Although James Marsden had pretty much been shunted out of the film by the walking ball of awesome that was Hugh Jackmans Wolverine by the time X-Men 3 rolled around, we still liked him as a cast member. Every film needs a straight man, and this canons Cyclops had struck up a decent double act with everyones favourite clawed and unshaven mutant. In fact, it looked for a second like Cyclops might actually get something to do in X-Men 3, seeing as he starts the film a drunk and broken-down piece of meat. You can practically smell the need for a redemptive arc on him, as he somehow gets over the death of long-time girlfriend Jean Grey and comes back to lead the team. Well, um thats not what happens. Instead, the film just unceremoniously dumps him by setting him up as the first victim of Dark Phoenix, and worst of all, we dont actually see it happen. Sure, we see get rogue-ified by Jean, but theres no evaporation or corpse anywhere. Even Professor Xs anticlimactic death scene had the luxury of a falling house to accompany his demise. I realise that the quick cut-out was because Marsdens commitment to the up-coming Superman Returns, but to have him die a Red Shirts death just to show Dark Phoenixs power was massively anti-climactic. Ratner could have at least had him go out in a blaze of glory he deserved, rather than what seemed like his own libido.