In this feature we examine comic book stories and ideas that were not only abandoned, but also had the stories/plots specifically "overturned" by a later writer (as if they were a legal precedent). Click here for an archive of all the previous editions of The Abandoned An' Forsaked. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

Today, we look at how the X-Writers tried to use retcons to help write-off and/or mitigate Cyclops's behavior regarding him ditching his wife and newborn son to get check out his returned from the dead ex-girlfriend.

So yeah, to recap, Cyclops met a woman named Madelyne Pryor who was an exact double of his dead girlfriend, Jean Grey, who didn't want to talk about her past and had a terrible accident at the precise moment that Jean died, and yet Cyclops thought that this was all hunky dory and they got married and had a kid together.

Remember, even before Cyclops officially ditched his wife and kid, he was already planning to leave them because he felt that he owed a duty to the X-Men that is greater than what he owes his pregnant wife, which leads to Uncanny X-Men #201, where he tries to leave his wife and kid to lead the X-Men again.

It begins right after his wife gives birth (while he's gone, of course)...



We learn that Maddie has doubts about him...



Doubts that are confirmed when we learn that he has decided that he needs to leave them to become the leader of the X-Men even though the X-Men already HAD a leader.





So he LOSES the duel and look how sad he looks to be going back to his wife and kid!



But at least they're together again!

But then Jean Grey returned from the dead.

Scott finally left Maddie and his son for good in X-Factor #1 when he found out that his former girlfriend, Jean Grey, was no longer dead. Dude took twelve hours to already be in New York City from Alaska...



So he moped a bit but his friends convinced him that it was all good...



So he joins X-Factor and leaves his wife and son in Alaska...



He finally gets around to calling her the next issue, but it's too late...



Meanwhile, in Uncanny X-Men #215 (by Chris Claremont, Alan Davis and Dan Green), the Marauders kidnap and are about to kill Madelyne when she escapes, but not before Scalphunter shoots her...





She's in a coma for months and awakes a few issues later. This is why she didn't answer Scott's phone calls.



So a few issues later, Madelyne calls the X-Men to come get her in San Francisco....



They get there just in time to rescue her from another Marauder attack. The Marauders sadly now have Polaris in their employ, as she is possessed by the twisted villain known as Malice. The X-Men escape and take Maddie with them for her safety. Havok then convinces her to join up with the X-Men for real...



She's with the X-Men when they sacrifice themselves to defeat the Adversary, and she's with them when they're given the option to go back to their old lives. She, and the rest of the X-Men, instead agree to pretend to be dead to keep up the good fight. Note that Roma could send her ANYwhere, and she chooses to go with the X-Men to Australia...



She becomes basically their communications expert and their computer expert. While there, she discovers that Cyclops is now back together with Jean...



By the way, by this time, Cyclops finally decided to go back to Alaska to look for Maddie and his son in X-Factor #13. It only took him a dozen issues to do so. But once there, he discovers that not only are they missing, but their existence has been wiped from the Earth!





Luckily, he finds his son's rattle hidden where his son used to throw it, so he knows that they were really real. He then sets off to find his missing son (and I guess maybe his wife, but mostly his son).

In Uncanny X-Men #234, Maddie makes a deal with a demon in a dream...



And when she is kidnapped (along with Wolverine and Rogue) in Genosha, she suddenly exhibits powers...



Okay, so we have a woman who was hunted, lost her kid and then made a deal with the devil to get her son back. Seems simple enough. Oh good gracious no. There be retcons ahead, mateys! Read on to find out what happens next!

Uncanny X-Men #241 is part of Inferno. Claremont, Silvestri and Green reveal that Maddie was a clone of Jean Grey designed by Mister Sinister to basically be a walking, talking breeder. To get a kid out of Cyclops.











So Maddie is now the Goblin Queen and she's just a total over-the-top villain now. She even kidnaps her own son and tries to kill him. The X-Men and X-Factor teams try to stop her, which leads into X-Factor #38, by Louise Simonson and Walter Simonson (inks by Al Milgrom), where we learn that that fight Cyclops lost to Storm? That was Madelyne using the powers she didn't know she had to force him to lose. You know how it was weird how the X-Men never found out about their old friends now being part of X-Factor and Jean Grey now being alive? That was Maddie blocking the news from them, except for the general news that X-Factor was a group of mutant hunters. So basically, she was evil well before she made her deal with the devil.





We also learn that she escaped from the Marauders because she used the powers she didn't know she had and she went to Australia because she didn't give a crap about her son really...





Maddie reiterates that she was already evil before the demons approached her, which is weird, as Claremont had only recently established the opposite and yet it was already being retconned!



Maddie tries to kill herself in an attempt to kill Jean, as well, but she only half-succeeds and dies (there is a side part involving the Phoenix Force and Jean getting Maddie's memories that I'll address in the future - it's not really important for this particular discussion).

So now Maddie is dead and Scott's son is returned to him. We then get an amazing page where Cyclops TRIES to take the blame and Jean essentially completely absolves him of everything...



And that's basically it. Scott's a good guy and no one really brought up Scott's time with Maddie after this, except for when Maddie returned from the dead, but that's a weird story for another time!

That's it for this installment!

Send any suggestions for future notable comic book retcons to brian@cbr.com!