Over the course of thirteen movies at Fox, the X-Men were the subjects of sequels, prequels, spinoffs and sequels to those prequels and spinoffs, but one thing that none of the comic book blockbusters managed was to give Cyclops something important to do. The quality of the long-running series was wildly inconsistent over the course of the 20 years it was on our screens, but the one constant was the leader of the team being shunted into the background.
James Marsden was forced to constantly play the third wheel to the simmering chemistry between Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, while Tye Sheridan’s performances in Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix once again saw Scott Summers established as more of a plot device to further Jean’s narrative than a fully-formed character in his own right.
When the Marvel Cinematic Universe gets around to rebooting the X-Men and folding them into the mythology, a lot of fans are hoping that Cyclops will finally be given a substantial role after being marginalized in almost every movie so far. As the leader of the team, he should certainly be one of the focal points, and new fan art from digital artist Malcolm Kenneth imagines Armie Hammer in the part, which you can check out below.
Hammer has previous experience with playing masked heroes, of course, but the results have been less than stellar. He was cast as Batman in George Miller’s abandoned Justice League: Mortal and headlined infamous box office bomb The Lone Ranger, but he’s proven himself to be a solid actor with undeniable movie star charisma that could do a great job with Cyclops if he ended up joining the MCU’s all-new take on the X-Men.