The X-Men‘s Cyclops has a clone even Marvel Comics has forgotten about. Cyclops is the X-Men’s greatest leader, but he’s paid a terrible personal price for his heroism. Scott Summers’ personal life is an absolute mess, involving everything from genocidal half-siblings to children from alternate timelines. The Summers family tree is generally considered the craziest in all comics.
Part of the problem lies in his historic ties to Mr. Sinister, a crazed mutant geneticist who hails from the Victorian era. Sinister has long believed the Summers bloodline holds the key to the future of the mutant race, and as such he has meddled with the Summers family for decades. When the young Scott Summers was orphaned, Sinister had the teenager brought into his own personal orphanage, where he conducted experiments on him with impunity. Sinister has always been particularly interested in Cyclops’ DNA, using it for many of his projects. And then, in Avenging Spider-Man #16, one of Sinister’s labs was broken into by the Spider-Man villain called the Jackal – with predictably crazy results.
The Jackal decided to experiment with splicing genes together in order to create something brand new. Consequently, he combined Cyclops’ DNA with other samples he was more familiar with – specifically Gwen Stacy’s and a spider. The result was a weird human/spider/mutant hybrid who could morph into a giant arachnid, and went on a rampage in New York. There, the clone drew the attention of the Superior Spider-Man (the normal Spider-Man whose body was possessed by the mind of Doctor Octopus) and the X-Men. The heroes attempted to capture the creature, and were somewhat taken aback when the giant spider began firing optic blasts at them. The Superior Spider-Man managed to knock the mutant out, and it reverted to human form. Although Otto Octavius figured out who had created the clone when he saw the familiar face and form of Gwen Stacy, who the Jackal has always been obsessed with, he decided not to clue the X-Men in.
It’s a pretty crazy plot, and when the dust settled from the action, the clone was being taken back to the Jean Grey School. This particular Cyclops clone has been simply forgotten by Marvel, easy to understand given the concept is pretty wacky. It is, however, quite amusing to imagine there’s a weird spider/Cyclops/Gwen Stacy hybrid living on the mutant island of Krakoa. No doubt Mr. Sinister would be rather unimpressed if he came across her, because he’s always been rather proprietary about his cloning technology.
Oddly enough, this actually foreshadows Mr. Sinister’s current experiments. Forbidden from creating clones of the mutants on Krakoa, Mr. Sinister is working on Chimeras, hybrids whose genes have been spliced from two or more mutants. Recent issues of Hellions suggested those plots are well in advance, meaning it may not be long before the Jackal’s creation has more company among the X-Men.
