Our second Event Month had the main purpose to highlight the site’s Spotlight On... section, which had opened a couple of months before and, up till then, only had a handful of entries. Running from mid-February to mid-March 2002, the Summers Month actually started on Valentine’s Day with an article on the romance of Jean and Scott. (link below)
The second Event Month was already much bigger than the first and we now had enough features to publish something new five days a week. Joining Dean Clayton and myself, Peter Luzifer, new site contributers Monolith, David Duijsings, Milleniumcyke and Douglas Mangum became part of the crew and helped to accomplish this event concept. I’d also like to mention Robert Diehl, who let us use quite a number of his earlier-written Summers-related issue summaries.
Below is a list of the features that were part of the Summers Month:
Family Trees Other than the aforementioned focus on the “Spotlight On...”, the Summers Month was used to open the well received “Family Tree” section. The rather big and confusing number of relatives were all put in graphical indexes, each clan on their own. Sure, the two family trees overlap in certain parts, but see for yourself:
Grey Family Tree and Summers Family Tree.
Spotlight On... The spotlights during this month were entertaining... for the audience. Me, I had a certain trauma after scanning and arranging all these images and, for a time, I sure couldn’t stand looking at red-headed females anymore. To better understand the difference between Phoenix II (the Force inhabiting Jean’s duplicated body), Phoenix III (Rachel) and Phoenix IV (Jean), we also had an entry on the Phoenix Force itself. Throw in Havok, Cyclops, Cable and Madelyne Pryor and voila – you have seven spotlights in one single month.
Timelines The biggest feature of the Summers Month was the timeline entry on the Askani Future and the corresponding Askani - Present take, which is about those future characters that have journeyed back to the present and what they have been experiencing ever since. Both parts come with their own Chronologies, Character and Issue Lists, but there are also some shared features, like a Time Travel Diagram and the Questions page.
X marks the spot Two locations often associated with the Summers family, especially Cyclops, are Anchorage, Alaska and the Orphanage in Nebraska, where he grew up. Reason enough to cover both places with their respectful entries.
Friends and Foes One of the most unusual topics during the Event was the team entry on the
Six Pack / Wild Pack, the mercenary group organized by Cable when he started operating in the present day. His close friendship with Domino goes back to those days.
Crossovers As the Summers Clan have been the X-Men’s main players for entire decades, it’s no wonder that they had their more than well-deserved share of panel time and entire crossovers had them in the center stage. The X-Cutioner’s Song is one of them, revealing Cable/Stryfe to be the son of Cyclops, and during Apocalypse: The Twelve and the Ages of Apocalypse, Jean was devastated when Scott merged with Apocalypse and apparently perished.
Merging Minds Characters with such rich histories always make good article topics and we reviewed them in quite different angles. For one, there is the whole love and relationship angle covered by such topics as Til Death Do Us Part... And Beyond and Summer Loving.
While Cyclops and Havok had their on share of Sibling Rivalry, they never really fought each other for long and, with a villain like Mr. Sinister manipulating their lives at every turn, they didn’t have to. What’s the cause for the pale-faced villain’s interest in the Summers family? Find out in the article entitled Sinister Observations.
It was also Sinister who first hinted at the possibility of a Third Summers Brother. Last but not least, there was also a critical review of the outcome of the long-awaiting conclusion to the Twelve storyline. Sometimes it might be better to leave a plot dangling rather than pressure it into a forced resolution. The Twelve – Original Plot and Final Outcome
Issue Summaries Other than the ones belonging to the crossover entries, these were the Issue Summaries released during the Event Month:
Askani‘Son #1-4 Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #1-4 Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #1-4 X-Men: Phoenix #1-3