Workshop: "Writing Wolverine/Cyclops" by Likeadeuce and Harmonyangel
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
Writing Cyclops/Wolverine Fanfiction
Introduction
Scott Summers (a.k.a. "Cyclops") and James "Logan" Howlett (a.k.a. "Wolverine") are two of the most recognizable characters in Marvel Comics. Even a casual X-Men fan recognizes them as a pair of contrasting character types -- the good boy and the bad boy, the clean-cut Boy Scout and the gruff, violent assassin. Or, as "Uncanny X-Men" writer Matt Fraction put it recently: Scott and Logan are the Luke Skywalker and Han Solo of Marvel Comics.
Fans of slash fiction are most likely to encounter the Scott/Logan pairing in stories based on the X-Men movieverse. Movieverse Scott and Logan fics deal, almost universally, with a couple of themes: rivalry, based on their struggle for dominance within the X-Men and their romantic competition over Jean Grey; shared grief, based on their common connection to Jean, after her death at the end of X2; or some combination of the two dynamics. A few stories, mostly fic that is set in the future or goes AU after X2, allow the relationship to deepen into a greater bond based on their roles as friends and teammates. However, the timeline of the movies is so compressed -- even by generous estimates, the three X-Men films probably don't cover more than a year, and the first two can't cover more than a few weeks -- that the first two themes tend to dominate.
In the Marvel Comics universe, Scott and Logan's relationship starts with the characters in a similar position to what they have in the first movie, but over more than thirty years of canon, their interactions have had a chance to evolve and grow. Precisely because of the long, complex, and sometimes contradictory nature of that canon, though, writers may find it difficult to get a handle on their dynamic. This essay will provide an overview of the two characters in comicsverse canon, and how their relationship has grown through rivalry and shared grief to a place of comradeship, and the opportunities that dynamic provides for Scott/Logan shippers.
Cyclops
Scott Summers is part of the first generation of characters in the Marvel Comics universe. He debuted in 1963, appointed by Professor Charles Xavier as "deputy leader" of the X-Men, originally conceived as a team of teenage heroes whose unusual powers were based on their genetic makeup, rather than supernatural encounters, or radiation accidents. By the 1970s, these "mutant" characters had outgrown their teen-team origin, but Cyclops' leadership of some incarnation of an "X"-team has been as close to a constant as anything in the ever-mutable Marvel Universe. .
"Leadership," in fact, is the characteristic most often used to define Scott Summers -- for better and for worse. Capable of tactical genius in combat situations, and of forceful eloquence in pursuit of Xavier's dream of human/mutant equality, Cyclops at his best (as, for instance, when written by Chris Claremont in the classic "God Loves, Man Kills," or by Joss Whedon in "Astonishing X-Men") is a leader we would all be willing to follow. At least as often, though, Cyclops is perceived as the guy who insists on following rules, who says "no" to anything fun or innovative or even just-maybe-a-little-bit wrong. At best, this view of Cyke holds, he's a Boy Scout. At worst, he's a wet blanket, or even a flat-out asshole.
But there's more to Scott Summers than Cyclops. Before he was the leader of the X-Men, Scott was a teenage runaway who believed himself orphaned in an accident -- an accident that he survived only because his mother wrapped him in a parachute, told him to hold on to his younger brother, and pushed them both from the hatch of a tailspinning airplane. Despite his best efforts, Scott wasn't able to hold on. His brother was raised by an adoptive family, while Scott was shuffled from lonely orphanage to abusive foster home, surviving a childhood that became more Dickensian every time a new storyline retconned in a fresh trauma. And when his mutant power manifested, Scott found himself unable to control the powerful optic blasts without the aid of special glasses and, later, the visor he would use in combat.
Small wonder, after such an origin, that Scott developed a complicated relationship with the organization that gave him a new home. As a teenager, he fell in love with Jean Grey, one of his teammates on the original X-Men. But from the beginning, he feared that his uncontrollable power would inadvertently lead him to harm anyone he cared about. Combined with the fear of his own power, he had an orphan's dread of losing anyone he grew close to, and yet a desperate need to be close to someone, anyway. His famously troubled relationship with Jean grew out of these emotional contradictions. Scott's canonical love affairs are worthy of a different essay, or five. It should be sufficient to say, here, that a character who was purely an emotionless, inflexible, rule-happy Boy Scout could hardly have been involved in some of the most tumultuous, passionate love stories in Marvel canon. Scott Summers wasn't born loving rules, order and discipline. Rather, the rules are what allow him to process and manage inner and outer conflicts when they threaten to become unbearable. If there is anyone Scott knows in a position to understand this problem, it's Wolverine.
Wolverine
Wolverine - who will be called "Logan" throughout most of this essay - is a character who needs no introduction. Inarguably the most iconic of the X-Men, Wolverine has been popular since his introduction in Hulk #181 in 1974, but it wasn't until the 1990s and the boom of "hardcore" characters that he became the megastar he's been ever since. Right now, he's got three comic book titles all to himself, in addition to monthly one-shot issues and appearances in almost every X-Men book and the Avengers titles to boot. He's been the central character, for better or worse, in all three X-Men movies, and he was a major part of both X-Men cartoons: the 1990s X-Men and the early 2000s X-Men: Evolution. With the film X-Men Origins: Wolverine and a new cartoon, Wolverine and the X-Men, on the horizon, it doesn't look like Wolverine's ubiquity is going to be decreasing any time soon.
To many fans, this is a problem. The terms "overexposed" and "overrated" are frequently tossed around the internet; even this recent article about the upcoming cartoon questions Wolverine's worthiness for his position as Marvel Comics' second-biggest cash cow (the first, of course, being Spider-Man). Wolverine, many feel, is crude and hyperviolent, a walking cliché representative of the bloody, overly-muscled comics of the 1990s that many would like to leave behind. The common perception of comicsverse Wolverine is of a metal-clawed tough guy prone to slicing people up, drinking beer, and generally being one-dimensionally boorish, with occasional repetitive angst and "heart of gold" moments thrown in for good measure.
Given all of that, one might naturally wonder why anyone would want to write fanfiction about Wolverine. If he's so overexposed already, if all of his stories have already been told so often that they've become clichés, and he's so generally unlikable as a person, why would anyone want to write fic about him? It's not an unreasonable question - and it's a question even harmonyangel once found herself asking, with incredulous frustration. But the fact is that, despite the banality of the basic one-sentence description, and despite the occasionally repetitive and uninteresting stories sometimes told by the extremely mixed bag of writers who have crafted tales for the character, Wolverine is, at his heart, a sympathetic character of surprisingly complex psychology, with a back story ripe for exploration and complicated relationships that never feel stale.
It would be impossible to encapsulate Wolverine's entire character history in a small section of a brief essay; even his Wikipedia page can't begin to cover all the canon he's accumulated. But even a brief rundown of his most important canon points belies his surprising depth. He was born to a wealthy Canadian family in the 1890s, but when his bone claws emerged tragedy soon followed, and he found himself cast adrift in the world, his memories vanishing as he hardened himself at a mining camp. Another tragedy -- the loss of his childhood friend, Rose, the first girl he loved -- led to a few years spent living among wolves in the woods, completely feral, his brain healing itself of the painful memories. In the years that followed, Logan would struggle constantly to figure out who he was and what happened in his past, as he lived through the decades, barely aging because of his healing factor, becoming involved in WWI, WWII, and Vietnam, not to mention the clandestine government program known as Weapon X, which wiped his memories once again and laced his skeleton with adamantium, the strongest metal known to man.. He spent time in Japan becoming a samurai, and in fictional island nation Madripoor as a local folk legend; he met such characters as Captain America, Nick Fury, the Black Widow, Ms. Marvel, and Ben Grimm; he made rivals of men like Sabretooth and Omega Red; and he loved many women, most of whom died tragically. And after a brief stint with Alpha Flight and other Canadian government programs, he joined the X-Men, where he met Scott Summers and Jean Grey for the first time. Since then, he's been a constant fixture on almost every X-Men team, balancing X-Men adventures with solo adventures and occasionally even having a personal life outside of the team -- his brief relationship (ending in her death) with the Japanese Mariko Yashida being one of the most salient examples.
For all his faults, Logan is far from a one-dimensional character. He's violent, yes, and he's frequently an unrepentant killer, but he also struggles to fight against the Berserker rages that consume him. And while he may not own any books by Emily Post, his lack of manners doesn't mean he lacks ethics. He's a samurai, following a warrior code -- and he is intensely loyal to his friends, his morals, and his cause. Despite his blasé attitude about most things, he's one of the most ardent proponents of Xavier's dream, and when the mutant race is threatened, Logan is one of the first to take up the cause of mutant rights. He takes in young girls and acts as a mentor to them, and though he grumbles about it, he's probably the most motherly of the X-Men. He can be jealous, sure, and animalistically possessive -- but he can also be extremely supportive about those he loves -- particularly Jean Grey -- finding love with others. And he really, really cares about Scott Summers -- even if he'll rarely admit it.
Wolverine and Cyclops' Relationship
Wolverine joined the X-Men in 1975, part of the "all-new, all-different" team that would explode into popularity under writer Chris Claremont. In the new team's first storyline, Xavier recruits Logan, and several others (including such stalwarts-to-be as Colossus, Storm, and Nightcrawler) to work with Cyclops and rescue the other members of the existing X-Men team. The rescued X-Men then decide to leave the team and go in their own directions -- except for Cyclops. Scott stays on to help Xavier train the new team, and develops an adversarial relationship with Logan almost immediately. The most obvious cause of the tension between them is Logan's jealousy of Scott's relationship with Jean. Logan openly flirts with her, and - according to retconned canon, in any case - Jean immediately feels a connection with Logan, too. She remains committed to her relationship with Scott, but the love triangle inevitably leads to tension between the two men.
But the rivalry and friction between Scott and Logan during their early days on the team is not only the result of two men pursuing the same woman. The all-new, all-different team marks a major shift from the teen team that the X-Men had originally been. The new group of X-Men are generally older, more experienced heroes, assembled from divergent backgrounds with no common history. Although Scott has years of experience leading the original X-Men, he has to learn a new approach to leadership with a group that challenges his every move. Wolverine epitomizes the challenges of the new regime. He sees no reason to trust or respect "One-Eye," that "Boy Scout," and takes every opportunity to let him know it.
The team dynamics of the X-Men would change forever with the classic storyline known as "The Dark Phoenix Saga." Beginning in Uncanny X-Men #100, and culminating in issue #137, Jean Grey is gradually possessed -- in some form or another -- by a cosmic entity known as the Phoenix, leading her to become uncontrollably powerful, destroy an alien galaxy and, apparently, die. (For simplicity's sake, and because it is most relevant to the emotional impact on Scott and Logan, I am describing the DPS as it was originally written, minus the layers of subsequent retconning. There is enough material for several essays in this story (in fact, likeadeuce has a Jean Grey essay coming up next month, so if you're interested, please tune in then!) Both men are deeply affected by their connection to Jean, but they respond very differently.
Logan comes to believe early in Jean's possession that the only way to stop the Phoenix's growing power is to kill her. Even though he loves her deeply, Logan doesn't hesitate to go for a killing blow -- until Jean momentarily gains control and begs him to do it. This causes Logan to hesitate long enough that the Phoenix re-emerges and defeats him. Unlike Logan, Scott refuses to accept that Jean is going to die, and insists on believing that he can save his lover, long after Jean herself has understood the necessity of her own death. Choosing to end her own life, Jean tells Scott, "The choice was never yours to begin with," and, "I love you" -- then vaporizes herself in front of his eyes.
Both men are left grief-stricken by the loss of Jean, but for different reasons. Logan loved her, but (canonically, at least) never had a chance to be with her, so his heartbreak is for what might have been. He was also willing to kill her in order to destroy the Phoenix, and yet wasn't successful at doing so when it was on the line. Her death, then, leaves him with the sense of failure due to never becoming her lover, the unsettling knowledge that he was willing to murder someone he cared for in order to keep her from being a killer herself, and finally the frustration of not being able to go through with it, which might have saved further pain for everyone involved. Scott, at least, loses Jean with the full knowledge that she loved him. Nonetheless, much of his idealism and determination that doing good and making heroic choices will lead to victory is stripped from him forever by the loss of Jean.
The devastating effect that the events of Dark Phoenix had on the people who loved Jean Grey can't be overstated. It's sometimes too easy for readers to dismiss a comic book death -- particularly that of a character (in)famous for her many resurrections -- as lacking in emotional impact. But events can't be unlived, and a character's experience of loss isn't going to evaporate because he discovers months or years later that the event that shattered his idealism, or revealed unpalatable truths about the lines he would or wouldn't be willing to cross, didn't 'count' because (oh, just for instance) the real Jean Grey was lying in a cocoon in the bottom of Jamaica Bay. The emotional experiences still occurred for these characters, and it's not an accident that Dark Phoenix would be referenced over and over again throughout the course of the canon, even during the periods when Jean was alive. (She died again in 2003 if you're keeping track. Jean essay next month, likeadeuce promises).
The Dark Phoenix Saga is crucial to understanding Scott and Logan's relationship, because, unlike the individual tragedies they had both suffered in the past, this was an experience they shared. Yet at the same time that their common loss has the potential to bring them together (a very common theme in post-X2 movieverse slash), their very different points of view and reactions to Jean's fate provide an opportunity to explore the contrast between the two characters. Comics storytelling is notoriously bad at allowing the consequences of events to unfold. Either they are changed by the next writer or retold inaccurately for the sake of serving a new story. Fanfic is a particularly good medium for taking one moment in story-time - maybe just the space between a couple of panels - and teasing out all of its implications. It's a way of saying, 'Yes, this happened, and they had to deal with it at the time, and they're still dealing with it after twenty-five years of intervening stories.' Canon doesn't always want to remember (and for the sake of the serial stories Marvel has to sell, sometimes it can't), but as fic writers, we choose our own moments and give them the resonance we think they deserve.
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For a while after the end of Dark Phoenix, there is something of a break in Scott and Logan's relationship. Scott is torn between his role with the X-Men and his desire to have a life outside the team. He flirts with leaving the team several times, marries Madelyne Pryor and has a child, and finally leaves the X-Men, seemingly for good, when he loses his leadership position in a battle with Storm. Soon after, he joins the resurrected Jean and his original X-Men teammates on the spinoff team X-Factor. Meanwhile, it is Logan who becomes a mainstay of the core X-Men team. While the two men encounter each other via various convoluted crossovers, they don't truly come back into each other's lives until the 1991 launch of the second main ("adjectiveless") X-Men title. At this point, the teams reunite, based once again out of Xavier's school. Scott once again emerges as the group's overall leader, and Logan as the formidable fighter who can get the dirtiest jobs done.
Their relationship isn't the same as it once was, though, and the first strong indication of the shift is in a scene in X-Men #7. At the end of the issue, Logan tells Scott that he has business from his own shadowed past to take care of and has to leave for a while. "I wasn't asking permission," Logan says, immediately defensive. "And I'm not granting it," Scott answers, putting a gloved hand on Logan's shoulder. "I'm telling you to call us if you need a hand." Logan muses that, before joining the X-Men, he never would have considered calling on someone else for help, but, "it's comforting to know I've got friends -- family even -- covering my back." "Now and forever, Logan," Scott answers. "Whether you want it or not."
Since that moment, Scott and Logan's relationship has gradually moved away from rivalry and more firmly toward mutual respect and friendship (though they still aren't strangers to the occasional fistfight, and the more-than-occasional bout of mutual mockery). Instead of competing for Jean's attention, Logan begins to respect Scott and Jean's relationship. When Scott and Jean get married, in X-Men #30 (1994), Logan isn't present, too busy trying to rearrange his life in the wake of the forced removal of his adamantium. But that doesn't stop him from taking time right before he leaves to send Jean a letter encouraging her to marry Scott. "I just wanted to let you two know how much you meant to me - how much the things you did for me mattered," Logan writes. "You guys are something special, and most times, you don't even see it."
While once Logan had been combative, unable to express his feelings or even admit that he was more than the "loner" he once was, this era found Logan reflecting frequently on, and displaying, his feelings toward both halves of the Scott-and-Jean pair. Even when, in Wolverine #101, he's gone completely feral (a side-effect of the adamantium removal) Logan still doesn't hesitate to dive after Scott when Scott falls off a steep cliff, catching him in midair and saving his life. When, at the bottom of the cliff, he fears that Scott might be dead, his animal brain induces him to lick at Scott's face to see if he's ok; when he determines that he is, he proceeds to carry him around with the back of his costume between his teeth for the rest of the issue, and holds him protectively to his chest when confronted by the other X-Men, until Jean pats his head and reassures him that it's ok to turn him over. Logan has been stripped of his higher brain functions, reduced to subverbal, caveman-caliber intellect, and yet his base instincts tell him to save, protect, and even lick a man he once claimed he couldn't stand. Clearly, the relationship has grown.
At times, this growing relationship may seem one-sided -- Logan's admiration for, and devotion to, Scott is certainly more evident than the inverse. But Scott is a less demonstrative person, to put it mildly, and his true feelings about anyone rarely come through. Still, there are times when Scott's feelings - and even, possibly, attraction - are more than evident. In X-Men #28, for instance, just two issues before his marriage to Jean, Scott tries to talk to Jean about Logan. "I know how you felt," Scott says, referring to Jean's feelings for Logan. "--still do, I guess--I understand it, too. The fire burning inside him... the dangerous side of things can be incredibly exciting. I can see how that excitement always appealed to you... you and he always shared that passion for life..." Not only does Scott accept, without anger, that his fiancée was attracted to this other man, he confesses his comprehension of that attraction, and even goes so far as to compare his fiancé to that man. Certainly this is a far cry from his early interaction with Logan, where he barely merited a classification of anything higher than an animal. And any time that Logan is presumed dead - like, for instance, during Uncanny X-Men #375, when Logan has, unbeknownst to the X-Men, been replaced by a shapeshifting alien - Scott's anger and grief are exposed unflinchingly.
A particularly dramatic and demonstrative moment between the pair comes in Wolverine #118 and X-Men #70, in which Scott, after a major battle, has had a bomb implanted in his stomach. As the X-Men race back to their mansion with the injured Scott in tow, Logan speaks quietly with Storm. "Me and Slim, we've had our problems," Logan says, "But all that's water under the bridge. Seein' him and Red in pain like that... Right now, I wish Cyke was the one with the healing factor." When they finally get back to the mansion, they realize that the only way to save Scott is to cut the bomb out -- and the only sharp objects at hand are Logan's claws. As Logan stands nervously over Scott, Jean encourages him. "I -- We trust you with all our hearts," she says. As Logan prepares to cut, he turns to the doctor. "Not used t' usin' these things fer healin', doc. But fer these two kids... I'll try anything once, and so help me... I'll get it right." Of course, Scott survives, and in the aftermath, Scott and Jean take a break from the X-Men, leaving the team in Logan's hands. "I ain't the prof, an' I ain't you, so if you're gonna ask me t' watch the store while you're gone... expect the rules t'change," Logan warns, talking to Scott with a hand on his shoulder as he lies, bandaged, in his bed. But Scott replies, easily, "If I thought that were true, Logan... I wouldn't be leaving." The trust between the two men is palpable -- and though they recall, in the course of that conversation, that Scott didn't trust Logan at all when he first met him, it's obvious things have changed considerably.
The dynamic begins to change again after Scott returns from an apparent death following a complicated plot that isn't worth detailing in full. Logan is relieved to have Scott back, and waxes rhapsodic about him in X-Men #112: "Yeah, I've been known to give him a hard time - maybe more than once - but even an old warhorse like me knows a leader when I see one. And this Scott Summers, the guy in charge of the X-Men...? I'd follow him into hell if he said he needed me." But Logan can tell that his friend has changed, becoming rasher and darker, permanently scarred by his merging with villain Apocalypse, and he even goes so far as to offer Scott an uncharacteristic shoulder to cry on.
Soon after, Scott and Jean begin to have problems in their marriage, but instead of seizing the opportunity to take Jean for himself, Logan spends most of his time encouraging them to stay together. When Jean approaches Logan in the woods to talk about the problems in New X-Men #117, he reassures her that she and Scott are still strong -- "You always belonged with that guy, Jeannie. Couple of Dudley Do-Rights making the world safe for whatever it is this week" -- and when she kisses him, he pushes her away. Later, in New X-Men #131, he warns Scott, as Scott is beginning a psychic affair with villain-turned-X-Man Emma Frost, to stay faithful to Jean: "Man's gotta mow his own lawn." And yet, when Jean discovers Scott's psychic infidelity and Scott flees the mansion to escape from her rage, Logan still doesn't try to comfort Jean or take advantage of the situation in that way, despite what the casual fan might expect. Instead, in New X-Men #142, it's Scott he follows, to a mutant bar; Scott he talks to, and offers a weird brand of harsh comfort to; Scott he gets drunk and takes on a private mission to cheer him up, because, as he puts it, "there's nobody I'd rather have in my corner than Scott Summers."
And then, at this ultimate point when it seems rivalry has disappeared and friendship is the major basis of Scott and Logan's relationship, tragedy strikes. Jean Grey dies, and Scott and Logan are burdened with the theme of shared grief once again.
Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men was the first series to tackle the aftermath of Jean's death, and he deals with the impact on Scott and Logan within the first few pages of his first issue. In a moment that got both of the authors of this essay hooked on comics, Logan is perched on the edge of the bed that Scott is now sharing with Emma Frost, watching the couple sleep. When Scott wakes up, Logan sneers. "Which stage of grieving is this? Denial?" Scott blasts him out the window with his power, and the two scuffle on the lawn, fighting, as always about Jean. Unlike the movies, where Logan moves on from Jean's death and Scott cannot, comicsverse Scott has already moved on to Emma, and Logan can't handle the change, or the seeming disrespect to Jean's memory. But despite this renewal of the rivalry aspect of Scott and Logan's relationship, the two still manage to work together. In the scene that immediately follows, after Beast admonishes them, saying that they should be "long past that nonsense," Scott and Logan manage to immediately put their anger behind them and focus on becoming a superhero team once again.
Throughout the rest of the series, though the tension over Emma is apparent, their trust and respect for each other remains evident. Even in the House of M, an alternate universe created by reality-manipulating mutant Wanda Maximoff, Logan's first instinct, upon recovering his memories, is to track down Scott. They're not quite codependent, but it wouldn't be a stretch to say that Scott and Logan trust each other more than they trust almost anyone else, and that's something that shines through no matter what else stands in their way.
In recent years, writers have continued to spotlight Scott and Logan's bond. As the X-Men have begun to work toward solving the problem of their own extinction, Scott has had to take more drastic measures than ever before to protect his race. This has led to friction, but, at the same time, deeper friendship -- for every fight Scott and Logan have, there's an equivalent scene of the two in a graveyard, having a melancholy but companionable conversation in the rain. Logan, as writer Matt Fraction has explained, has been saddened to see Scott moving in a more violent direction. Logan has always been the one to do what the other X-Men couldn't, wanting to protect the innocence of the rest of the X-Men, and Scott in particular. But Logan has also recognized the necessity of Scott's changes, and he's resigned himself once again to following Scott's orders and doing what he needs him to do - bucking those orders every step of the way, of course, but in the same sort of way he always has. Their relationship will always be one of taunting and fighting, punching and mocking -- but there is, and always has been, so much more below the surface.
Conclusion
So what does all of this mean for fic writers? Essentially, that Scott and Logan are a pair that can be written in any number of ways, at any point in their history - and that the room for play for the writer is expansive. Could they come together during one of Jean's absences? Could their surprisingly strong friendship develop into something more, at some point? What really happened in that mutant bar, or in those early, combative days? What if Scott and Logan, rather than Scott and Emma, got together in the wake of Jean's most recent death? Or what if Scott, Logan, and Jean, whose love for each other is so evident in all directions, tried to exist as some form of triad? What would change in Scott and Logan's relationship, if they went from friends to lovers? Would they still be so quick to insult and challenge each other, or would love bring subtle changes? How would Logan cope with yet another lover bound to die before his own nearly-immortal self will leave this plane of existence -- and how would Scott cope with a lover who, unlike Jean, couldn't die?
The possibilities, and the questions, are endless -- and we can only hope that this dynamic will inspire more writers to craft fic about this complicated, interesting, and criminally underutilized pairing.
Writing Cyclops/Wolverine Fanfiction
Introduction
Scott Summers (a.k.a. "Cyclops") and James "Logan" Howlett (a.k.a. "Wolverine") are two of the most recognizable characters in Marvel Comics. Even a casual X-Men fan recognizes them as a pair of contrasting character types -- the good boy and the bad boy, the clean-cut Boy Scout and the gruff, violent assassin. Or, as "Uncanny X-Men" writer Matt Fraction put it recently: Scott and Logan are the Luke Skywalker and Han Solo of Marvel Comics.
Fans of slash fiction are most likely to encounter the Scott/Logan pairing in stories based on the X-Men movieverse. Movieverse Scott and Logan fics deal, almost universally, with a couple of themes: rivalry, based on their struggle for dominance within the X-Men and their romantic competition over Jean Grey; shared grief, based on their common connection to Jean, after her death at the end of X2; or some combination of the two dynamics. A few stories, mostly fic that is set in the future or goes AU after X2, allow the relationship to deepen into a greater bond based on their roles as friends and teammates. However, the timeline of the movies is so compressed -- even by generous estimates, the three X-Men films probably don't cover more than a year, and the first two can't cover more than a few weeks -- that the first two themes tend to dominate.
In the Marvel Comics universe, Scott and Logan's relationship starts with the characters in a similar position to what they have in the first movie, but over more than thirty years of canon, their interactions have had a chance to evolve and grow. Precisely because of the long, complex, and sometimes contradictory nature of that canon, though, writers may find it difficult to get a handle on their dynamic. This essay will provide an overview of the two characters in comicsverse canon, and how their relationship has grown through rivalry and shared grief to a place of comradeship, and the opportunities that dynamic provides for Scott/Logan shippers.
Cyclops
Scott Summers is part of the first generation of characters in the Marvel Comics universe. He debuted in 1963, appointed by Professor Charles Xavier as "deputy leader" of the X-Men, originally conceived as a team of teenage heroes whose unusual powers were based on their genetic makeup, rather than supernatural encounters, or radiation accidents. By the 1970s, these "mutant" characters had outgrown their teen-team origin, but Cyclops' leadership of some incarnation of an "X"-team has been as close to a constant as anything in the ever-mutable Marvel Universe. .
"Leadership," in fact, is the characteristic most often used to define Scott Summers -- for better and for worse. Capable of tactical genius in combat situations, and of forceful eloquence in pursuit of Xavier's dream of human/mutant equality, Cyclops at his best (as, for instance, when written by Chris Claremont in the classic "God Loves, Man Kills," or by Joss Whedon in "Astonishing X-Men") is a leader we would all be willing to follow. At least as often, though, Cyclops is perceived as the guy who insists on following rules, who says "no" to anything fun or innovative or even just-maybe-a-little-bit wrong. At best, this view of Cyke holds, he's a Boy Scout. At worst, he's a wet blanket, or even a flat-out asshole.
But there's more to Scott Summers than Cyclops. Before he was the leader of the X-Men, Scott was a teenage runaway who believed himself orphaned in an accident -- an accident that he survived only because his mother wrapped him in a parachute, told him to hold on to his younger brother, and pushed them both from the hatch of a tailspinning airplane. Despite his best efforts, Scott wasn't able to hold on. His brother was raised by an adoptive family, while Scott was shuffled from lonely orphanage to abusive foster home, surviving a childhood that became more Dickensian every time a new storyline retconned in a fresh trauma. And when his mutant power manifested, Scott found himself unable to control the powerful optic blasts without the aid of special glasses and, later, the visor he would use in combat.
Small wonder, after such an origin, that Scott developed a complicated relationship with the organization that gave him a new home. As a teenager, he fell in love with Jean Grey, one of his teammates on the original X-Men. But from the beginning, he feared that his uncontrollable power would inadvertently lead him to harm anyone he cared about. Combined with the fear of his own power, he had an orphan's dread of losing anyone he grew close to, and yet a desperate need to be close to someone, anyway. His famously troubled relationship with Jean grew out of these emotional contradictions. Scott's canonical love affairs are worthy of a different essay, or five. It should be sufficient to say, here, that a character who was purely an emotionless, inflexible, rule-happy Boy Scout could hardly have been involved in some of the most tumultuous, passionate love stories in Marvel canon. Scott Summers wasn't born loving rules, order and discipline. Rather, the rules are what allow him to process and manage inner and outer conflicts when they threaten to become unbearable. If there is anyone Scott knows in a position to understand this problem, it's Wolverine.
Wolverine
Wolverine - who will be called "Logan" throughout most of this essay - is a character who needs no introduction. Inarguably the most iconic of the X-Men, Wolverine has been popular since his introduction in Hulk #181 in 1974, but it wasn't until the 1990s and the boom of "hardcore" characters that he became the megastar he's been ever since. Right now, he's got three comic book titles all to himself, in addition to monthly one-shot issues and appearances in almost every X-Men book and the Avengers titles to boot. He's been the central character, for better or worse, in all three X-Men movies, and he was a major part of both X-Men cartoons: the 1990s X-Men and the early 2000s X-Men: Evolution. With the film X-Men Origins: Wolverine and a new cartoon, Wolverine and the X-Men, on the horizon, it doesn't look like Wolverine's ubiquity is going to be decreasing any time soon.
To many fans, this is a problem. The terms "overexposed" and "overrated" are frequently tossed around the internet; even this recent article about the upcoming cartoon questions Wolverine's worthiness for his position as Marvel Comics' second-biggest cash cow (the first, of course, being Spider-Man). Wolverine, many feel, is crude and hyperviolent, a walking cliché representative of the bloody, overly-muscled comics of the 1990s that many would like to leave behind. The common perception of comicsverse Wolverine is of a metal-clawed tough guy prone to slicing people up, drinking beer, and generally being one-dimensionally boorish, with occasional repetitive angst and "heart of gold" moments thrown in for good measure.
Given all of that, one might naturally wonder why anyone would want to write fanfiction about Wolverine. If he's so overexposed already, if all of his stories have already been told so often that they've become clichés, and he's so generally unlikable as a person, why would anyone want to write fic about him? It's not an unreasonable question - and it's a question even harmonyangel once found herself asking, with incredulous frustration. But the fact is that, despite the banality of the basic one-sentence description, and despite the occasionally repetitive and uninteresting stories sometimes told by the extremely mixed bag of writers who have crafted tales for the character, Wolverine is, at his heart, a sympathetic character of surprisingly complex psychology, with a back story ripe for exploration and complicated relationships that never feel stale.
It would be impossible to encapsulate Wolverine's entire character history in a small section of a brief essay; even his Wikipedia page can't begin to cover all the canon he's accumulated. But even a brief rundown of his most important canon points belies his surprising depth. He was born to a wealthy Canadian family in the 1890s, but when his bone claws emerged tragedy soon followed, and he found himself cast adrift in the world, his memories vanishing as he hardened himself at a mining camp. Another tragedy -- the loss of his childhood friend, Rose, the first girl he loved -- led to a few years spent living among wolves in the woods, completely feral, his brain healing itself of the painful memories. In the years that followed, Logan would struggle constantly to figure out who he was and what happened in his past, as he lived through the decades, barely aging because of his healing factor, becoming involved in WWI, WWII, and Vietnam, not to mention the clandestine government program known as Weapon X, which wiped his memories once again and laced his skeleton with adamantium, the strongest metal known to man.. He spent time in Japan becoming a samurai, and in fictional island nation Madripoor as a local folk legend; he met such characters as Captain America, Nick Fury, the Black Widow, Ms. Marvel, and Ben Grimm; he made rivals of men like Sabretooth and Omega Red; and he loved many women, most of whom died tragically. And after a brief stint with Alpha Flight and other Canadian government programs, he joined the X-Men, where he met Scott Summers and Jean Grey for the first time. Since then, he's been a constant fixture on almost every X-Men team, balancing X-Men adventures with solo adventures and occasionally even having a personal life outside of the team -- his brief relationship (ending in her death) with the Japanese Mariko Yashida being one of the most salient examples.
For all his faults, Logan is far from a one-dimensional character. He's violent, yes, and he's frequently an unrepentant killer, but he also struggles to fight against the Berserker rages that consume him. And while he may not own any books by Emily Post, his lack of manners doesn't mean he lacks ethics. He's a samurai, following a warrior code -- and he is intensely loyal to his friends, his morals, and his cause. Despite his blasé attitude about most things, he's one of the most ardent proponents of Xavier's dream, and when the mutant race is threatened, Logan is one of the first to take up the cause of mutant rights. He takes in young girls and acts as a mentor to them, and though he grumbles about it, he's probably the most motherly of the X-Men. He can be jealous, sure, and animalistically possessive -- but he can also be extremely supportive about those he loves -- particularly Jean Grey -- finding love with others. And he really, really cares about Scott Summers -- even if he'll rarely admit it.
Wolverine and Cyclops' Relationship
Wolverine joined the X-Men in 1975, part of the "all-new, all-different" team that would explode into popularity under writer Chris Claremont. In the new team's first storyline, Xavier recruits Logan, and several others (including such stalwarts-to-be as Colossus, Storm, and Nightcrawler) to work with Cyclops and rescue the other members of the existing X-Men team. The rescued X-Men then decide to leave the team and go in their own directions -- except for Cyclops. Scott stays on to help Xavier train the new team, and develops an adversarial relationship with Logan almost immediately. The most obvious cause of the tension between them is Logan's jealousy of Scott's relationship with Jean. Logan openly flirts with her, and - according to retconned canon, in any case - Jean immediately feels a connection with Logan, too. She remains committed to her relationship with Scott, but the love triangle inevitably leads to tension between the two men.
But the rivalry and friction between Scott and Logan during their early days on the team is not only the result of two men pursuing the same woman. The all-new, all-different team marks a major shift from the teen team that the X-Men had originally been. The new group of X-Men are generally older, more experienced heroes, assembled from divergent backgrounds with no common history. Although Scott has years of experience leading the original X-Men, he has to learn a new approach to leadership with a group that challenges his every move. Wolverine epitomizes the challenges of the new regime. He sees no reason to trust or respect "One-Eye," that "Boy Scout," and takes every opportunity to let him know it.
The team dynamics of the X-Men would change forever with the classic storyline known as "The Dark Phoenix Saga." Beginning in Uncanny X-Men #100, and culminating in issue #137, Jean Grey is gradually possessed -- in some form or another -- by a cosmic entity known as the Phoenix, leading her to become uncontrollably powerful, destroy an alien galaxy and, apparently, die. (For simplicity's sake, and because it is most relevant to the emotional impact on Scott and Logan, I am describing the DPS as it was originally written, minus the layers of subsequent retconning. There is enough material for several essays in this story (in fact, likeadeuce has a Jean Grey essay coming up next month, so if you're interested, please tune in then!) Both men are deeply affected by their connection to Jean, but they respond very differently.
Logan comes to believe early in Jean's possession that the only way to stop the Phoenix's growing power is to kill her. Even though he loves her deeply, Logan doesn't hesitate to go for a killing blow -- until Jean momentarily gains control and begs him to do it. This causes Logan to hesitate long enough that the Phoenix re-emerges and defeats him. Unlike Logan, Scott refuses to accept that Jean is going to die, and insists on believing that he can save his lover, long after Jean herself has understood the necessity of her own death. Choosing to end her own life, Jean tells Scott, "The choice was never yours to begin with," and, "I love you" -- then vaporizes herself in front of his eyes.
Both men are left grief-stricken by the loss of Jean, but for different reasons. Logan loved her, but (canonically, at least) never had a chance to be with her, so his heartbreak is for what might have been. He was also willing to kill her in order to destroy the Phoenix, and yet wasn't successful at doing so when it was on the line. Her death, then, leaves him with the sense of failure due to never becoming her lover, the unsettling knowledge that he was willing to murder someone he cared for in order to keep her from being a killer herself, and finally the frustration of not being able to go through with it, which might have saved further pain for everyone involved. Scott, at least, loses Jean with the full knowledge that she loved him. Nonetheless, much of his idealism and determination that doing good and making heroic choices will lead to victory is stripped from him forever by the loss of Jean.
The devastating effect that the events of Dark Phoenix had on the people who loved Jean Grey can't be overstated. It's sometimes too easy for readers to dismiss a comic book death -- particularly that of a character (in)famous for her many resurrections -- as lacking in emotional impact. But events can't be unlived, and a character's experience of loss isn't going to evaporate because he discovers months or years later that the event that shattered his idealism, or revealed unpalatable truths about the lines he would or wouldn't be willing to cross, didn't 'count' because (oh, just for instance) the real Jean Grey was lying in a cocoon in the bottom of Jamaica Bay. The emotional experiences still occurred for these characters, and it's not an accident that Dark Phoenix would be referenced over and over again throughout the course of the canon, even during the periods when Jean was alive. (She died again in 2003 if you're keeping track. Jean essay next month, likeadeuce promises).
The Dark Phoenix Saga is crucial to understanding Scott and Logan's relationship, because, unlike the individual tragedies they had both suffered in the past, this was an experience they shared. Yet at the same time that their common loss has the potential to bring them together (a very common theme in post-X2 movieverse slash), their very different points of view and reactions to Jean's fate provide an opportunity to explore the contrast between the two characters. Comics storytelling is notoriously bad at allowing the consequences of events to unfold. Either they are changed by the next writer or retold inaccurately for the sake of serving a new story. Fanfic is a particularly good medium for taking one moment in story-time - maybe just the space between a couple of panels - and teasing out all of its implications. It's a way of saying, 'Yes, this happened, and they had to deal with it at the time, and they're still dealing with it after twenty-five years of intervening stories.' Canon doesn't always want to remember (and for the sake of the serial stories Marvel has to sell, sometimes it can't), but as fic writers, we choose our own moments and give them the resonance we think they deserve.
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For a while after the end of Dark Phoenix, there is something of a break in Scott and Logan's relationship. Scott is torn between his role with the X-Men and his desire to have a life outside the team. He flirts with leaving the team several times, marries Madelyne Pryor and has a child, and finally leaves the X-Men, seemingly for good, when he loses his leadership position in a battle with Storm. Soon after, he joins the resurrected Jean and his original X-Men teammates on the spinoff team X-Factor. Meanwhile, it is Logan who becomes a mainstay of the core X-Men team. While the two men encounter each other via various convoluted crossovers, they don't truly come back into each other's lives until the 1991 launch of the second main ("adjectiveless") X-Men title. At this point, the teams reunite, based once again out of Xavier's school. Scott once again emerges as the group's overall leader, and Logan as the formidable fighter who can get the dirtiest jobs done.
Their relationship isn't the same as it once was, though, and the first strong indication of the shift is in a scene in X-Men #7. At the end of the issue, Logan tells Scott that he has business from his own shadowed past to take care of and has to leave for a while. "I wasn't asking permission," Logan says, immediately defensive. "And I'm not granting it," Scott answers, putting a gloved hand on Logan's shoulder. "I'm telling you to call us if you need a hand." Logan muses that, before joining the X-Men, he never would have considered calling on someone else for help, but, "it's comforting to know I've got friends -- family even -- covering my back." "Now and forever, Logan," Scott answers. "Whether you want it or not."
Since that moment, Scott and Logan's relationship has gradually moved away from rivalry and more firmly toward mutual respect and friendship (though they still aren't strangers to the occasional fistfight, and the more-than-occasional bout of mutual mockery). Instead of competing for Jean's attention, Logan begins to respect Scott and Jean's relationship. When Scott and Jean get married, in X-Men #30 (1994), Logan isn't present, too busy trying to rearrange his life in the wake of the forced removal of his adamantium. But that doesn't stop him from taking time right before he leaves to send Jean a letter encouraging her to marry Scott. "I just wanted to let you two know how much you meant to me - how much the things you did for me mattered," Logan writes. "You guys are something special, and most times, you don't even see it."
While once Logan had been combative, unable to express his feelings or even admit that he was more than the "loner" he once was, this era found Logan reflecting frequently on, and displaying, his feelings toward both halves of the Scott-and-Jean pair. Even when, in Wolverine #101, he's gone completely feral (a side-effect of the adamantium removal) Logan still doesn't hesitate to dive after Scott when Scott falls off a steep cliff, catching him in midair and saving his life. When, at the bottom of the cliff, he fears that Scott might be dead, his animal brain induces him to lick at Scott's face to see if he's ok; when he determines that he is, he proceeds to carry him around with the back of his costume between his teeth for the rest of the issue, and holds him protectively to his chest when confronted by the other X-Men, until Jean pats his head and reassures him that it's ok to turn him over. Logan has been stripped of his higher brain functions, reduced to subverbal, caveman-caliber intellect, and yet his base instincts tell him to save, protect, and even lick a man he once claimed he couldn't stand. Clearly, the relationship has grown.
At times, this growing relationship may seem one-sided -- Logan's admiration for, and devotion to, Scott is certainly more evident than the inverse. But Scott is a less demonstrative person, to put it mildly, and his true feelings about anyone rarely come through. Still, there are times when Scott's feelings - and even, possibly, attraction - are more than evident. In X-Men #28, for instance, just two issues before his marriage to Jean, Scott tries to talk to Jean about Logan. "I know how you felt," Scott says, referring to Jean's feelings for Logan. "--still do, I guess--I understand it, too. The fire burning inside him... the dangerous side of things can be incredibly exciting. I can see how that excitement always appealed to you... you and he always shared that passion for life..." Not only does Scott accept, without anger, that his fiancée was attracted to this other man, he confesses his comprehension of that attraction, and even goes so far as to compare his fiancé to that man. Certainly this is a far cry from his early interaction with Logan, where he barely merited a classification of anything higher than an animal. And any time that Logan is presumed dead - like, for instance, during Uncanny X-Men #375, when Logan has, unbeknownst to the X-Men, been replaced by a shapeshifting alien - Scott's anger and grief are exposed unflinchingly.
A particularly dramatic and demonstrative moment between the pair comes in Wolverine #118 and X-Men #70, in which Scott, after a major battle, has had a bomb implanted in his stomach. As the X-Men race back to their mansion with the injured Scott in tow, Logan speaks quietly with Storm. "Me and Slim, we've had our problems," Logan says, "But all that's water under the bridge. Seein' him and Red in pain like that... Right now, I wish Cyke was the one with the healing factor." When they finally get back to the mansion, they realize that the only way to save Scott is to cut the bomb out -- and the only sharp objects at hand are Logan's claws. As Logan stands nervously over Scott, Jean encourages him. "I -- We trust you with all our hearts," she says. As Logan prepares to cut, he turns to the doctor. "Not used t' usin' these things fer healin', doc. But fer these two kids... I'll try anything once, and so help me... I'll get it right." Of course, Scott survives, and in the aftermath, Scott and Jean take a break from the X-Men, leaving the team in Logan's hands. "I ain't the prof, an' I ain't you, so if you're gonna ask me t' watch the store while you're gone... expect the rules t'change," Logan warns, talking to Scott with a hand on his shoulder as he lies, bandaged, in his bed. But Scott replies, easily, "If I thought that were true, Logan... I wouldn't be leaving." The trust between the two men is palpable -- and though they recall, in the course of that conversation, that Scott didn't trust Logan at all when he first met him, it's obvious things have changed considerably.
The dynamic begins to change again after Scott returns from an apparent death following a complicated plot that isn't worth detailing in full. Logan is relieved to have Scott back, and waxes rhapsodic about him in X-Men #112: "Yeah, I've been known to give him a hard time - maybe more than once - but even an old warhorse like me knows a leader when I see one. And this Scott Summers, the guy in charge of the X-Men...? I'd follow him into hell if he said he needed me." But Logan can tell that his friend has changed, becoming rasher and darker, permanently scarred by his merging with villain Apocalypse, and he even goes so far as to offer Scott an uncharacteristic shoulder to cry on.
Soon after, Scott and Jean begin to have problems in their marriage, but instead of seizing the opportunity to take Jean for himself, Logan spends most of his time encouraging them to stay together. When Jean approaches Logan in the woods to talk about the problems in New X-Men #117, he reassures her that she and Scott are still strong -- "You always belonged with that guy, Jeannie. Couple of Dudley Do-Rights making the world safe for whatever it is this week" -- and when she kisses him, he pushes her away. Later, in New X-Men #131, he warns Scott, as Scott is beginning a psychic affair with villain-turned-X-Man Emma Frost, to stay faithful to Jean: "Man's gotta mow his own lawn." And yet, when Jean discovers Scott's psychic infidelity and Scott flees the mansion to escape from her rage, Logan still doesn't try to comfort Jean or take advantage of the situation in that way, despite what the casual fan might expect. Instead, in New X-Men #142, it's Scott he follows, to a mutant bar; Scott he talks to, and offers a weird brand of harsh comfort to; Scott he gets drunk and takes on a private mission to cheer him up, because, as he puts it, "there's nobody I'd rather have in my corner than Scott Summers."
And then, at this ultimate point when it seems rivalry has disappeared and friendship is the major basis of Scott and Logan's relationship, tragedy strikes. Jean Grey dies, and Scott and Logan are burdened with the theme of shared grief once again.
Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men was the first series to tackle the aftermath of Jean's death, and he deals with the impact on Scott and Logan within the first few pages of his first issue. In a moment that got both of the authors of this essay hooked on comics, Logan is perched on the edge of the bed that Scott is now sharing with Emma Frost, watching the couple sleep. When Scott wakes up, Logan sneers. "Which stage of grieving is this? Denial?" Scott blasts him out the window with his power, and the two scuffle on the lawn, fighting, as always about Jean. Unlike the movies, where Logan moves on from Jean's death and Scott cannot, comicsverse Scott has already moved on to Emma, and Logan can't handle the change, or the seeming disrespect to Jean's memory. But despite this renewal of the rivalry aspect of Scott and Logan's relationship, the two still manage to work together. In the scene that immediately follows, after Beast admonishes them, saying that they should be "long past that nonsense," Scott and Logan manage to immediately put their anger behind them and focus on becoming a superhero team once again.
Throughout the rest of the series, though the tension over Emma is apparent, their trust and respect for each other remains evident. Even in the House of M, an alternate universe created by reality-manipulating mutant Wanda Maximoff, Logan's first instinct, upon recovering his memories, is to track down Scott. They're not quite codependent, but it wouldn't be a stretch to say that Scott and Logan trust each other more than they trust almost anyone else, and that's something that shines through no matter what else stands in their way.
In recent years, writers have continued to spotlight Scott and Logan's bond. As the X-Men have begun to work toward solving the problem of their own extinction, Scott has had to take more drastic measures than ever before to protect his race. This has led to friction, but, at the same time, deeper friendship -- for every fight Scott and Logan have, there's an equivalent scene of the two in a graveyard, having a melancholy but companionable conversation in the rain. Logan, as writer Matt Fraction has explained, has been saddened to see Scott moving in a more violent direction. Logan has always been the one to do what the other X-Men couldn't, wanting to protect the innocence of the rest of the X-Men, and Scott in particular. But Logan has also recognized the necessity of Scott's changes, and he's resigned himself once again to following Scott's orders and doing what he needs him to do - bucking those orders every step of the way, of course, but in the same sort of way he always has. Their relationship will always be one of taunting and fighting, punching and mocking -- but there is, and always has been, so much more below the surface.
Conclusion
So what does all of this mean for fic writers? Essentially, that Scott and Logan are a pair that can be written in any number of ways, at any point in their history - and that the room for play for the writer is expansive. Could they come together during one of Jean's absences? Could their surprisingly strong friendship develop into something more, at some point? What really happened in that mutant bar, or in those early, combative days? What if Scott and Logan, rather than Scott and Emma, got together in the wake of Jean's most recent death? Or what if Scott, Logan, and Jean, whose love for each other is so evident in all directions, tried to exist as some form of triad? What would change in Scott and Logan's relationship, if they went from friends to lovers? Would they still be so quick to insult and challenge each other, or would love bring subtle changes? How would Logan cope with yet another lover bound to die before his own nearly-immortal self will leave this plane of existence -- and how would Scott cope with a lover who, unlike Jean, couldn't die?
The possibilities, and the questions, are endless -- and we can only hope that this dynamic will inspire more writers to craft fic about this complicated, interesting, and criminally underutilized pairing.