In another example of Marvel's scheduling genius, this week also sees the release of X-Men: First Class - not to mention, both the Avengers titles and half the Ultimate line.  No doubt there is some extremely good reason for this which happens to escape me.

Anyway, this is a Cyclops solo story.  In theory, that's quite a good idea.  Usually, the point of doing a solo story is to bring out a different side of the character by taking him away from his usual role in the team.  That ought to work particularly well with Cyclops.  His defining feature is that he's an uptight leader who tends to put that role before everything else - in part, because it's a good excuse not to deal with any of his other issues. 

Take Cyclops away from the team, and you take away his leadership role.  That ought to allow other aspects of his personality to come through.  And at first, this story seems to be heading that way.  With the rest of the team ill, Scott shows up on his own to try and investigate a new mutant, and has to try and strike up conversation with the local cops himself.  Naturally, he's useless at it.

But from there, the story rather loses focus.  Instead, we get a story about an insane backwoods mutant holding people prisoner in a mine.  This doesn't have much to do with Cyclops at all, and we end up with a story of Scott being stoic and heroic in the face of adversity.  And he does that every issue.

The end result is perfectly okay, but it comes across as a generic story which simply happens to have used Cyclops instead of the whole team.  As such, it seems a bit of a missed opportunity.

Rating: B-

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