The X-Axis – 11 February 2026
Last week, five books. Next week, five books (including both X-Men titles and two Wolverine books). This week… well, Marvel would say two, but I don’t count Deadpool as an X-book for the same reason that I don’t count Alpha Flight. He’s his own thing, and there’s no reason to think that’s changing. So, no, I still don’t count Deadpool.
So.
CYCLOPS #1. By Alex Paknadel, Rogê Antônio, Fer Sifuentes-Sujo & Joe Caramagna. Always nice to see Alex Paknadel getting an outing beyond the Infinity Comics. Antônio did a few issues of Hellions back in the Krakoan era, and he worked on the previous Deadpool run. I like his work – it’s shiny and dynamic but also makes things like the Reavers’ assembly lab suitably bleak. And he gives Scott an impassive self-control that contrasts with everyone else.
There are good reasons why we don’t get many Cyclops solo stories – his defining characteristic is team leadership, and by definition a solo story takes him away from that. But it can work occasionally, as something that forces the character out of his comfort zone.
So what have we got here? Well, after a brief intro to remind us that Scott sees himself as running a team of soldiers, we get Scott meeting up with Dr Hanover – the nice one from Sinister’s orphanage – to see the orphanage site finally being cleared. Hanover still doesn’t know that there was anything behind the orphanage, but does see it as an abusive regime that she didn’t do enough to stop. The more interesting idea here is that while Scott believes that Sinister fails to break his spirit, Hanover thinks that it absolutely did, and that he started off much less repressed. That’s actually an angle worth exploring, as is the idea that Scott has just blithely written off this presumably formative period of his life as a minor piece of continuity that doesn’t come up very often.
Quite what this has to do with the rest of the story – which sees Scott being shot out of the sky by some overenthusiastic new Reavers, forcing Pierce to try his bunch of rookie cyborgs against Scott – is less obvious. Paknadel seems to be repositioning Pierce into more of a U-Men figure, who want to harness mutants for parts rather than kill them. And I guess that makes more sense for his cyborg gimmick, particularly given the sort of allies he’s had in the past. I suppose the idea is we’re going to get Pierce as the leader, and Scott as the lone wolf. But how that ties in with the orphanage material, it’s hard to say. Still, it’s a pretty strong first issue, all told.
@Moo- I found a quote from Claremont on this website:
https://uncannyxmen.net/secrets-behind-the-x-men/kitty-pryde-and-the-substitute-x-men
“I made her the genius of the team because we didn’t have one,” Claremont explained in the X-Men Companion. “I felt the team needed somebody with a brain, somebody who could whip up gadgets in an instant, who could explain things, understand things a Beast-character, a Reed Richards, a Tony Stark. Every team needs one. The X-Men didn’t have one.”
@Michael – Okay, thanks, but that’s strange. That website is referencing the X-Men Companion which is the very magazine I linked to with the Sanderson interviews. I couldn’t find anything like that in there.
Mind you, the interview with Claremont is a long-ass interview in two parts (and a third with Louise Simonson alongside him). Maybe I just missed it.
I don’t know if I’ve explained my defence of Angel as a character here. He’s rich and extremely handsome, with his blonde hair and blue eyes, and actual flying angel wings to really hammer the metaphor home. You put him next to Cyclops, with his mousy hair and corrective goggles holding him back, and you have potential friction. Or Glob Herman, or any of those physically altered types. And on top of all this, instead of being an entitled jerk, he’s a nice guy. So many plots there. The fact that his superpower is not very interesting should be completely irrelevant.
“I was trying to imagine Scott as a radio personality”
The “radio” there is somewhat superfluous.
@thekelvingreen- Good point.
@Si – Can’t say I see much in the way of “potential friction” between a nice guy and a reserved guy. Nor do I see a lot of story potential in “various guys feel insecure when standing next to Warren.” Unless the X-Men can weaponize Warren’s looks somehow. Have him stand next to male villains and make them feel so insecure about their looks that they give up.
Does holding huge weapons count? You could have Warren and Cable as foils for each other.
@Luis Dantas: now I’m picturing Cable getting knocked out, and Angel swooping in to complete the mission by picking up one of Cable’s huge guns… and he can’t pick it up because it’s too heavy, he’s flapping his wings as fast as he can as the bad guy stares for a few seconds before shaking his head and zapping him.
If he’s not Archangel, Warren works best visually. He looks good in a team shot. The best use of original recipe Angel is his place on the cover to Marvels 2.
Bleeding Cool’s Weekly Bestseller List is out. Wade Wilson Deadpool 1 came in 3rd and Cyclops 1 came in 4th. That’s pretty good for both of them.
In the next Cyclops mini-series, perhaps Scott will run for mayor of Merle, Alaska. Depending on the next arc or two of MacKay’s book, Scott may or may not have the Sheriff’s endorsement.
Scott would need to have a conversation with Jean about whether she would be able to return from outer space and join him on the campaign trail. Though Jean may still be stuck in outer space dealing with symbiote/Queen in Black nonsense – https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/mary-jane-watson-and-knull-debut-all-new-queen-in-black-costumes
The thing about the O5 is that the majority (3) of them are what Jim Shooter referred to as “point and declare” characters. He made that reference when he said he created the Karate Kid because too many of the Legion were characters who pointed and said they were using their powers. Bobby, Jean, and Scott fit under that, while Hank and Warren were the dynamic-get-in-the-enemy’s-face characters.
Warren was turned into a point and declare character when his wings shot blades at others.
But for his role, I’d say, you make him the best hand to hand combatant of the O5, and it’s all unrelated to Xavier. You see, his parents wanted him to be able to take care of himself, so they hired the best judo/karate/kung fu instructors, and even though Warren is very easily thrown because of his hollow bones (doesn’t he have those? I think he has those), he took to the lessons surprisingly quickly. So, yes, he hits people, but he’s pretty good at hitting people.
And you know what? I would read a book about teenage Warren’s prep school adventures with Candy Southern and Cameron Hodge as his supporting cast.
Pre-Archangel, especially, Angel also has a solid history as the mutant who can go mainstream.
He’s conventionally attractive, has a powerset that makes him glamorous but broadly unthreatening, has served on non-X teams (including one he founded and funded), and has the old money and old school tie connections to navigate the corridors of power.
Really, he should be a noncombatant, the fluffy, friendly face of mutantkind who gives reasonable public appearances and counters the stereotypes.
The Archangel stuff really gets in the way of that, but a strong writer could make good use of the character in this vein.
There’s also the occasional efforts to play up is corporate side, but they almost always seem to wind up with contrived, silly plot mechanics. Joe Casey gave it a go back in the early 2000s, and then there was that deservedly short-lived X-Corp series during the Krakoan era.
I think the least interesting thing to do with the character at this point is the “dark half, mutant trauma” thing that loads of other X-characters do better. The second dullest choice is to try to power him up by making him more angelic.” Warren really doesn’t need healing blood, wings of light, or whatever was going on with him after the Dark Angel Saga.
With Joe Casey, his writing on Uncanny X-Men was starting to get somewhat interesting at the end when he clued in on Angel and Worthington Enterprises, right at the point he was leaving the title. He was doing such a great job with WildCATs 2.0, and I think he could have brought a lot of that energy and creativity to Uncanny had he started out with the title revolving around Warren and his company, jettisoning everything else he did on the book before he finally latched onto Warren. Maybe there would have been a worthy companion title to Morrison on New X-Men, and we could have avoided Chuck Austen…and Angel having sex with Paige while her mother watched.
I’ve been thinking about Cockrum saying that he liked Hawkman but not Angel, and I’ve reached the following conclusion:
The feathery wings aren’t the problem. The Angel motif is the problem.
It’s just not working. It works when you stick an arch in front of it, but “The Angel” just hasn’t worked out very well for Warren.
So, here’s what I propose instead:
You swap out Warren’s angel wings with pigeon wings and have him become “The Pigeon”. Then you give him his own series where he fights statue-themed foes only, like Grey Gargoyle and It the Living Colossus, and I believe the rest pretty much writes itself.
Joe Casey’s biggest mistake was creating a whole new character with pheromone powers for his run on Uncanny. That clearly should have been Warren’s secondary mutation.
A beautiful angel with the power to bend people to his will? Lots of story potential, way creepier than metal wings, and more dramatic than “money” as a way to get what he wants.
I’m wondering why exactly Byrne might have opposed having Bobby in the X-Men.
It certainly isn’t because he was bad at drawing the character. Quite the opposite; his Iceman from Champions #11-15 was gorgeous.
Maybe he did not want to draw attention away from other characters that he found more interesting?
I think that part of the problem is that Warren isn’t usually portrayed as a particularly skilled fighter. Sam Wilson fought the Scorpion to a draw before he got his wings, so he was seen as a Badass Normal before he got his wings. So giving him wings just made him seem more capable. Warren has never been shown as doing well against a villain without his powers.
(Although the Scorpion didn’t really fare too well in Captain America. One time he was defeated by Cap hitting him with a tree branch. Another time he was defeated by Cap wrapping him up in ropes and punching him once. Don’t ask me why the Scorpion couldn’t break out of normal ropes with his super strength.)
@Luis Dantas – I don’t think there’s anything more to to it than what he stated. He’s been quite candid about how he feels about characters. If Iceman disinterested him, he’d certainly say so, like he did with Banshee.
And he didn’t say he was bad at drawing Iceman. He said it was difficult to draw Iceman. We only see the finished result, not the process. The finished result may have looked good to you, but given that he found it difficult to draw him, that probably meant that he spent more time on each Iceman rendering than he would have liked.
What would have been really interesting would be if the creators had leaned into the idea of this being a school, where characters actually graduated and moved on and new classes came in.
I know that doesn’t work well with Marvel’s eternally sliding timescale, but given how the early issues -did- allow for progression and graduation…
(Same with Spider-Man, where he graduated high school and went to college within a few years, before settling into a more long-term young adult stasis…)
Warren inherits his company, retires from adventuring for the most part, helps to influence mutant rights through economic measures.
Bobby goes to pursue his career as a CPA, while moonlighting as a solo adventurer. Maybe he winds up on the same level as Spider-Man and Human Torch and Thing for super-hero team up titles.
Hank goes all-in on his scientific pursuits, reasoning that the world doesn’t need a costumed acrobat. Becomes known as one of the go-to science guys across the greater MU, while his adventuring days are just a fond memory.
Scott and Jean settle down together, get married, perhaps joining another super-team as a couple when they get bored. (More Scott than Jean… Scott in the Avengers? Scott forming the Champions? He feels like the one who most wants a normal life and yet doesn’t know how to have it…)
This basically follows the same pattern they experienced in the main line, except they’re not eternally beholden to return to the X-Men time after time. Meanwhile, we get new classes at Xavier’s (instead of the All-New, All-Different, Mostly Adult generation, following by the New Mutants)
Most importantly, characters like Bobby, Hank and Warren, who were either hard to draw, hard to implement in an interesting way, or just underutilized, could have been released into the wild rather than “hey, what if dark side and razor wings?”
Yeah, but that’s the problem with a shared superhero universe, especially considering this was the direction that the X-Men began to move, as some comic creator who grew up during the Silver Age is going to come along who misses these characters (no matter how minor or unpopular) and wants to use them. Once they’re back in circulation, younger creators coming into the business will have grown up with them, keeping it a perpetual cycle.
Characters who were Lee/Kirby creations are never going to be allowed to remain unused for long.
What Chris said.
For example, the reason we got X-Factor in the first place was because Bob Layton grew up on the original X-Men. To him, they were the X-Men. Not those upstarts appearing in the book that Claremont was writing.
Layton loved the original X-Men, and it showed, especially in the way he irreparably damaged Scott’s character straight out of the gate. Because as the saying goes, “You always hurt the ones you love the most.” Layton *really* loved Scott.
@Moo- I’ve always wondered about that. Because it seems like Layton’s issues of X-Factor were designed to diminish Scott and upgrade Warren. In Marvel Age 33, there’s an interview with the creators of X-Factor and Mike Carlin says Scott “will not be the leader of X-Factor” and describes Warren as “the one who gets things done”. Obviously that didn’t completely happen- Scott ended up taking a leadership role. But the X-Factor scam is Warren’s idea. Scott winds up going along with it. And it’s Warren who calls Scott out on lying to Jean. and Jean seems to be attracted to Warren. And they wanted to bring Jean back using Busiek’s idea, they could have just had Maddie turn out to be a Jean who escaped the pod without memories or powers and became a pilot. I’m wondering if Layton always thought Warren should be the X-Men’s leader and Jean’s lover and was deliberate wrecking Scott’s character.
@Michael – Layton wasn’t intentionally trying to wreck Scott’s character. It sounds like Layton thought he was doing Scott a favor…
“He married her as a surrogate. He wasn’t in love with her–he married her because she looked like Jean. That’s so vapid. I don’t know who wrote that story, but to me, it was just like, yeah, you married her because she looks like your old ex-girlfriend. I saw that as not a healthy thing. As much as I love somebody, I wouldn’t just want to hang out with her doppelgänger–all they do is remind me I couldn’t do anything to save her, so I’ve got this clone sitting here. She doesn’t act like her, talk like her, smell like her–any of that stuff. To me, that’s not realistic. That’s not how we behave in real life, and I always try to bring something from reality to what I do.”
Source:
https://aiptcomics.com/2018/07/03/comiconn-2018-x-factor-writer-bob-layton-on-cyclops-controversial-decision-to-leave-his-family-for-jean-grey/
I think Warren, like many X-Men characters, would benefit from taking the time to actually deal with all the trauma he’s suffered, rather than cycling between self-pity and lashing out. And I don’t mean like that Iceman story where Kitty yells at Bobby for lashing out because he has undealt-with trauma.
Make Kitty a normal girl and you deprive so many teenage boys in the 1980s of their fictional Mary Sue crush, especially the ones going thru their Bar Mitzahs in that time,
I feel very seen … in the “dreamed I was naked in middle school” kind of way.
I felt bad for Joe Casey because he did improve towards the end of his run but for a long time that horrible Poptopia arc was the only part of his run that got a collection.
I never felt bad for Casey. It was his own fault. He hyped himself up waaaaay too much in advance of his run. If he just kept his mouth shut and left all of the promoting to Morrison, readers might’ve gone into Casey’s run with simple curiosity rather than the exceedingly high expectations that he set himself.
It wouldn’t have made Poptopia any better than it was, but at least he would have been spared much of that online mockery he received as a result of tripping over his own ego. Plus, the Internet being a little bit quieter about Casey may have bought him an extended grace period to find his feet.
“I don’t know who wrote that story”
Really, Bob? I’m pretty sure we all know who wrote that story.
I know I’m going back 70 posts or so, but I don’t get the “3 of the O5 are point and declare characters”. Jean, sure, as every psychic will always stand back and hold her head. But Iceman is sliding around, throwing snowballs or icicles, Cyclops is zarking all over the place. How are they ‘point and declare’?
Maybe he meant in the context of Silver Age dialogue norms that often described the action? “A quick dose of my optic force beams will put a stop to this!” etc, etc.
Off the top of my head, I can only think of one Marvel superhero whose powers require accompanying dialogue in order to explain precisely what she’s doing, and that’s Monica Rambeau.
An artist can convey to the reader that she’s shifting into some form of energy easily enough without any dialogue present, but not specifically what form of energy she’s taking. It’s not like a reader can just look at her in energy form and say, “Ah, I see that she’s converted her body into neutrinos.” How is the average reader meant to know what that should like? Or distinguish it from cosmic radiation or whatever else she can turn into if it isn’t explained on the page?
I think that might be why her usage by writers trailed off in later years. Back when Stern created her, writers still used thought balloons and the omniscient narrator device. Today, both of those devices are no longer in fashion, and haven’t been for some time. These days Monica has to verbally declare what she’s doing. Whether she’s shifting into microwaves or x-rays or whatever because we can’t tell just from looking at the artwork. That’s a problem, because characters announcing what they’re doing while they’re doing it is kind of silly.
@Moo: I think the power declaration might have contributed to Monica Rambeau being underutilized. Combined with the facts that editorial made sure she was diminished so Captain America could go back to leading the team (thus looking lamer to readers) and that she’s a Black female in a genre traditionally unwelcoming to such characters, she never stood a chance.
There is one feather-winged Angel (using the Archangel codename) story I recall in which he was portrayed as a competent combatant: Warren guest-starred in Thunderbolts v1 27-29 and held his own against several members of the team. Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley did the near-impossible by making Angel badass.
You can convey that she shifted into light by coloring her yellow. Besides, you can always have her be the first person narrator.
I think the real problem with doing away with omniscient narration is that it makes it impossible to explain things that the characters aren’t supposed to know.
“You can convey that she shifted into light by coloring her yellow.”
Yeah, but my point was that she shifts into numerous different forms of energy. How do you tell each of them apart just from looking at the color?
“Besides, you can always have her be the first person narrator.”
No, not always. In a solo book, you could. But Monica is more associated with team books.
@Moo- You can simply have more than one narrator. Or if the narrator is Captain America, for example, you could have him say, “As Monica turned into microwaves. I considered my options.”
Besides, ominscient narration isn’t completely a thing of the past. In Ayodele’s Storm run, the narrator insists on telling us Stom is the kindest and the smartest and the most powerful and the sexiest every issue.
@Moo: At least Monica naming her attacks was used well in nextwave. It made a nice counterpoint to the Captain using his special “kick” attack.
Put me in as another vote for leaning into the idea of Warren as a corporate superhero. He’s one of the very few X-Men with the resources and ability to lead a major organization outside of the Institute and in that sense he’d make a better foil for Xavier than for Cyclops. Lean into the idea of him being rich, handsome, charming, and looking like an angel and let him set up a rival, more proactive pro-mutant and/or superhero organization. Even call it X-Factor, if you want, and play up the contrast between his outlook and what Xavier and/or Cyclops are doing.
But that just brings up another limitation that nobody’s mentioned yet: that niche is currently occupied by Sunspot.
ASV’s got it.
As an exmaple from X-men issue 4, “No matter what you throw at me, your boy the Iceman will whip up an icy defense in jig time–like this little instant-freeze roller coaster!! WHEEE!”
The picture of of Iceman sliding around on his butt on an ice slide with several slides in the background, and I’m not entirely sure how roller coaster tracks are supposed to be used as defense in the context which he’s using them.
Reed Richards is someone who always needs to explain to the reader what he’s doing when he’s doing something vaguely scientific. He’s reading some sensor or looking in what appears to be a microscope for…reasons that he’ll need to tell us.
@Michael – Okay, so your solution is to propose that team book writers adopt a style of writing that most of them don’t (likely because they don’t care to) for Monica’s benefit?
Again, going back many comments, but I think making Angel a very competent fighter as some have proposed would be hard, since the wings presumably get in the way of most hand-to-hand combat. At least it seems like it would be hard to draw!
With Archangel they turned the wings into a shooty power, but you can’t do that with just feathers.
The other points about leaning into his wealth or good looks, or competition with Scott have mostly been done to some degree without a lot of success. Perhaps it would have been a better setup to have the Warrens funding Xavier’s dream – but the source of Charles’ wealth has almost never been a driving plot point for X-Men stories, has it? It’s just a convenient fantasy conceit that they have the resources they need. Maybe you could build out a conflict between Warren and Charles about Warren’s failure as a superhero, despite looking the part, but needing to keep him around for financial reasons.
(X:”His powers are a liability to this team, but without his funding we would have to close the school. If only there were some way to make him the public face of the team and keep him away from combat, but the lad is too desperate to prove himself to the others”
W: “*sob* How can I be accepted as a real member of the team, when all they see me as is some cashed up, pretty-boy pigeon?”)
I’ve almost talked myself into liking this. I would also give an added dimension to a Scott-Jean-Warren love triangle, where Warren’s crush on Jean is really about his desire for acceptance, despite being rich and conventionally attractive, since his biggest desire is just be ‘one of the gang.’
The trick would be not making him almost immediately turn heel.
Just get him out of the X-Men amd into another series where his wealth becomes relevant and his powers, less so.
Put him in a Hellfire Club series and write it like “Succession”. A bunch of people scheming against and trying to out-maneuver eachnother.
Have Warren initially suck at this until Sage, who served in the club for years, begins coaching him.
@Aro- Good point about it being difficult for artists to depict Warren as a good hand-to-hand combatant without the wings getting in the way. Sam Wilson and the Wasp are usually depicted as good fighters but in Sam’s case the wings are usually drawn in such a way that they wouldn’t be get in the way in combat and in Jan’s case the wings vanish when she grows to her full size.
@Aro: having Warren be Xavier’s patron and mascot who wants to prove himself is a viable path for the character. The writer could have Xavier give him some telepathically-induced competence/confidence that fails mid-fight. Scott could have to bail him out, fueling their rivalry. I think Warren would have to get a win from time to time in order to keep him from being too pathetic, and maybe have a genuine friendship with Bobby or Hank.
@Moo: Warren as an arrogant but incompetent rich boy trying to take over the Hellfire Club? Sounds great! Warren & Sage vs. Emma & Rohm vs. Pierce & Leland, Shaw as the Logan Roy figure pulling the strings… I’d read and/or watch that. If Marvel was a more adventurous publisher and Big 2 comic book readers would take a chance on a new idea, it could be a hit.
Leaning heavily on Warren’s wealth doesn’t get you very far, I don’t think. So many comic book characters are millionaires, from Scrooge McDuck to Richie Rich to Bruce Wayne, and it usually just expedites plot points. If you think too hard about money in superhero comics it all falls apart.
There’s a similar problem with the infrequent (and unsatisfactory) attempts to do a corporate version of Warren. Succession works as a series because it kind of maps to real-world analogues (I maintain that it’s mostly a satire, but that’s beside the point), but if you throw superpowers into the mix, that realistic touch-point gets lost. This was a problem with the Krakoan X-Corp series. What were the businesses? What was the power structure?
The Hellfire Club intrigue in the first volume of Marauders worked OK, but it was very far removed from any pretense of being realistic. It didn’t make a lot of sense if you looked too closely, but that didn’t matter because it was a romp with pirates instead of boardrooms.
Warren might have worked in that book, maybe taking the role of Iceman (it’s not like he got to do a lot, anyway). It could have given you a cool visual of him flying over the ship, and maybe there’s a story in there of him getting double-crossed Shaw.
I did like how he used his money to set up the team headquarters in Uncanny X-Force – but I don’t think they did a lot with that after the first couple of issues.
“Just get him out of the X-Men and into another series where his wealth becomes relevant and his powers, less so.”
Yeah, and you could reunite him with Bobby and Hank. Warren could finance the team, and they could all live in Warren’s mansion in Colorado with Valkyrie. And…oh, hold on. 😉
@Aro – You don’t need to “lean heavily” on Warren’s wealth. It doesn’t have to be one extreme or the other.
On a Warren’s Wealth Scale between “about as relevant to the character as his astrological sign” and “literally all there is to him”, you try to aim for somewhere in the middle.
I’ve been thinking about “point and declare” characters a bit, and I think early Scarlet Witch counts. She’d have to say what she intended with any given hex for us to know if it worked or not. I suppose that’s true of any magic user, actually. Zatanna literally says exactly what she intends.
Sue Storm is another one, but for a different reason. She has to declare what she’s doing because no one else in the story would know otherwise. Sometimes Reed asks her to do something specific, which kind of skirts the trope, but it’s still just explaining what Sue is doing out loud for the sake of other characters or the readers.
“I’ve been thinking about “point and declare” characters a bit, and I think early Scarlet Witch counts.”
I’d say later Scarlet Witch too.
She may not have been pointing at the time, but she certainly declared the shit out of mutants in House of M. That was a mic drop declaration.
“Back when Stern created her, writers still used thought balloons and the omniscient narrator device”.
It will never make any sense to me that comics don’t use thought balloons any more. It was almost always made very clear where the thoughts fit in relation to the dialogue, whereas now you get
[narration box], dialogue, [narration box]…
that are often so unconnected they totally break the flow of what’s happening.
It wasn’t broken so they shouldn’t have ‘fixed’ it.
@Dave – Nobody ‘fixed’ anything. It wasn’t an editorial edict. Thought balloons simply went out of style. DC books are no different.
Warren can be almost killed by a swan and go on a downward spiral, Matt Murdock-style, until he reinvents himself.