Scott Summers (Joint Venture)

Cyclops is a mutant superhero and member of the original X-Men. This is the Joint Venture Universe version of the character.

Early life
The oldest son of an Air Force Major and his charter pilot wife, Scott Summers was an unpopular kid even in his youth. His preference for cerebral pursuits, like academics, reading, or playing games of strategy that seemed far too old for him, like chess or Dungeons & Dragons, had him pegged as a nerd early on. To keep bullies away from himself and his younger brother Alex, Scott dedicated himself to physical activities as well, trying to hone his young body and mind to the best of his ability. This made him seem oddly serious, even to his parents, and instilled early on the idea, now commonplace, that "Scott Summers doesn't know how to have fun." He would not argue the point, instead being well aware that his definition of 'fun' differed from everyone else's.

Crash of the Corsair
Scott and Alex's lives would take an unfortunate turn shortly after Scott's ninth birthday, when the family was flying home to Nebraska from visiting Scott's grandparents in Alaska in their father's prized plane, a de Havilland Mosquito, named the Corsair after Christopher's Air Force call sign.

The plane ran into heavily turbulent weather, and a lightning strike disabled the engine -- or so Scott thought at the time. With the plane going down and three of the four parachutes on board in flames, Christopher and Katherine buckled Scott in the last remaining one, putting Alex in his arms, and pushed them off to that they had hoped was safety. Sadly, even the last parachute was smoldering as it opened, and burst into flames well before they hit the ground. Panicking, Scott looked at the ground, and opened his eyes...to unleash a burst of irresistible concussive force from them that slowed his and Alex's fall enough for them to survive, landing hard in a smoldering crater Scott's optic blast had in the Nebraskan wilderness.

Although they had survived, the incident was not without cost. Scott's optic blasts were still new to him, and had been unleashed for several minutes in order to slow the brothers' momentum enough to survive. In addition, when they landed, Scott's head still struck the ground hard enough to knock him unconscious and cause permanent damage. He was hospitalized, comatose for months, during which Alex, who had survived completely uninjured, was placed in the foster system. Scott's last connection to his family was seemingly lost to him forever.

Sinister's Orphanage
Scott awoke amnesiac, remembering only glimpses of his father, mother, and brother, and the plane crash that had taken all of them from him. He did not remember his grandparents, or anything else about his life prior to the crash. He was taken in by Nathaniel Essex, the runner of what he called "a special orphanage for special children". Essex told Scott that he had been the only survivor of the crash, and Scott believed himself alone in the world because of it...just as Essex had wanted. He raised Scott like any other child in his orphanage by day, but at night, the true nature of Scott's seemingly kindly benefactor was revealed.

Like Scott, Essex himself was possessed of superhuman powers, though his had been acquired through scientific and magical means, rather than being inborn as Scott's were. In his true guise as "Mr. Sinister", Essex was secretly not only a mad scientist and gene manipiulator, but a devotee of the Octessence, a council of eight otherdimensional beings who granted power to sorcerers on Earth in exchange for a debt. Specifically, Sinister had pledged himself to Cytorrak the Spirit of Destruction, Ikonn the Spirit of Illusion, and Krakkan the Spirit of Domination. Each of these "principalities" had granted him a portion of their powers, and he used them in addition to the powers he had manipulated himself to further his own ends. ever-hngry for more, however, he had seen Scott's landing -- specifically, the power of the optic blast than enabled him to survive his landing -- and grown even more covetous.

Each night, Essex experimented on Scott, using both sophisticated machines and his mystic powers on him, tormenting him for years to determine the nature and strength of his powers. Each night at the end of a session, when Scott was all but broken and shaking from the hell Sinister had put him through, Sinister would use the Illusions of Ikonn to erase his memories of the events, thereby making his efforts untraceable. However, Scott remembered his tribulations, even if only as nightmares, and the trauma they brought him only served to further isolate him from the others in the orphanage.

The Breaking Point
The trauma of Scott's nightly visits from Sinister, and the bullying that other children subjected him to on a daily basis for being "weird", finally took their toll on Scott during his adolescence. His pain, hurt, fear, loneliness, and rage piled up inside him to the point where his optic blasts began firing without being coaxed out by Essex, even when he was awake. Scott struggled and tried to control them, but there was little he could do. The damage to his mind from the plane crash, and the toll his nightly horrors had taken on him, had made it so that his powers were always 'on', that devastating, destructive force would always pour out of his eyes. He would never be able to look at anything again without destroying it utterly. In despair, Scott blindfolded himself, binding his eyes tightly shut so that he could never open them again. Now blind, the teenager staggered out of the orphanage and away, living on the street and doing what he had to to survive without ever opening his eyes, even once.

"Jack O'Diamonds"
Alone, blind, and homeless at fourteen, Scott scraped by on whatever he could to survive, until finally he fell in with a small-time crime boss, calling himself "Jack O'Diamonds." Though Scott didn't know it, Jack was a mutant like him, in his case possessed of diamond-like skin, giving him enhanced strength and durability, but also making his skin a translucent white. He sought out desperate young people like Scott to form a ring of thieves, but when Jack found out about Scott's powers after an accident wiht his blindfold one night, his entire tune changed. Suddemly Scott found himself being exploited again, forced to use his optic blasts to blow holes in bank vaults, prison walls, and anything else Jack wanted destroyed.

Eventually, news of the new criminal ring reached Sinister's ears. Immediately identifying the signature of Scott's optic blasts from news footage, he assigned his henchmen, the Marauders, to reacquire Scott by any means necessary. Jack, knowing he was outmatched, turned Scott over to Sinister with relatively little coercion, despite Scott's protests and pleas.

Rescued at last
With the mutant boy back in his control, Sinister continued his experiments and spells, now using not only his own powers on Scott, but the powers of another captive mutant. Furthermore, he was no longer even bothering to hide his activities from Scott, denying the boy even the peace of oblivion after the torments of his depradations.

Eventually Scott's mental anguish reached a fever pitch, and his psychic screams were finally heard, by a young woman who would soon become one of the most important people in his life. In Westchester, New York, Jean Grey was using Cerebro for the first time when she heard his mental cries. When her team, the X-Men, went to rescue another of thier own from Sinister's clutches, they found Scott as he had been -- imprisoned, tortured, suffering. After a climactic battle wirh Sinister and his allies, the X-Men freed Scott.

Offered the promise of some form of control over his powers, Scott agreed to return to Salem Center with the X-Men. There, the team's founders, Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr, fashioned him special glasses and a visor, made of ruby quartz, which Sinister's notes had claimed was the only material able to control his optic blasts. When the test of the glasses and visor proved successful, Xavier offered Scott a place at the Xavier Isntitute for Higher Learning. Scott accepted, with the provision that he be allowed to search for his brother Alex. With the bargain struck, Scott Summers became Cyclops, one of the X-Men.

Strategic gifts

To be disclosed

Powers:
Optic Blast: Cyclops's body metabolizes ambient energies (such as solar radiation, photons, cosmic rays, etc.) and converts them into concussive "optic blasts", beams of solid, ruby-red force that are released from his eyes. The dimensions of these blasts seem to be focused by a psionic field from his mind, controlled by the same autonomic function that regulates his eyes' ability to focus. As Cyclops focuses, the size of the 'aperture' for his blasts changes, and thus acts as a valve to control the flow of particles, and the beam's overall range and power. The dimensions of Cyclops's optic blasts can also be controlled by his visor's adjustable slit.

Energy Resistance: Cyclops is immune to the effects of his own power -- despite his eyes pouring forth a seemingly unlimited amount of force, he is able to remain standing, unaffected by the pushback such force would inevitably produce. In addition, if his optic blasts are redirected at him, the beam will simply "splash" harmlessly against Cyclops' body as the energy is reabsorbed.

Spatial Awareness: Cyclops possesses an uncanny sense of spatial geometry, in this sense used to observe the placement of objects around himself and the angles found between surfaces of these objects. Despite not being able to mentally change the directions of his optic blasts, Cyclops CAN use his inhuman spatial awareness to cause his optic blasts to ricochet and/or reflect off of objects, in a trajectory to his liking. This is commonly called a "banked shot" when applied to this talent. The upper limits of spatial calculations he can accurately make are unknown.

Weaknesses:
Brain Damage: Sinister's studies of a young Scott concluded that he should logically be in complete control of his beams; beyond being able to turn them on and off at will, Cyclops should be able to mentally direct the beam wherever he wishes it to go, even change its direction mid-blast to fire around something. However, because of the brain damage he suffered as a child, it is unlikely he will ever develop this control.

Energy Reserves: While Scott's body absorbs and metabolizes ambient energies at a fantastic rate, if he is ever cut off from these fuel sources -- i.e. put in a place where sunlight, cosmic radiation, photons, etc. cannot reach him -- his optic blasts will quickly run dry. If this occurs, his body must re-metabolize the energies necessary to replenish his optic blast. This process can take anywhere from minutes to days, during which Scott possesses no optic blasts at all.

Physical and Mental Fatigue: Scott possesses physical and mental limits that affect the strength and duration of his optic blasts: namely, the physical fatigue of keeping one's eyes open constantly, without blinking, and the mental fatigue of focusing constantly on regulating the energy's output. After about 15 minutes of constant use, Scott will lose focus, and his eyes will only emit a slight leakage of energy. Cyclops's optic blasts often return after about an additional 15 minutes of rest.