Here is an archive of all the past top five lists I've one over the years.

Lots of superheroes have done some shady things over the years. Cyclops of the X-Men is certainly not alone in this. But hey, it's fun to talk about, so here are the top five worst things Cyclops has ever done...

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Letting the Avengers pretty much kill his son (Avengers X-Sanction #4 by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness)

Cable was trying to kill the Avengers because of some weird future prophecy thing, so this one is very forgivable, especially since they didn't ACTUALLY kill him. It's still kind of weird to be all, "How do I best handle this situation? I know, I'll free the Avengers so that they can finish my crazed son off."







Having Idie kill some Hellfire Club agents (X-Men: Schism #3 by Jason Aaron and Daniel Acuna)

Idie was a new mutant (before mutants returned to the world, so she was one of only a small group of newly discovered mutants) who had grown up believing that she was a monster because of her powers. So she was pretty mentally unstable when Cyclops had her attack and kill a bunch of Hellfire Club members who had taken out a bunch of X-Men...













The problem was more that it fed into Idie's beliefs that she WAS a monster and that killing was all she was good for. At the same time, it wasn't like Cyclops PLANNED it, so I don't think it was all that big of a deal.

Betrayed Emma Frost (Avengers vs. X-Men #11 by Jonathan Hickman, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Brian Michael Bendis and Jason Aaron, Olivier Coipel and Mark Morales)

So during Avengers vs. X-Men, the Phoenix Force was returning to Earth and the X-Men and the Avengers differed over whether it was a good thing or not. Cyclops thought it was a good thing. Now, Cyclops turned out to be CORRECT, but I don't know if he necessarily had enough info to be trusted on that topic. But whatever, he was right, so I won't begrudge him too much for disagreeing with the Avengers over the Phoenix Force. So Iron Man, in an attempt to stop the Phoenix Force, ended up splitting the force up and it posssessed a few members of the X-Men, Cyclops included. The Avengers slowly defeated them one by one, but then their powers would just go to the other remaining X-Men who had the Phoenix Force. So it came down to just Cyclops and his girlfriend, Emma Frost. As the Avengers had brought in the super-powerful mind of Professor X to fight him, Cyclops decided that he needed her half of the powers, so betrayed her and took the force for himself. Now, this would be more screwed up, but again, he WAS possessed by the Phoenix Force, which we know can mess with your mind, so it is hard for me to come down too hard on him for this...







Even what he then does next is a bit explained by the whole "posssessed by a cosmic force" thing. What did he do next? Go to the top five on the next page!

5. Killed Professor X (Avengers vs. X-Men #11 by Jonathan Hickman, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Brian Michael Bendis and Jason Aaron, Olivier Coipel and Mark Morales)







That's pretty bad, but come on, still, possessed by a cosmic force! So it's not THAT bad.

4. Cheated on Jean Grey with Emma Frost (New X-Men #138 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely)











Okay, this is just not cool. But it's even MORE not cool when you take into account the fact that the dude is obsessed with Jean Grey, and yet he actually MARRIES her and then he decides to mess around on her.

3. Tried to leave his wife and newborn child to lead the X-Men (Uncanny X-Men #201 by Chris Claremont, Rick Leonardi and Whilce Portacio)

First off, it's pretty weird that Cyclops married a woman who was the exact clone of his dead girlfriend, but whatever, that's not really a BAD thing so much as it is a weird thing.

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



(Look at how sad he looks! "Stupid baby")

We learn that his wife is a bit iffy on his priorities...



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!



I believe Claremont later tried to explain this away by Maddie Pryor messing with Cyclops' head at the time.

Okay, go to the next page for the top two!

2. Putting X-23 into his murder squad (X-Force Vol. 3 #1 by Chris Yost, Craig Kyle and Clayton Crain)

You can debate whether putting together a team of mutants specifically to murder bad guys BEFORE they become a threat to the X-Men belongs on the list in and of itself, but X-23 came to the X-Men because she was trained her whole life to be a killer and she wanted help dealing with that. So what does Cyclops do? He uses her killing skills by putting her on his murder squad...











That's messssed up.

1. Leaving his wife and newborn son to go be with his returned from the dead ex-girlfriend (X-Factor #1 by Bob Layton and Jackson Guice)

So we saw Cyclops already tried to leave his wife and young son once before, but he finally left them for good in X-Factor #1 when he found out that his former girlfriend, Jean Grey, was no longer dead.

Even BEFORE he found out that she was alive, things weren't going well...





But then she turned up alive and Warren Worthington called his old friend, Scott, and in twelve hours he was already 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...



Not cool, Cyclops! Notice how he also doesn't tell Jean about his wife and kid? BRUTAL! Chris Claremont clearly had a hard time with all of this, as he knew that this was not looking very good for Cyclops.

Okay, that's the top five! Agree? Disagree? Outraged that someone would dare say something negative about Cyclops? Let me know!

If YOU have an idea for something you'd like to see as a top five list, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com!