Is Cyclops A Cop? The Heated Argument Over Marvel's X-Men Leader, Explained

So, why does Cyclops get a bad rap in some fans’ eyes? One possible explanation is that he ended up on the wrong side of the contest against one of the Marvel universe’s most famous characters — Wolverine.

Wolverine and Cyclops have been rivals for various personal, ethical, and situational reasons for roughly as long as they’ve known each other. Since Wolverine is easily more popular and more of a mysterious wild card, this makes Cyclops the more boring, law-abiding character by default. It doesn’t help that Wolverine’s entire movie story hijacks nearly every X-Men film he appears in, infamously pushing James Marsden’s Cyclops so far to the sidelines that the character is unceremoniously killed off in “X-Men: The Last Stand.”   

Because of their history of animosity and Cyclops’ tendency to be portrayed as a stick in the mud compared to Wolverine, it’s ironic that Cyclops is the one whose past is full of extremism, disrupting the status quo, and being arrested for his status and beliefs. Meanwhile, Wolverine has been with the Man since the very beginning, albeit not always voluntarily. His origin story ties him to a top-secret government project, he’s a card-carrying member of the Avengers, and he even worked for the CIA at one point. How’s that for a cop?