"Unknown to Speed, Racer X is his older brother Rex, who ran away from home years ago!"
Scott Summers is the face of a new mutant revolution, but only his closest allies know that he can no longer control his powers.
That's what happens when you overdose on Phoenix juice (not to be confused with overdosing on Phoenix juice, because that one is just his husbandly duty, and seems like it would be pretty fun anyway). Anyway, after getting supercharged during Avengers vs. X-Men (including briefly being able to control his optic blasts), Cyclops is now out of control once again, just like he was when he was a kid. And instead of shooting beams of force straight out of his eyes, they now splinter and corkscrew all over the place when he uses them, and he's physically drained after even one shot.
In fact, his eyebeams are so powerful now they knock his normal visor right off his face, which is why he's had to switch to this Racer X knockoff model. The red X on his mask is all ruby quartz, which still doesn't seem like it would be very effective since, if you really look at the sculpt, his eyes would be located under the black part, not the red.
Actually, "black" may not be correct: this costume was designed by Chris Bachalo, and the central part of the body was a dark, dark, red, almost as if the body was being illuminated by the light of Cyclops' powers; but when the first "Marvel NOW!" promo artwork was released, he looked like Daredevil. Yipes! Most artists are going with dark grey/dark red now, but the confusion persisted long enough that a lot of fans think his suit is supposed to be brown. Yeah, no.
This Cyclops uses the same
body as Hasbro's two previous Cyclopes (and 90% of the other toys they make). Poor guy's had the same physique since he was a teenager. That's more an indictment of the "young" Cyclops than this figure, honestly: the Bucky body is a terrific size for Scott, but it's a terrific size for adult Scott. Like Black Bolt, both his hands are fists - he's got no more visor controls to worry about touching, so he doesn't need the pointing hand. He's also wearing a new utility belt with a round X-buckle, but per the design, he should also have some kind of technological device worn around his left wrist (to say nothing about the ribbed sections between his mid-thigh and armpits).
A reused body means no surprises in the articulation: head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, torso, waist, hips, thighs, knees, shins and ankles. The red stripes are painted on, not sculpted, but the paint is crisp. Mostly. There's a little bit of slop on
his right leg, but it doesn't seem like something endemic - just check Cyke over before you buy him if possible. The X on his face is a little thin, both in the sense that if it were physically wider it would extend out to where his eyes are, and in the sense that the colors beneath it are showing through slightly. Of course, the edges of those are sculpted, so there's only one of the two problems that customization could fix easily. This also would have been a good time to break out the Big Time Spider-Man "glow" airbrushing, rather than just having straight lines.
Cyclops comes with a BAF piece. But, further cementing the idea that Jubilee was never meant to be a build-a-figure, he's got her arm. Yes, one tiny arm. Storm comes with the entire body, and Cyclops has an arm? Yeah, that seems like a logical split.
There were probably more interesting characters to put in this X-themed Marvel Legends line, and you're welcome to swing by our message board and tell us who you would rather have seen. But at least this "Marvel NOW!" Cyclops is something new, something that hasn't had any toys yet (which is more than we can say about the "Astonishing" Cyclops that came with Puck's arms in the Wolverine Legends line). It probably would have been preferable if they'd skipped this suit and just released the Phoenix Five Cyclops that was planned, prototyped, and cancelled, but this toy turned out better than we expected. It's good, honestly!
-- 09/22/14
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