Scott is the surviving link to the original field team, which makes him responsible for people who don't share the history that once made his instructions familiar.

Scott is the surviving link to the original field team, which makes him responsible for people who don't share the history that once made his instructions familiar. The opening of X-Men #96 leaves him alone with his guilt over Thunderbird. He has led dangerous missions before, but experience hasn't supplied a way to file a teammate's death away and move on. His frustration erupts through the very power he spends so much effort controlling. That is a difficult place from which to train a new group. Scott wants discipline partly because he understands what a mistake can cost. Some of the others hear a man demanding obedience before they have decided how much they trust him. Wolverine makes that disagreement impossible to ignore. Their clash after the airport fight in #97 concerns an actual choice: Scott has a shot at the departing attackers, but his brother is among them. He won't risk Alex's life. Wolverine reads the restraint very differently. The point of the disagreement is stronger than a simple competition over who looks tougher. A leader has to make decisions that affect people he loves. He also has to explain those decisions to teammates who may believe that personal attachment has compromised the mission. Then Jean and the others disappear into Lang's operation. Scott's fear becomes a practical problem: find them, work out where they have been taken and get a rescue team there. His partnership with Peter Corbeau helps turn an impossible absence into a location they can reach. This Scott has no settled formula for being the leader of the new X-Men. He brings experience, worry and a considerable capacity for action. The new team keeps testing all three, often in the same scene.