Pop Mythology Pop Mythology: Movie, Book, Comic reviews & commentary
Cyclops, Vol. 1: Starstruck is about Scott Summers as a kid who has ended up being transported through time to the present after having only spent a couple weeks as actual X-Men under Xavier. He was already a confused teenager, but then he found out he grows up to be someone he never wanted to be and the relationship he was starting to develop with the girl he was possibly in love with, Jean Grey, is doomed to both fail and define their future. Oh, and the father he thought had died when he was just a boy, is actually alive and is a sexy badass space pirate. Scott leaves the X-Men team that was brought to the present in the All-New X-Men series after the “Trial of Jean Grey” story, in which a Jean Grey gets put on trial for crimes she hadn’t yet committed, but that her future self does. Needless to say, it’s complicated and he needs time to think and to get to know the dad he never knew so he leaves with him for space, leaving Jean behind. And so Scott begins his own story, in a comic book that could have fell flat on its face so very, very hard (though the same can be said for the All-New X-Men series as well), but that ends up being both dramatic and touching, and action-packed and swashbuckingly awesome at the same time.
Greg Rucka ends up only being on the series for most of the first volume of the series that collects issues #1 through 6 and is reviewed here, before John Layman takes over in fine fashion in issue 6 with Javier Garron on pencils. I have to say, I was a bit disappointed at the news as Greg Rucka and his space artist extraordinaire, Russel Dauterman, were absolutely killing it, but John Layman does a good job in last issue of the volume and I think the new creative team does a good job carrying on the tone and spirit that Rucka and his team set for the series with the first five issue arc. This is the story you didn’t know you want; it’s got the swashbuckling, sword-fighting, laser-blasting, crazy new species and locales and spacefaring that you want with a space pirate title coupled with suitable touching, raw, and poignant writing to accompanying the narration of a young, teenage Scott Summers.
The only thing better than all the sword fighting and new alien vistas and planets that accompany them, is the interaction between the Scott and his father. Both of them are figuring everything out as they go along, Scott has a lot of angst to deal with in addition to everything he’s learned about how he turns out to be the man who kills his mentor and father figure, Professor Xavier. Scott’s father, Corsair, is basically a man child who chose to run away from all his responsibilities and chose revenge, anger, and then to jaunt around the universe as captain of the Starjammer with a sexy alien girlfriend and the rest of his crew while they waylaid other vessels and generally made trouble. Both characters have never been written so well and it makes me not only wish that Rucka stayed on to do more issues of the series, but that I get to see more of him in the future on some other titles. Having him write for Cyclops again in some form of another would be a great treat. Like I said previously though, John Layman carries the series in fine fashion and creates the same dynamic, if not the same feel in the dialogue so far (but it’s early), along with a whole bunch of action. This is definitely still one series I’ll be itching to get my hands on every month.
