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In which we attempt an all-Cyclops Winter special; X-Men are bad at processing grief; writer Alex Paknadel X-Plains his upcoming Cyclops miniseries; every character (except Cameron Hodge) is someone’s favorite; and you remain the best listeners of any podcast, ever.
X-PLAINED:
- Clones of Cyclops
- Gwen Warren
- Our year in review
- X-Men: The Search for Cyclops #1-4
- Ahmed and his mustache
- Emotional support boats
- A monkey
- Apoca-lips
- Anias
- Boxes of fire
- One way of coping with trauma
- Ozymandias (more) (again)
- The relative criminality of a trail of questions
- Cat lady problems
- Twice as many cat ladies named Anias as you’d expect
- Terrible logic
- Caliban (more) (again)
- Several unpleasant reunions
- Alex Paknadel’s definitive Cyclopses
- Fun with minor characters
- Proxy characters and “highly polished surfaces”
- Characters to revisit
- Sentinels
- Cyclops vs. his own powers
- Cyclops’s powers vs. continuity
- Who Scott Summers is when he’s alone
- The punch dimension
- The 11th Annual Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Awards for Excellence at X-Cellence
- Many people to whom we are profoundly grateful
NEXT EPISODE: Gambit & Bishop: Now Kiss Sons of the Atom
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I’m so glad to hear that I agree with Brevoort about Scott’s powers being powered by the sun. I swear they’ve literally said it in comics before during the Claremont era.
Hearing Alex Paknadel’s description of Cyclops being defined by the limitations of his powers, it tried to make me think of other characters where they fits (not situations where the character is defined by his limits, like Daredevil). The most obvious choice was Black Bolt. Black Bolt can’t speak without destroying everything, Scott has to wear his visor (or can’t see) without destroying everything. Both are very stoic characters who hold back. Both like redheads (OK, the last isn’t really the point).
Well, 2026 has been off to a “Well, the word I want to use I’d rather not start a new year with (even if you’re not likely to recognise most of the Scottish dialect involved) so please apply your own expletive” start hasn’t it?
So thank you for this much-needed bit of distraction, which has been most welcome.
I’ve never read this series so it’s an interesting to hear about it.
I did think that Anais, though deadly, does seem like a relatively low key mutant to be a big follower of Apocalypse, but then I remembered the first group we found out worked for him: the Alliance of Evil and thought “Yeah, she’d actually have been a good fit there”
Took me a moment to realise in the As Mentioned that Scottpocalypse doesn’t revert Caliban to a human form he’d never had. It’s just that collapsing Scott looks like he’s in much the same pose as Caliban was in the previous panel.
Ah yes, the “Dead Team-mate Trauma-inator 5000” program for the Danger Room. I’m fairly sure we’ve seen Xavier use it when he thinks he’s lost an X-Team (though that might just have been him telepathically going through memories) we definitely saw it for Doug with Rahne, and now it’s hoiked back out for Scott with Jean and Cable’s own issues. Someone really ought to put a password on that program unless there’s a licenced therapist involved (No, Emma, NOT you)
“Weaponised feelings” when you’re dealing with a telepath is a fascinating turn of phrase, like a mood ring with combat capabilities, or DC’s Emotional Spectrum (Even if half of them aren’t emotions, but that’s another rant for another medium).
Have we ever seen Jean or any other telepath manifest different aspects of the power based on their emotions? Like stoking up on rage for a psi-blast, or having to centre themselves when trying to calm someone down? Can you telepathically calm someone down when you’re pissed off?
Gosh, another mention in the awards? Thank you! I certainly couldn’t do it without your output and the other commentors here.
Also, “Wow!” I’m over 1500 posts? That’s…. actually both slightly worrying and sounds about right. 🙂 I worry that more than a few of them of late have been unduly critical and nit-picky, and I do hope to work on that in 2026. I don’t want to be “THAT guy”
Having said that, I much prefer Scott’s eyes being portals to the punch dimension over them coming entirely from solar energy.
I’ve probably mentioned this before, but the notion that solar energy fuels his eyes becoming portals to the punch dimension also sorts out the Newton’s Third Law issue of “snapping his own neck” or “eyeballs smashing their way out theough the back of his own skull from the recoil” problems.
Imagine the barrier between our dimension and the Punch Dimension being like a wall, and Scott’s eyes are a gateway in that wall. The gate opening in a wall to allow a column of orcs through (not sure why I have a LotR metaphor here, but work with me) leaves the wall completely unaffected, because it’s not a part of the reaction itself, it simply lets the reaction happen through it.
So the solar energy is still a thing, because it’s what powers the gateway in Scott’s eyes, but it only needs a very small amount for that, which is what msot people absiorb from the sun. I have no idea how much sunlight you’d need to absorb to get a decent optic blast amount of energy, but I suspect it’s a LOT.
This kind of overthinking is why I love this podcast, because it allows me to get it out of my system.
I’d use the “Welcome to 2026, hope we” well, you know the quote, but tempting fate is NOT a fudging good idea right now so instead, let me say “Stay X-plaining, stay alert and stay kind”