As social media has become fond of saying for the past few years, “Cyclops’ PR manager is working overtime!” First he appeared in Tribute Games’ Marvel Cosmic Invasion, then in NetEase’s Marvel Rivals, then now Scott Summers will be the first DLC character for Arc System Works’ Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls:
Sadly just a short teaser so there’s not much to say in the way of gameplay, but wait! There’s something spicy about this Cyclops. Instead of his typical gold and blue X-Men colorscheme, you’ll notice Cyclops is wearing red and black, and seems to be more on fire than he usually is. This is because this particular Cyclops is a reference to a 2012 Marvel comics event, Avengers vs. X-Men, where Cyclops was possessed by the Phoenix Force and turned into a cosmic being for a short time.
An odd reference, Avengers vs. X-Men isn’t exactly looked fondly upon by the comic community, however the Phoenix Cyclops costume is a pretty popular design for the character (no doubt a 90s Jim Lee inspired costume will be an alternate) and this allows ArcSys to explore Cyclops in a way that the old Marvel vs. Capcom games never really got the chance to, as Phoenix Cyclops has an entirely different powerset from his normal counterpart.
Though speaking of Phoenix’s powerset, fighting game players will likely get PTSD from the idea of fighting a Phoenix Force empowered character again after just how traumatizing the last one was, but I’m sure ArcSys will have a finger on the pulse of the community and not make Cyclops too overpowered.
Sadly, there is a bit of a bitter taste to this announcement, it’s one thing to announce DLC day one of a game’s release, but Marvel Tokon’s open beta isn’t even out yet and we’re already getting DLC for it. Still, it’s better to know who and what to look for in the future if you decide to make any deluxe editions purchases or such, it wouldn’t surprise me if we got more DLC character announcements before the game’s launch on August 6th, 2026.