8 X-Men Characters You Didn't Realise Had Died

Cyclops feels like the immortal X-Men. Wolverine is the icon and Professor X is the founder, but Cyclops is the forever symbol of what the X-Men are. That's what makes it pretty incomprehensible that he was ever killed in the first place.

Cyclops, like Multiple Man, died in 2016's Death of X. Maybe it says something about the story if two very notable characters were killed so forgettably. While investigating an infested Muir Island, Cyclops is exposed to Terrigen Mist which very quickly kills him.

As you can imagine, this would be a big deal to mutants. Cyclops was leading the band of outlaw X-Men that ran in opposition to the conventional mutant team. He was a face for something much larger than himself, so when he died, Emma Frost decided to continue his legacy... by creating a psychic impression of him to live on. She believed the idea of Cyclops was too important to let perish and decided he should stand as a symbol for mutants to unify under. And ultimately her plan worked, as the psychic Cyclops was sacrificed to be a martyr for mutants everywhere.

So Cyclops (sort of) died twice? Once as himself and once as his legacy. He was quickly resurrected in 2019, but even when he died in comics he never truly died. Maybe that's why it feels like he never did to readers.