Men. Xavier had the benefit of not needing to be thinking about Survival, all he had to worry about was that his students survived Danger room lessons and missions so that other students wouldn't leave.

Like you said in another post, he keeps making morally questionable descisions in order to win battles, but he's not making them for the sake of winning, he's still trying to win for Xavier's dream, but in the situations they're being thrown into they have to think about survival in order to reach that idea. Before M-Day, before Decimation and the Civil War and before the Dark age really kicked in, the X-Men's battles were won with little force because they were trying to sue for peace. They were taking the guns out of the enemies hands because it was more peaceful. Now, with only a few tens of mutants left, if they take the gun out of the enemies hands they're going to be shot in the back by someone else because they didn't have enough people to take them on. Instead, they have to think about surviving before they can take away their weapons, before they can get the happy ending. Cyclops is fighting for survival because, at this point, that's what he needs to fight for.

I agree, he's changed, and his current mentality isn't what's right for leading a school, but at this time in the comics, he needs to be like this. Desperate times call for desperate measures, you gotta do what you gotta do, whatever term you want to use to describe it, its not just a matter of him being in the wrong, its a matter of him being in charge at the absolute worst possible time in the comics. (Look at Astonishing X-Men for an example, based in between him leading without Xavier's help and the batshit that went on after M-Day that brought on the current stories, you'll see how Cyclops should be written, and its probably the best Cyclops they've had since before Claramount stopped writing the first time, because there he's fighting for peace, and to prove the X-Men are heroes.)

As such, I don't blame him for what happens and what he's doing, I blame the writers for putting the mutant race in this situation that forces them to do these things. Yes, Cyclops is thinking about survival, but at this time, if they don't focus on survival they're going to die. And that's because Joe Quesada thought that this would make for better stories, and its yet to be repaired.

Plus, while Wolverine's team has the best lighting right now, remember that mutants are the least lucky people in the Marvel Universe, and the Xavier Institute has the worst mortality rate (and the aformentioned bit about the writers). I can see something horrible happening that will either decimate one group or force the two to regroup.

Like you said, I hope the writers realize that they're messing him up and bring the X-Men into the Heroic Age like they're doing with everyone else.

Personally, I think that, in the near future, though it will probably wait a few years before doing so, that some story, with some Unite based title, will start with several attacks on both teams, forcing them to join up to deal with the problem. During it, Cyclops starts acting like a teacher to the younger ones instead of just a leader, earning back some respect from Beast and Logan, and as you said redeeming himself. But, this can't happen until after the mutant race is at a point when survival isn't something they need to worry about. They can't move forward until they have the power to do so.