X-Men
The Summers Family
”[Cyclops]'s your father like he's my grandfather, which makes you my - - The family dynamic is too insane to even think about.”
The Summers family of the Marvel Universe is a massive Continuity Snarl to itself – ironic, considering that Scott Summers started out as an orphan with no known family. Thanks to time travel and alternate realities, no fewer than three characters in the main continuity of the X-Men comics can be said to be the child of Scott Summers, and none of them are more than about ten years younger than their parents. None of these children have full siblings in the continuities in which they live, either.
- Rachel Summers is the daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey from the Days of Future Past timeline. Upon arrival in the present, she suffers quite a bit of existential angst when she finds that in the new timeline she will never be born. She later joins the X-Men and Excalibur and takes on her mother's mantle as Phoenix.
- Jonathan Richards, the supervillain despot also known as Hyperstorm, is Rachel's son with Franklin Richards in an alternate version of her original timeline.
- Nathan Christopher Charles Dayspring Askani'son Summers, better known as Cable, was the only one to be born in the main Marvel Universe timeline: he is Scott's son with Madelyne Pryor, who was later revealed to be Jean Grey's clone. Sent into a dystopian far future as a baby in order to save his life, and raised under the name Nathan Dayspring, he later returned to the present day as a grey-haired Cool Old Guy. The supervillain Stryfe is Cable's evil clone and may be the father of Cable's son Tyler Dayspring (the villain also known as Tolliver and later Genesis). Cable has also adopted a daughter of his own, Hope. Cable was also raised for twelve years by "Redd" and "Slym" Dayspring, who were actually artificial human bodies created for Jean and Scott (whose minds had been transported to the future) to occupy to raise Nathan.
- Just before the Krakoa era, a younger version of Cable, who may or may not be the original version's past self, was also recently introduced and is colloquially called Kid Cable. He killed his original self and has demonstrated knowledge that the original Cable did not have at his age... but Jean is sure that he's her son and he's been treated as such. However, he gets basically no respect from anyone. Apocalypse - who spent much of his life dealing with the superior predecessors of adult Cable and Nate Grey - treats him with barely veiled contempt, and one anonymous mutant notes that everyone was scared of "the old man" but no one's bothered by the kid, and his appointment as SWORD's head of security is In-Universe described as a transparent political move by Brand to curry favour with the politically influential Grey-Summers clan. He's later confirmed to be the original's teenage self, the adult version having pulled a Thanatos Gambit and Stable Time Loop in anticipation of Krakoa, and eventually goes to the future while the old version is resurrected. It's also revealed that most of the Stepford Cuckoos who were dating him were keeping an eye on him, as his parents were, just in case he was a young Stryfe - something that had previously been feared about Nate Grey. They hoped otherwise, but they were ready to nuke him if necessary.
- Nathaniel "Nate" Grey, a.k.a. X-Man, is Cable's Alternate Universe counterpart from the Age of Apocalypse reality, who was shunted into the main Marvel Universe timeline when it was restored. He was created by Mr. Sinister using Scott and Jean's DNA; despite being genetically identical to Cable, Nate Grey is technically his half-brother, and significantly younger, and his relationship with Cable could generally be summed up as "grumpy younger brother". He's somewhat close to his father, surprisingly close to his niece, Hope (as he did the mutant messiah gig first and offers her invaluable support and advice), has shared exactly one panel with his sister, Rachel, and his mother is pretty much the only person with a hope in hell of controlling him.
- There are also Scott's children seen in various alternate futures: probably the most significant being Ruby Summers, his daughter with Emma Frost in Bishop's home timeline, who was a major supporting character in X-Factor. In the miniseries X-Men: The End, Scott and Emma are seen to have four children, including a daughter Megan Frost, a set of twin girls, and a son Alex Frost-Summers.
- Scott's father is Christopher Summers, better known as Corsair, who is a space pirate. Scott's mother Catherine Summers is dead, but Corsair has been in a long-term relationship with alien cat-person Hepzibah.
- Scott's younger brother Alex, a.k.a. Havok, is also a member of the X-Men. Alex adds to the complication in an Uncanny Avengers storyline where he marries Janet van Dyne in an Alternate Universe Bad Future — and have a daughter Katie, who is kidnapped by Kang and put in an isolated timeline so that she doesn't get Ret-Gone while they try to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. This daughter links the Summers to the equally convoluted Pym family tree, which includes more robots than you'd think.
- There's also a third Summers brother, Gabriel Summers a.k.a. Vulcan, a supervillain who once ruled over the intergalactic Shi'ar Empire. Vulcan himself is married to Cal'syee Neramani, better known as Deathbird, a member of the Shi'ar royal family and former usurper of the throne. Since Deathbird had Vulcan's child, that hybrid offspring adds another branch to the Imperial Sh'iar house. Please note that this means the Summers family is now tied to an alien royal family.
- Deathbird was also mother to twins Black Light and White Noise (a son and daughter respectively), who served in her Imperial Guard.
- Deathbird's sister Lilandra, who also ruled the Shi'ar Empire for a time, was once married to Charles Xavier (Scott's childhood father figure), meaning we can add him to the family tree too. They have a daughter, Xandra, who is the current Empress.
- That wasn't the first time Scott's family was linked to Shi'ar royalty. Adam Neramani a.k.a. Adam X the X-Treme is Scott's half-brother, the son of Catherine Summers and Shi'ar Emperor D'Ken (brother of Deathbird and Lilandra). This was originally foreshadowed in the mid-1990s – Adam is half-human, and Catherine was the only known human woman in Shi'ar space at the time – but the plot point was dropped and remained unconfirmed until eventually being canonized in X-Men Legends #2 in 2021.
- Before Vulcan's introduction, several other characters aside from Adam X were hinted as being the long-lost brother of Scott and Alex. Gambit was also considered to be made into the third Summers brother; in X-Men: The End he was made a product of Mr. Sinister and Scott Summers' DNA. Notably, the panel that started this whole mess
◊ only says "brothers" and doesn't imply a specific number, so there could potentially be even more Summers men. In 2023, a quip by Corsair implied that there might be others, though it could just mean the existing three. - The villainous immortal Amanda Mueller was married to Daniel Summers and had a son who's the direct ancestor to Cyclops and company. Mueller also had the mutant daughter Fontanelle (but not by Daniel Summers).
- In the Mutant X timeline, Alex Summers has a son with Madelyne Pryor named Scotty. In the same timeline, Nate Grey was created by Mr Sinister as the son of Alex and Jean rather than Scott and Jean, although his DNA from Alex was later overwritten with Scott's DNA.
- Cyclops is Galactus' father-in-law, although you do have to go through two different alternate timelines to get to that point. In the Earth X trilogy, it's revealed at the end of the first series that Franklin Richards is destined to take Galactus' place. And more than one timeline shows that he and Rachel would have fallen in love as young adults had she grown up in her own time.
Other Families
Elsewhere in the X-Men universe.- Magneto has children with Rogue in at least two realities, Charles in Age of Apocalypse, and Magnus, a member of the original Exiles team, in another timeline. In Age of Apocalypse, Rogue and Magneto's marriage created its own issues, because now Mystique and Destiny are both Magneto's mothers-in-law, Rogue is Quicksilver's step-mother (but somehow younger than him), Quicksilver is Storm's lover, and Rogue permanently absorbed roughly half the powers and personality of Polaris, Magneto's long-lost daughter who was on the enemy's side (but neither of them know it in this reality).
- Mystique is Sabretooth's ex and mother of his son, Graydon Creed. It's been revealed that she may someday have children by both Wolverine and Charles Xavier, as said children (Raze and Charles Xavier II, respectively) have traveled back in time from the future. She's Nightcrawler's mother by Azazel (and she was once planned to have been his father instead, with Destiny as his mother) and Rogue's foster mother.
- In 2023 one-shot, X-Men Blue: Origins, Mystique is revealed to be Kurt's father, with Destiny as the mother. With her powers, Raven mimicked Azazel's genetic make-up, which explains the demonic resemblance between both mutants.
- Thanks to time travel and genetic engineering, Longshot and Shatterstar are each other's fathers.
- In X-Force, Eli Bard modified himself using material taken from the Technarch Magus (father of Warlock), and used the material to resurrect several dead characters. These include Graydon Creed (son of Mystique) and some members of the Trask family (whose DNA was copied by Xavier's sister Cassandra Nova). This would add robots (including the Sentinels) to the mix, as well as Warlock's son Torgo.
- Wolverine originally only had an adopted daughter, but then his own family tree grew to include Daken, the son he never knew he had, and Laura, his Opposite-Sex Clone whom he later adopted. Then Laura discovered she had more clones of herself. And then we discover Logan's future son with Mystique and his time-displaced future self
