CLASSIC X-MEN #41-43 (1989): Cyclops’ Origin Retooled

Mister Sinister meets grade-school Cyclops in this historical story that takes place when Scott Summers was in an orphanage and his eye-beams hadn’t developed yet. This is the first two-part story for these short, 8-10 page back-ups that appeared in Classic X-Men, which mainly served to reprint old X-Men stories and sometimes add a page or two to them of new material.

Claremont also hasn’t written a back up feature in over 20 issues. These are pretty important stories for Cyclops, as they establish that Mr. Sinister tried to corrupt him after the Shi’Ar kidnapped his parents. It picks up threads that were very subtly dropped into the Inferno Event–another example of how Claremont was able to visualize an entire timeline for all of his characters. He was truly the greatest plotter in comic book history.

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