X-Men Monday #341 – Alex Paknadel Reflects on ‘Cyclops’

Welcome, X-Fans, to another uncanny edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT!

If longtime X-Men Monday readers know one thing about me, it’s that I like to listen to Weezer. If they know a second thing about me, it’s that Cyclops is my favorite X-Men character. (I even organized Cyclops Week at AIPT — seven days of Scott Summers-focused content!) So when Slim gets a limited series that’s as good as the one writer Alex Paknadel and his creative collaborators just finished (you did pick up Cyclops #5 today, right?), you better believe I’m going to use the terrifying power I wield to conduct a Cyclops eXit interview in X-Men Monday!

Fortunately for everybody, no terrifying power needed to be unleashed as Alex is wonderfully kind and happy to chat. Read on for Alex’s reflections on Cyclops, his efforts to promote the limited series, the possibility of additional Scott adventures, and much more.

Spoilers for Cyclops #1 – 5 beyond this point!

AIPT: Welcome back to X-Men Monday, Alex! It’s such a unique experience to spend time developing a story and a take on a character, write it, then spend months discussing it and the character — not just in press — but across social media with the characters’ diehard fans (and detractors). I’m curious if any part of it has changed how you view Cyclops.

Alex Paknadel: I wouldn’t say it’s changed how I view him exactly. I think one of the reasons the book kind of caught the Summer of Cyclops™ wave is because it chimed with a lot of other fans’ conceptions of the character. “Still waters run deep” is a proverb that could have been written with Scott Summers in mind, and I think that’s something you either find compelling or you don’t. There are those of us who desperately want to know what he’s thinking behind that visor; it’s really that simple. I’ve been lucky enough to spend a little time articulating what those thoughts might be. Others have done it earlier and better, but their takes all went into the pot. I just wanted to showcase how awesome the guy is and has always been.

That said, there were some real Road to Damascus moments during the promotional rounds that clarified a few things for me – particularly with Matt and Allison Parent of Escape the Mojoverse: An X-Men Podcast, Jay Edidin and Miles Stokes of Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, and Connor Goldsmith of the CEREBRO podcast (and the excellent Dark Horse comic Did You Hear About Mimi Green?). I’d already settled on my main theme, which was essentially Scott learning to come down from his perpetual post-Krakoan war footing. What was still missing was an articulation of what Krakoa actually meant to Scott and mutantkind more generally. I’d read, loved and even dipped a creative toe or two into the Krakoan era, but due to my relative privilege, I didn’t have the deep emotional connection to it that many fans still have. However, Matt, Allison, Jay, Miles, and Connor (and others I’m too sun-broiled to remember, but to whom I owe an equally profound debt) really guided me toward a more holistic view of what Krakoa meant to them. We were deep into production on the whole series, so no story beats were changed, but it afforded me an opportunity to make some dialogue tweaks that really enhanced the book, I think.

AIPT: You just mentioned some of the podcasts you appeared on. As somebody who’s constantly surprised by the dearth of creator interviews in the comics space, I was very pleased to see you making the rounds on websites and podcasts to promote Cyclops — even after the first issue was on sale! Given that this limited series seemed to be both a commercial and critical success, is there anything you learned from your approach to promoting it you’ll apply to future work?

Alex: Absolutely! And thanks for mentioning it. Truth be told, much of it didn’t feel like work because I was just sitting down and chatting with X-Men fans, which is hardly a chore. That said, I could tell from the jump that I’d have to promote it like an indie book. Daredevil #1 was launching a week either side of us, and would quite rightly be taking the world by storm because it’s a banger of a book. I knew I’d have to start reaching out to podcasters and review sites to beg them for interviews. Luckily, a ton of them (including yourselves) are friends, so they/you very kindly indulged me – often on weekends and evenings U.S. time — and I spent a solid month on Zoom, I’d say.

Further to that, I also called up some retailer pals across the U.K. and North America and basically assured them that the book was going to be something special – which I couldn’t have said in good conscience if I didn’t genuinely believe it. They then urged their customers and colleagues in other stores to preorder, so by the time it dropped, we had a lovely bit of word of mouth going. Plus – and I shouldn’t discount this – that Avengers Doomsday trailer dropping with James Marsden in the Blue and Gold era costume gave us a lovely little boost in the last week before FOC. Now, the Marvel Rivals and X-Men ’97 promo has started up just as we hit issue 5, so it’s all been weirdly serendipitous.

Anyway, by the time the first issue dropped, I think we’d put enough love and care into the book itself that it kind of justified the hype — at least I hope that’s the case. Anyway, the big lesson – which I’ve been told before repeatedly, but I don’t think truly sank in till now – is that nobody can be more enthused about your work than you. Readers get excited because you’re excited, which means you need to go where they are. I’m not a naturally outgoing person, but once I realized I could talk about the work – and most importantly about X-Men – rather than myself, it became much, much easier.

On a related note, this past Monday was the final preorder cutoff for What If?… Secret Wars by CAFU, David Curiel, and yours truly. It’s essentially what if the original Ultimate Universe survived the Secret Wars intact? It’s really good, and it’s really fun, so don’t miss it!

AIPT: Before we dig into all five issues of Cyclops, those same issues were an incredible artistic showcase for artist Rogê Antônio and colorist Fer Sifuentes-Sujo — and let’s not forget those incredible Federico Vicentini covers! As you reflect on this limited series, is there anything you’d like to say about your collaborators?

Alex: I’d worked with Rogê before on Carnage, and he absolutely picked up what I was putting down on that book. As soon as Darren Shan suggested him, I forcefully said the search was over. He’s Stuart Immonen-level great, and this book would be vastly poorer without him.

As for Fer, we had a real challenge with the book in that it essentially takes place in deep forest or a deep mine. If he’d leant into native colors, then it would have been nothing but green and brown. I asked him upfront to consider weird contrasts and odd palettes, and he went buck wild. It looks like no other Marvel book on the stands, and that’s all Fer.

As far as Federico goes, I’ve only interacted with him very fleetingly, but for many months, his covers were all we had to get people excited, but they went nuts for them! That first issue with Cyclops in a feral pose against a forest backdrop set our stall beautifully. Chris Condon was at a show with Federico in Singapore and sent me a photo of the original. I wish I was a trust fund kid so I could have afforded to buy it from him, haha! It was a dream team – lightning in a bottle – and I know they’ve all gone on to spectacular gigs. I hope we get the band back together at some point, I really do.

AIPT: That Cyclops #1 cover… how awesome it’d be to own that original art. But speaking of the limited series’ first issue — the opening action sequence in Cyclops #1 does a perfect job of establishing Scott Summers as cool, confident, and in total control (before you completely unravel him, of course). It made me think of how far he’s come from those original 1960s comics where his thought bubbles were overflowing with insecurity and self-doubt. Comics don’t really do inner monologues anymore, but you spent some time in Scott’s head — do you think those negative thoughts are still there, or has he Red Triangled them into oblivion?

Alex: “To inner monologue or not to inner monologue?” was one of the first questions we chewed over as it happens. Before I even pitched the book to Darren, I was walking through Central Park with Matthew Rosenberg, talking about how I’d execute it, and he absolutely insisted that I never, ever give the reader access to Scott’s thoughts — either in thought bubbles or captions. He was absolutely right. The more inscrutable Scott is, the more space readers are given to infer his state of mind in any given moment. That’s a gift for any writer.

The one concession I made was giving Scott Mei (who also exists as a complete character with her own motivations, hopes, dreams, etc.) as a foil. If he’d been alone in the forest, he wouldn’t have uttered a word. That would play well in a Fantagraphics OGN, and I’d love to set myself that challenge someday, but this book is a showcase for the Best X-Man Ever. He had to have someone to confide in, but as Mei is an older teen, he still has to keep a lot of it locked away. The most effective dramatic question is always “What is a character hiding?”, and with Mei, we got to preserve that.

As to the real substance of your question, of course, Scott is still tortured by negative thoughts. He’s just gotten better – by necessity – at suppressing and/or managing them. I always loved that thing in Star Trek where it transpires that Vulcans actually have stronger emotions than any other species; they’re just forced to suppress them because their society couldn’t function if they gave them free rein. I see Scott in a broadly similar way.

AIPT: That “wildness” Dr. Robyn Hanover mentions to Scott — how he was once “something furious,” “beautiful,” and “free” — it got me thinking. I feel like so much of who Cyclops is comes from his inability to control his terrifying and destructive power. If Scott had never gotten injured after falling from the plane, do you think he’d be a completely different character today?

Alex: Of course. For one thing, he would have been able to control his power. But I don’t think he would have been a better man. He might even have been appreciably worse. The thing is, the absolute necessity of keeping his optic blast contained has taught him vigilance and restraint. It’s where his leadership capabilities come from. The visor takes care of most of the risk, but on some level, Scott has to manage every situation so he doesn’t kill everyone in the room. He has to plan for every contingency, and that’s how he manages to keep those around him in one piece.

If he hadn’t sustained that injury, he might well have been an X-Man, but he almost certainly wouldn’t have been the X-Man.

AIPT: We really got to know the new Reavers, and I found them quite fascinating (and, as a fan of sliced turkey and ham, I appreciate that one of them is named Coldcut). The second I started to feel sympathy for one of them, they go and make a Genosha joke, and I hate them all over again. In Cyclops #2, Scott says they’re “so desperate to assert their humanity that they’ll surrender it at the first opportunity.” What were you trying to get across with these misguided cyborgs?

Alex: I agonized over those names for days, so thank you for the kind words. As to their function, I was trying to position them as dark doppelgangers of the original X-Men, if that makes sense.

Scott is making the case in Cyclops #1 that the X-Men were always soldiers, but Hank doesn’t remember it that way. This Reaver team is almost that nightmarish take made manifest. Pierce is a depraved mirror of Xavier. He doesn’t care about any of them; he gives them codenames because he can’t remember their real names, and their power sets are almost identical. They constantly vie for his approval and screw each other over at every opportunity. There’s even an incentive for doing so because they can cannibalize each other for parts and weapons.

They are everything the X-Men are not, and Scott needs to see them up close and personal to realize that he’s far more than just a general, and it’s not his job to draft every mutant into an army.

AIPT: While this limited series is called “Cyclops,” at its core, it seems to be about two “older” figures in the X-Men franchise (Scott Summers and Donald Pierce) engaging with a younger generation of mutants and cyborgs, respectively. While Pierce has more control over his underlings, Mei has no problem taking Scott to task over the fall of Krakoa. It reminds me of the generational discourse you see across politics, business, and even post-Krakoa X-Fandom. Was this something you wanted to address, or just a natural outgrowth of the story you were telling?

Alex: I was certainly writing around it, yes. One thing I wanted to address – however obliquely – was something that started really irritating me as a parent. I don’t know when this became a thing, but a while ago I started seeing very well-intentioned people of my generation and older basically saying everything was going to be fine because young people were going to fix the world. That made me so angry. Why should young people spend their best years piecing the world back together when they didn’t break it?

Pierce is that tendency dialled up to 11, I suppose. He’s taken a bunch of impressionable young people, mutilated them, and then thrown them at his problems. They’re cannon fodder. Scott doesn’t do that. The X-Men don’t do that. And nor should we.

AIPT: The last page of Cyclops #3 — “Not me. You’re thinking of the one with the claws.” Even if Scott was being sarcastic, it’s such a great reminder that we’re not dealing with the boy scout that X-Men tourists think Cyclops is. But it also made me think of how you’ve mentioned you see Cyclops and Wolverine as the same type of person, which got me thinking about Jean Grey’s attraction to both men. Do you think Jean picks up on these similarities?

Alex: I know people have strong feelings on this issue, so let me state upfront that I am not for one second insisting that my take on the Jean-Scott-Logan triangle is the only one, or even the right one. It’s simply a formulation that helps me write them, if that makes sense; otherwise I’d be frozen with indecision.

Anyway, I think it’s likely – or at least plausible – that Jean sees qualities in Scott that she needs, whereas in Logan, she sees qualities she wants. Jean is a cosmic-scale entity housed in a human consciousness. The Phoenix is almost the platonic ideal of the kind of unconstrained freedom Wolverine represents, so she’s naturally attracted to him. She’s fire and life incarnate, so of course she wants to run with the wolves. However, the unconstrained Phoenix is also a force of unimaginable destruction, so it’s also perfectly understandable that she would be attracted to someone like Scott, who at first blush appears to be a paragon of composure and restraint. Scott is safety, and Wolverine is danger, and even we regular mortals often find it impossible to choose between those two intensely seductive propositions.

That said, as these relationships have deepened and evolved, it’s become apparent that Wolverine is not – or is not only – this measureless canyon of rage; he’s also a deeply principled and honorable man who abhors killing. Cyclops, meanwhile, is only a model of restraint because he’s been forced to be so by a cruel twist of genetics and neurochemistry. There’s a wild streak a mile wide in Scott Summers, and Jean finds it beautiful.

In my view then, the reason that triangle can’t be definitively resolved once and for all is because Scott is only superficially Logan’s opposite, and vice versa. In many respects, they’re the same guy, so you really can’t blame Jean for getting turned around from time to time. And don’t forget that all of it is undergirded by inevitable tragedy as well. Scott might live for another 60 years and Logan another 500, but their lifespans are both beats of a hummingbird’s wing to the eternal Phoenix. Jean’s time with the people she loves is heartbreakingly short – as it is for all of us, I suppose.

Again, just my take. No more valid than anyone else’s.

AIPT: That opening scene in Cyclops #4, where Mei steps up to command her fellow prisoners — I can’t help but feel she was a little bit inspired after her time with Scott in the forest. While Cyclops hasn’t always been the most popular mutant among his fellow X-Men, he’s certainly been leading teams for a long time, featuring everybody from Wolverine and Gambit to Magneto and Namor. In your opinion, what is it about this man that inspires others to get behind him, even if begrudgingly?

Alex: One of the first notes I received on the pitch from Tom Brevoort was that Scott Summers’ real superpower is leadership. Others’ mileage may vary, but I think that’s a really penetrating insight into his character.

His leadership style is as far from charismatic as it gets, so he’s clearly no populist. I think it’s as simple (or as complex) as this: he keeps his people alive. Xavier inspires and Magneto warns, but Scott Summers runs the numbers. He’s not the life and soul of the party; he’s the guy who’ll make sure you don’t get mugged on your way home from the party. Serious people in the Marvel Universe grasp that about him immediately and intuitively. That’s why they follow him into Hell time and time again.

AIPT: Those final two pages of Cyclops #5 — not only were they a nice callback to Krakoa, where Scott had a chance to finally pursue happiness (and build — he literally built a treehouse in New York City!) and Cyclops #1 (Scott wants mutantkind to dance, just as Beast remembers), but it’s also a nice bit of closure on those post-Decimation X-Men stories where Cyclops was mutantkind’s general. “I’ll be an X-Man so you don’t have to.” Selfless? Heroic? Maybe a bit tragic (based on that somewhat lonely final shot)? What is the final statement you’re trying to make about Cyclops, Alex?

Alex: I’d like to leave something to the reader’s imagination if I may, but I will say that your reading is pretty bang on. There’s a reason why Scott is standing apart from his team at the end, looking off into the middle distance while his extended mutant family rejoices and weeps with relief behind him. At the start of our tale, he didn’t know if there was world enough and time for dancing; now he knows there is, but only if he creates it. Mutantkind will dance and build again, but he’ll be watching the treeline for pitchforks and flaming torches the whole time.

AIPT: In that last question, I guess I should have said your final statement… for now! I know a lot of X-Fans would love to see you tell more Cyclops (or at the very least, X-Men) stories. I don’t expect you to reveal anything… but if given another shot, do you already have some ideas for the further adventures of Cyclops?

Alex: The reader reaction has been extremely gratifying. I didn’t expect or even dare to hope for a reception like that, but I suspect that the fans can smell one of their own. I absolutely have ideas for further adventures with Mr. Summers, and I think they’re pretty cool. That said, I had a complete story to tell with my favorite character, and Darren Shan and Tom Brevoort gave me the guidance and the resources I needed to tell it my way. I desperately hope I get another crack at the title, but if I don’t, then I have no complaints and no regrets.

I’ve wanted to write a version of this book ever since I picked up X-Men #1 back in 1991. It was my personal Everest, and with a lot of help from family, friends, colleagues, and fans, I kinda conquered it. I’d love to stay up here and take in the view a little longer, but that’s out of my hands.

AIPT: Mount Cyclops was definitely conquered, and I hope we get to see some of those additional story ideas in print real soon. But for now, that’s all I have for you, Alex. Thanks for stopping by X-Men Monday to reflect on Cyclops!

X-Fans, you can, of course, follow Cyclops’ continuing adventures in the pages of X-Men. And, as an eXclusive treat, we have the preview pages for the series’ next issue (X-Men #31), on sale June 10, 2026! Does it feature Scott? No! But it does feature writing from Jed MacKay, art from Tony S. Daniel, inks from Mark Morales, colors from Fer Sifuentes-Sujo, and letters from Clayton Cowles — so you’re welcome!

Coming Soon to X-Men Monday

If you’re looking for more creator thoughts on a just-finished run, you’re in luck, as writer Murewa Ayodele will return to X-Men Monday to not just discuss Storm: Earth’s Mightiest Mutant, but the entirety of his Storm run and his recent Eisner nomination for the Storm series. Click here to submit your questions by June 5, 2026, at 5 PM ET.

You also have until 5 PM ET today to submit questions to writer Steve Orlando about the upcoming X-Men: Outback retro limited series. Click here to submit your questions.

Until next time, X-Fans, stay eXceptional!