So I don't really comment on stuff like this much, but now I have a blog, so I get to do that if I feel like it. I've noticed a lot of people around the web making comments about this, and the larger consensus seems to be that Cyclops was right. I think there's even a t-shirt to that effect. I wanted to throw in my 2 cents on the matter.
Cyclops was wrong. Captain America was just more wrong.
It's kind of a subtle distinction.
Yes, if Captain America had not shown up at Utopia with the Avengers loaded up in battle mode, none of this would have happened. However, if he had gotten there and been met by anyone other than Cyclops, none of it would have happened. Cyclops was looking for a fight the second Cap set foot on that island. In fact, he was looking for a war, and I imagine he was looking for one well before the events in AvX. I think Cap knew this when he decided to confront Cyclops, and that's why he brought the Avengers. Which was his biggest mistake. He knew Cyclops wanted a war, and he brought him one, which was the exactly the opposite of what he should have done.
Of course, we can also blame Xavier for a lot of this. After all, he's the one who basically raised Cyclops, and he raised him to be a soldier. Which seems kind of contrary to what he claimed to be trying to do for the world. The best leaders in wartime are rarely the best leaders in peacetime.
It's also worth noting that Cyclops had no reason to believe that the Phoenix force was coming to Earth to do anything other than destroy it. It was barreling through the galaxy, wiping out anything in it's path without even pausing to see what it stepped in. Cyclops was gambling with the entire human race, and he had no right to do so. Yes, it turned out that the Phoenix force could be contained and channeled to restore the mutant population, but that just means they got lucky. A father who gambles his children's college fund at Atlantic City doesn't get to be father of the year just because he wins. Cyclops risked the entire world, and he did so mainly because he had a chip on his shoulder.
Furthermore, did he ever bother to ask Hope what she wanted? (I'm actually asking, I don't feel like digging through past issues to double-check.)
After everything, he gave his little speech about how he'd do it all over again. It reminds me of Tony Stark. After the Civil War, and the whole Dark Reign mess, during which Tony had to basically wipe his mind for whatever reason, and after Osborn was deposed and everything put back to pre-Civil War status, Tony was confronted by some of the people he had turned against during the Civil War, and he told them that, despite everything, he would do the same thing all over again. Because he was still convinced that he was right, despite everything. That's basically the same attitude Cyclops took, that arrogant attitude that everyone else was wrong for not falling in behind him.
Anyway, before this turns into a rant, or into more of a rant, I wanted to hit a bigger point regarding this crossover, and why it never felt like it worked for me. I feel like it never should have been Avengers vs X-Men. It would have been much better served as being called something like "The Return of the Phoenix" or something that was less focused on schoolyard arguments. If it hadn't been immediately about Avengers vs X-Men, they could have spent time building up the conflict, maybe start by bringing Cyclops into the discussion about how to stop the Phoenix, have him be the only one in the room bringing up the idea that the Phoenix might not be coming to destroy them. Have him get shouted down, go home angry, try and recruit people to his side of things. Turning it immediately into an AvX conflict removes a lot of room for nuance, and forces a number of characters into actions that make little to no sense.
I also want to point out that I called that ending at issue #0. I can't prove this, because the only person I told was my wife, and she doesn't read comics so doesn't care, but I totally said that Hope was going to get the Phoenix force, and use it and Scarlet Witch's powers to restore all the mutants. (I know, I'm not the only one that saw it coming, just let me have this little moment.)
So that's my assessment of AvX. Captain America was absolutely wrong in how he approached the situation. But so was Cyclops. And while Cap's bad choices allowed (some might argue they just about forced) Cyclops to almost destroy the world, Cyclops was the one that actually made the decisions that almost destroyed the world.
Of course, that's just my opinion, and I've never much cared for Cyclops, so you can take that with a grain of salt.
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