CYCLOPS

Cyclops once shared a body with the X-Men's oldest enemy. In "The Twelve" crossover (1999–2000), Apocalypse gathered twelve powerful mutants to power an ancient Celestial circuit and planned to pour his essence into Nate Grey — X-Man — as his new host body. At the climax, in X-Men #97 (2000), Cyclops threw himself into the merging process in Nate's place. Scott Summers and En Sabah Nur fused into a single being and vanished — and Professor X could no longer sense Scott's mind at all. The X-Men believed him dead.

He wasn't. In X-Men: The Search for Cyclops #1–4 (2000–2001), by Joseph Harris, an amnesiac Scott surfaced in Egypt, drifting toward Akkaba — Apocalypse's birthplace. He had no memory of who he was and his optic blasts were gone, and every day was a war inside his own skull: the essence of Apocalypse was still in residence, fighting him for control of his own body, slipping out in moments of darkness that terrified him.

Jean Grey and Cable — his wife and his son — tracked him down ahead of Apocalypse's loyalists, guided by the chronicler Ozymandias. Jean finally tore Scott's consciousness free of Apocalypse's essence, and Cable destroyed what was discarded. Scott came home, but not unchanged: the colder, harder, more withdrawn Cyclops of the decade that followed starts with the merger — the man who had Apocalypse inside his head was never quite the same boy scout again.