LogFAQs > #878005741

Kimbos_Egg posted...

no. like i said he got over it. it was his own mental block.

then the author changed it back again.

It's been canon for decades (since at least 1980) that Cyclops suffered brain damage after parachuting out of the plane with his brother when his parents were kidnapped by the Shi'ar. It's such a core part of his backstory that even the Ultimate universe version of the character has the same problem - traumatic brain damage while young prevents him from controlling his powers.

The time I'm assuming you're referring to is when Emma convinced him that it was just a psychological problem - but since she's a telepath and was inside his head at the time (while she herself was possessed by an evil psionic entity), there's a very distinct possibility that she was lying. The fact that he never has that control again afterward implies that either a) Emma just made him hallucinate having the control when he didn't, or b) she was actively using her power to suppress his (something we've seen telepaths do to him in the past). Since everything since has acted on the assumption that the brain damage IS the issue, it's kind of safe to assume that's still the status quo answer.

Basically, the only times in the comics when Cyclops has EVER been able to control his powers on his own almost always involves outside interference or the active healing of his brain (like in X-Men/Alpha Flight in the 80s). Ironically, almost every major example we've ever seen has involved someone connected to the Phoenix in some way.

On a meta level, that scene was written by Joss Whedon, who is kind of a terrible comic book writer, and who had a lot of elements of his run ignored or retconned by later writers (not as much as Austen or Morrison, but still). It's pretty safe to assume it in no way applies to the current state of affairs (doubly so since the Cyclops in that scene is effectively dead now anyway).

It HAS been implied at times both before and after that that the amount of power Cyclops can draw when firing blasts IS limited by mental blocks (either ones self-inflicted by his own doubt or ones deliberately applied to him by Mister Sinister as a child), so that definitely complicates matters, but it isn't really a case of "You can control it if you REALLY want to" for him.


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