BIOGRAPHY - Page 16
Only a week after they formed, the Extinction Team had their first big battle when Mister Sinister snuck into the Dreaming Celestial and absconded with its head. The X-Men confronted Sinister in his twisted hideout filled with autonomous clones of himself, but they soon learned he was no longer their main priority: the rest of the Celestials were en route to destroy the Earth because it had violated the Dreamer's form. In short, if the X-Men didn't retrieve its head before the Celestials arrived, the Earth was doomed. They tried to get Sinister to return it, but he outfoxed them and took control of all of their minds, except Emma's, who was immune to telepathic attacks while in diamond form. During this conflict, Sinister discretely informed Hope about the nature of the Phoenix Force, and her possible connection to it. Meanwhile, once Emma realized Sinister had based the brainwaves of his "perfect" species of clones off of Cyclops (for tactical brilliance), she swiftly shut them down, as she was intimately familiar with Cyclops's mind and its defenses. 
The Extinction Team left Sinister and returned to the Dreaming Celestial with its head, where they confronted the approaching Celestials. Cyclops faced down the Celestials and told them that, because the Dreaming Celestial was still intact, they had no business being on Earth and needed to leave. The Dreaming Celestial concurred. Silently submitting, the Celestials departed. The world, meanwhile, witnessed Cyclops and the X-Men single-handedly neutralize a potentially world-ending threat. Cyclops hoped the display of power would deter humans from ever messing with mutants again. [Uncanny X-Men (2nd series) #1-3]
Cyclops was relieved when he learned his son, Cable, was again back from the dead. Unfortunately, Cable had returned to the present on a mission to kill the Avengers so they wouldn’t someday kill Hope, as he had seen in a future timeline. Cyclops and Hope confronted Cable as he was preparing to execute Captain America, Iron Man and the Red Hulk. 
With the help of some other Avengers, they defeated him and were allowed to take him into custody, where Hope burned the T/O Virus out of his system. While he was healing, he and Cyclops had a heart to heart on the Astral Plane about how important Hope was to the mutant race. Cable had Cyclops promise that, when the time came for war with the Avengers over Hope and the Phoenix, Cyclops would protect her. [Avengers: X-Sanction #3-4]
When Cyclops discovered Hope was sneaking out at night to fight crime in San Francisco, he asked her to stop, reminding her she was too important to risk her life stopping petty crimes. In a seeming non sequitur, Hope lashed out at Scott and asked him about the Phoenix and why he hid it from her. Scott didn't answer her, but he wondered who told her about the Phoenix. Later, he and Emma spoke with Hope after she cooled off, at which point she told them she could sense the Phoenix was coming for her, and that she feared it would either kill her or drive her insane. Scott, however, continued believing Hope would save them all. [Avengers vs. X-Men #0]
Cyclops and the X-Men fought alongside the Avengers to suppress a prison-break of captive aliens from SWORD's orbiting space station, the Peak. Once Cyclops learned that one of the aliens had specifically sought out Hope and was now in contact with her, however, he and his team abandoned the Avengers and went to find their charge. After subduing the alien threat and getting Hope to safety, Cyclops spoke with Captain America, who expressed his disappointed in him: Scott may have claimed his goal was to protect the world, but his actions made it clear he put Hope above everything and everyone else. [Uncanny X-Men (2nd series) #9-10]
Soon, the Avengers received notification that the Phoenix was on its way to Earth, just like Hope had sensed. Captain America approached Cyclops on the shore of Utopia, where he suspected it was heading, and asked him to turn Hope over to Avengers custody. Cyclops refused to release her, however, even if it meant endangering the planet; Hope and the Phoenix had the potential to reignite mutantkind and Cyclops wasn't going to throw that possibility away. He ordered Cap off his island. When he refused, Cyclops attacked him. In response, Cap assembled the Avengers and the X-Men duked it out with Earth’s Mightiest. While they fought, Wolverine—an active Avenger at the time—snuck onto Utopia with Spider-Man to apprehend Hope, who neverthless escaped. After Hope fled, the X-Men appeared to surrender to the Avengers, but it was all a ruse to buy themselves time and get a head start on the hunt for Hope. As they began their search for their AWOL mutant savior, Cyclops had their publicist, Kate Kildare, send out a press release informing the world that the Avengers had invaded the X-Men's home in order to kidnap a mutant girl, leaving the X-Men no choice but to retaliate against their act of aggression. [Avengers vs. X-Men #1-3, Uncanny X-Men (2nd series) #11]
Hope, meanwhile, met with Wolverine in secret and made him a deal: she was going to accept the Phoenix Force into her being, but if it proved too much for her to bear, she wanted him to kill her. He agreed, and they traveled to the Blue Area of the Moon to greet the Force as it neared Earth. However, their journey attracted the attention of both the Avengers and the X-Men. When Wolverine and Hope arrived on the moon, the Avengers were there to greet them, as were Cyclops, Colossus, Namor and Emma. As the Phoenix Force drew nearer, it proved too powerful for Hope’s mimicry powers to handle, so she asked Wolverine to fulfill his end of their bargain. Cyclops stopped him at the last second from making good on his promise. 
While Cyclops battled both Captain America and Wolverine to save Hope, she confronted the approaching Phoenix Force. However, Iron Man had built a weapon to destroy the cosmic entity as well, and when he fired it at the Phoenix, it dispersed around Hope—and went into Cyclops and the four other X-Men he had brought with him. Cyclops, Emma, Magik, Namor and Colossus now all hosted equal portions of the Phoenix. Now enlightened and immensely powerful, these "Phoenix Five" told the Avengers that they had much work to do on Earth and that it was futile to try to stop them. With that, they departed for Earth. [Avengers vs. X-Men #4-5]
Making good on their word, the Phoenix Five remade the Earth for the better. They grew food in places that were formerly deserts. They brought potable water and free, clean energy to the entire world. They ended wars, dismantled warheads and retired battleships. 
They recreated Utopia as a perfect floating city that served as a haven for mutants. They made the entire planet livable and tolerable—and they vowed to do more. However, this made many people, including Professor Xavier, the Avengers and various heads of state, uncomfortable. Xavier rebuked Cyclops for wielding too much power and changing the world so quickly, but Cyclops assured him everything was fine; this was what they always wanted, after all. [Avengers vs. X-Men #6]
Fearing the corrupting influence Mr. Sinister had on Hope, the Phoenix Five attacked him in "Sinister City," his underground, Victorian-era city filled with clones of himself, in order to eliminate him for good. After a struggle in which they were briefly bested, the Phoenix Five emerged victorious, thanks to the help of their X-Men peers, and Cyclops personally incinerated the villain who had manipulated him his entire life. He made sure to wipe out all last vestiges of his civilization and his perfect "species," leaving even less competition for mutants for dominion of the Earth. [Uncanny X-Men (2nd series) #14-17]
The Avengers, fearing the Phoenix Five were dangerously unaccountable despite all the good deeds they were doing, decided they needed to check their power, and to do that they needed Hope’s help. Once again, the Avengers attacked Utopia to try to kidnap the girl, but the Phoenix-empowered Cyclops and Emma effortlessly thwarted them. To their surprise, however, the Scarlet Witch arrived, and her powers actually proved harmful to the Phoenixes. 
Hope willingly left with Wanda after that. Afterward, Cyclops realized the Avengers would never stop bothering them; even when they had remade the world for the better, mutants were still hated and feared—and mankind knew they could always rely on the Avengers to defend them when they started conflicts with mutants. Cyclops, suddenly seeing the situation very clearly, uttered the solution to their conundrum: no more Avengers. [Avengers vs. X-Men #6]
The Phoenix Five repeatedly assaulted the Avengers and took prisoners, but the Scarlet Witch routinely repelled them. When Emma and Namor discovered the Avengers were holding one of their mutant students captive in Wakanda, they decided to take action. Behind Cyclops's back, Namor assaulted the African nation and flooded it, destroying Wakanda and killing countless civilians. The combined might of all of the Avengers managed to weaken him enough for the Scarlet Witch to defeat him using her mysterious hex abilities. Cyclops and the rest of the Phoenix Five (now Four) arrived in the immediate aftermath of this battle, at which point the portion of the Phoenix Force Namor previously possessed vacated his body and redistributed itself amongst the others, further strengthening them. The Avengers fled, and the Phoenix Four returned home. Along the way, Xavier telepathically threatened to shut down Cyclops's mind if he didn't cease his abuse of his immense power, but Cyclops didn't flinch at the threat. [Avengers vs. X-Men #7-8]
When the Avengers staged a rescue to retrieve some of their captured comrades, Spider-Man goaded Colossus and Magik into fighting each other so they could steal each other's powers. The two Phoenix-fueled siblings took the bait and ended up knocking each other out, and their powers were distributed to Cyclops and Emma. 
Now even more powerful, Emma was able to see even more into the minds of everyone on the Earth, and asked Cyclops for help in stopping her murderous urges. Cyclops ignored her cries for help, however, as he had now ascertained the location of Hope in the mystical city of K'un-Lun. He went to retrieve her but, unbeknownst to him, Hope had been training in the martial arts of Iron Fist's people. Absorbing the mystical power of the dragon Shao Lao, Hope lashed out at Cyclops, temporarily neutralizing his Phoenix powers. Then, she punched him with a Chaos Fist—which channeled Wanda's chaos magic and combined it with her training from Iron Fist—hitting him so hard it sent him to the moon. It took Cyclops a full hour to recover from the blow. He decided he needed more power—and knew exactly where to get it. [Avengers vs. X-Men #9-10]
At first, Cyclops didn't take Emma's power forcefully. They actually had a discussion about their plans for the world, during which Emma came off even more ruthless than Cyclops did. 
They were interrupted when Professor X entered Cyclops's mind and told him he was shutting him down. Cyclops defended himself against the mental attack, but while Xavier worked on his mind, the Avengers and the rest of the X-Men—all of whom had defected from the increasingly tyrannical Phoenix-bearers at this point—waged a final assault on them. Cyclops and Emma were able to casually repel the multi-pronged attack and still enjoy a psychic dinner together. During their dinner, however, Emma admitted to Scott she had engaged in a telepathic affair with Namor while they were both empowered with the Phoenix. Angered, Scott decided now was the time to take Emma's power. On the physical plane, he attacked her from behind with his optic blast and knocked her out, causing her power to flow into him. When Xavier wouldn't stop pestering him, he brutally murdered him, leaving his former mentor and father figure as nothing but a shriveled, twisted corpse. Cyclops, finally endowed with the full power of the Phoenix Force, had gone full Dark Phoenix. [Avengers vs. X-Men #11, Uncanny X-Men (2nd series) #18]
Dark Cyclops began purifying the Earth using the unforgiving power of the Phoenix. Volcanoes across the globe erupted, the oceans heated up and burst into flame, meteors began raining down all across the planet: he literally set the world on fire. The Avengers and the X-Men devoted themselves to saving as many civilian lives as they could while trying to stop Cyclops, but Cyclops remained unstoppable. In possession of the totality of the Phoenix Force, he stood in awe of his own power, and wondered what its limits were. He even approached the White Hot Room, where Jean told him he was an idiot—and instructed him to tell Logan she loved the name of the new school. 
Soon, Hope and Wanda teamed up to confront him. While Wanda hit Dark Cyclops with her hex magic, Hope channeled Wanda’s magic into her Chaos Fist and knocked him out. Defeated, the Phoenix left his body and went into Hope’s, who used its power to extinguish all the fires Cyclops started across the Earth. She relinquished the Phoenix Force once she was finished. Now free, the Phoenix Force dispersed itself across the globe, finally shattering the chaos spell Wanda had unleashed on M-Day, restoring the natural evolution of humanity—and reigniting the mutant race.
Cyclops, meanwhile, regained consciousness and immediately realized what he had done. Horrified, he surrendered, while the rest of the Extinction Team and the Phoenix Five went into hiding. Later, while in captivity in a private prison outfitted to hold and neutralize mutants, he explained to Captain America and Wolverine that his memories of what he did as the Phoenix stopped at some point, but he knew he killed Professor X and nearly destroyed the planet. He said he accepted responsibility for his actions. Secretly, though, he felt he had done the right thing since his actions essentially restarted the mutant race. He said quite plainly he was happy to spend the rest of what remained of his life in prison for his crimes but that, if given the chance do it all over, he would do the exact same thing again. [Avengers vs. X-Men #12, Uncanny X-Men (2nd series) #19]