Anatomy of a Child Soldier: Scott Summers’ Day Off

“The company I keep is not corporate enough Child Rebel Soldier, you ain’t orphan enough” – Pusha T

Look, I’m a Scott Summers guy. Cyclops is my favorite X-Man. My favorite thing to do is convert people to the house of Cyclops. Hey… I don’t cape many white men, but when I do it’s Scott Summers. I’ve always loved Cyclops, because he is a victim of his abilities and childhood circumstances. It’s been a popular joke and reality that Charles Xavier gathered the X-Men to be child soldiers in his fight for mutant rights. Scott Summers was the first X-Man. The original mutant child rebel soldier. I’ve always admired that about Cyclops. He’s been fighting for his mutant rights since he was a teen. While everyone else was learning to drive, Scott was parallel parking the X-Men’s Blackbird jet. My man’s summer job was diffusing bombs, fighting Magneto, and trying to keep his classmates alive amidst gunfire, sentinels, and genocide. I didn’t see the other side of this reality for Cyclops until his younger self was stuck in the present time back in 2016. As wild as the young Cyclops of the past being stuck in present day was, I became appreciative of it when he found himself joining Ms. Marvel’s iteration of the Champions. It was in this book that I realized something about Scott Summers. Where most teens get powers and decide to be a superhero, Scott never got that. He got his powers, got a roof over his head from Charles Xavier, and then became a child soldier for a cause. I…