When it comes to the X-Men, fans know that if you can’t shoot lasers from your eyes like Cyclops, you should be able to swing them like a sword. Now thanks to Marvel’s upcoming “X of Swords” event, it looks like the X-Men’s leader will get to do both. You read that right: Cyclops is getting a lightsaber.
During the X-Men panel at C2E2, a first look was revealed of the upcoming fifteen-part crossover event known as the X of Swords (pronounced Ten of Swords). The event will be mainly written by Jonathan Hickman and Tini Howard, but with it planned to span the entire X-Men franchise, a lot of other writers will be involved. With the reveal came a piece of promotional art by Mark Brooks featuring a slew of favorite X-Men all wielding different blades; quite fitting for an event with swords in the name. While the majority of the team members are rocking more traditional metal blades, Cyclops the walking laser himself is sporting what appears to be a lightsaber laser sword.
Unfortunately, aside from this beautiful promo art not much else about the new event has been announced. This raises some interesting questions and speculation about what exactly this large crossover event will entail. Since Cyclops can shoot lasers from his eyes (or energy blasts if you want to get technical), why would he need a laser sword at all? Is it simply just a play on the character? All of the X-Men characters have swords, so was it a thematic choice to give him a laser sword just to match his powers, similar to Batman having bat shaped boomerangs, or is there more to it?
Perhaps this is meant to reflect the X-Men losing their powers, turning to more traditional forms of combat relying on external weapons, or perhaps the sword draws its laser directly from Cyclops’ powers. Looking at the other characters we see that most of the weapons are more than just plain swords, such as Wolverine holding the Muramasa blade, or Nightcrawler having a Soulsword, leading one to believe that Cyclops’ laser sword has to have more significance than just its looks.
For now, all that is known is that Cyclops is definitely not training to become a Jedi, and exactly what the laser sword is for will be revealed to us as X of Swords begins to unfold this May.
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