Both Scott and Alex Summers were orphaned at a young age after the Shi'ar captured their parents following an attack on their airplane. Scott and Alex were parachuted out, but Scott suffered a head injury upon landing, thus forever preventing him from controlling his mutant power by himself.

After spending a year in a coma, Scott recovered and decided not to try to control his optic blast, a decision that he later was ashamed of and hid from others. He was placed in an orphanage in Omaha, Nebraska that was secretly controlled by his future enemy, Mr Sinister. Years later, as a teenager, Scott began to suffer from severe headaches and eyestrain. He was sent to an eye specialist in Washington D.C. who discovered that lenses made of ruby quartz corrected the problem.

Scott was the first X-Man recruited by Professor Charles Xavier for his original team of X-Men, after Xavier rescued Scott from the clutches of the Living Diamond. Scott became deputy leader of the X-Men and fell in love with his teammate Jean Grey, whose place was eventually taken by the cosmic Phoenix Force. Phoenix committed suicide, leaving Scott to think that the love of his life had died. Cyclops has been the mainstay of the X-Men team for many years, even as a member of the original X-Factor team with the rest of the original X-Men.

Before his time with X-Factor, Scott met and then married the woman known as Madelyne Pryor, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Jean Grey. It was later revealed that she was a clone of Jean created by Sinister. Their marriage produced a son, Nathan, and Cyclops' most tragic time was when he had to let Nathan be taken into the future to find a cure for a lethal techno-virus that Apocalypse had infected him with. His son later returned as the man named Cable.

Scott had abandoned Madelyne after the real Jean had been found, and they later confronted the super-powered and insane Madelyne, who then perished in combat with Jean.

Scott and his long-time love Jean Grey later married, and Scott took on the role of co-leader of the X-Men with Storm after Xavier was arrested by the Government for crimes committed as Onslaught. Scott was injured during Operation: Zero Tolerance when Bastion had a nanotech bomb implanted in his chest. Only the medical expertise of Doctor Cecilia Reyes saved his life.

Scott left the X-Men to recuperate, but returned later when Xavier began acting strangely, ultimately disbanding the X-Men. Scott and Jean then formed their own new team of X-Men to help the Mannites against the threat known only as Death.

Cyclops was revealed to be one of the fabled Twelve, and was captured by Apocalypse so as to contribute his powers to Apocalypse's possession of Nate Grey. At the last moment, Cyclops shoved Nate out of the way and was absorbed into Apocalypse himself.

However, Cyclops' sacrifice seemed to be in vain, as Apocalypse's personality was dominant in their merged form. No trace of Cyclops' consciousness was detectable by Xavier, and so he was believed dead. Not so by his wife and son, however, who teamed up to search for Cyclops. Tracing him to Akkaba in Egypt - the site of the birth of Apocalypse - together Jean and Cable managed to separate Cyclops from his captor and destroyed Apocalypse once and for all.

Returning to the X-Men, Cyclops displayed a grimmer, more serious personality than ever before leading many to wonder if he was truly over Apocalypse's ordeal. Becoming estranged from his wife Jean, Cyclops sought the counsel of Emma Frost, with whom he began to have a telepathic affair.

When the Stepford Cuckoos warned Jean about her husband and Miss Frost, Jean confronted them. Scott told her that nothing physical happened between them. Cyclops then left the X-Men, but returned a month later when New York was under the attack of Xorn, impersonating Magneto and under the control of Sublime. This imposter killed Jean. After Jean’s death, Scott and Emma openly became a couple. When Xavier left to Genosha, Scott and Emma assumed the positions of co-headmasters of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. Cyclops now leads a team of X-Men. Before M-Day depowered most of the students, he was the advisor for a training squad called the Corsairs. The X-Men recently fought a powerful mutant called Vulcan, who turned out to be Scott's brother.

Cyclops possesses the mutant ability to project concussive force beams from his eyes, which work as interdimensional apertures between this universe and another. The force beams are heatless and ruby-colored and his body is constantly absorbing ambient energy, which allows him to open the apertures. Scott's body is enveloped by a psionic field that protects him from the otherdimensional particles, thus making his eyelids sufficient to block the concussive force. The synthetic ruby quartz crystal used to fashion the lenses of Cyclops's eyewear is resonant to his mind's psionic field and is similarly protected. The width of his optic blasts is focused like his original eyes' focused. The height of his optic blasts is controlled by his visor's adjustable slit. The effective range of his optic blasts is about 2,000 feet.

Source: ComixFan.com