63 Years Later, A Founding X-Men Member Finally Drops His Real First Impression Of Cyclops

Published Nov 15, 2026, 11:00 AM EST

Adam has been writing in the entertainment news space for over a decade. Beginning his career of covering film and TV at CinemaBlend, he has also appeared on The Flash Podcast and done several radio spots. 

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The original X-Men lineup consisted of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, and Angel, with all five superheroes, along with Professor X and Magneto, debuting in 1963’s The X-Men #1. The mutant superhero team has grown significantly larger in the decades since then, but these five remains some of its most well-known members. They were featured at one point or another in Fox’s X-Men film series, and they’ll be starring characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s X-Men reboot.

Now, 63 years later, one of these founding X-Men has finally shared what his first impression was of Cyclops, a.k.a. Scott Summers, before they became teammates. Unfortunately, this revelation comes as these two are locked in conflict as bitter enemies rather than allies.

Beast Tells Cyclops What He First Thought About Him

DNX #5, Written By Jed Mackay, Art By Federico Vicentini, Cover Art By Kaare Andrews

While the X-Men still have a Beast in their ranks in the form of the younger, still-blue-furred Hank McCoy clone who was awoken at the end of the Krakoan Age, the original Hank has become a full-blown supervillain. Now inhabiting a white-furred body and leading the terrorist group 3K as its Chairman, the older Beast has unleashed the X-Virus in the DNX crossover, which was intended to turn humans into mutants. Instead, it ended up simply deforming the humans exposed to it in Juniper, Pennsylvania.

Enraged by what Hank has done, albeit unintentionally, the preview for DNX #5 shows Cyclops immediately firing one of his optic blasts at his former friend upon finding him in his lair. As Hank hides from Scott and waits for an opportunity to counterattack, he recalls the first time they met. A villain named Conquistador kidnapped Hank’s parents to leverage the young mutant into working for him, but Scott intervened to save them in one of his earliest superhero outings. This led to Hank joining the X-Men as its fourth member, preceded by Iceman and Angel.

Hank thought at that time that Scott was “the most impressive person” he’d ever seen and “bigger than life.” Rather than first viewing Scott as the “skinny boy” who’s shy at parties, Hank immediately identified him as “the war leader, the commander who can only be himself on the battlefield.” Scott counters by recalling how the younger Hank would’ve gotten “sick” at the thought of hurting someone. Beast, however, isn’t regretful about what he's done. He proclaims that he’s “putting mutants first, in the face of extinction,” which is what Cyclops should be doing.

Beast May Be Facing Death At Cyclops’ Hands

Marvel Comics

As Hank points out, he and Scott were once close like brothers, and now X-Men fans know that the former admired the latter immensely from the beginning. However, those days are long gone. With the present-day X-Virus coming close to unleashing the kind of devastation it did in the “Age of Revelation” future, and Hank now planning to detonate a fusion bomb within the force field-covered Juniper to kill everyone inside so that the virus doesn’t spread, Scott is determined to stop Hank, believing these people can still be saved.

The solicitation for DNX #5 states that Cyclops and Beast will fight “to the death.” Considering how far Beast/Chairman has fallen, it’s easy to imagine that the older Hank will meet his demise, though it's also possible the younger Beast will die instead. If that's not the case, as tragic as it would be for one of the founding X-Men to kill another, the older Beast needs to be defeated before he hurts anyone else. Cyclops has killed before to neutralize threats, and it looks like he’s ready to do that again to his ex-comrade.

DNX #5 will be released on Wednesday, November 18 by Marvel Comics.