Scott Summers has a different public responsibility once X-Factor admits that its members are mutants. He can no longer separate the people supposedly doing the hunting from the…

Scott Summers has a different public responsibility once X-Factor admits that its members are mutants. He can no longer separate the people supposedly doing the hunting from the people conducting the rescues. His words and his team’s actions now have to answer for the same organization. X-Factor #25 makes him the person explaining that change to the cameras. In #26, he also has to keep working while the authorities are still suspicious. His optic blasts clear rubble at a collapsed building, putting a familiar combat power to work in an emergency that cannot wait for the police to decide what they think of him. The more difficult division is inside his own life. Scott is searching for his missing son, Nathan Christopher, while trying to understand what happened to Madelyne. In #28, he is at the airport preparing to leave when a television report shows that the rest of the team needs him. He returns to the crisis aboard Ship. His responsibilities keep interrupting one another rather than arranging themselves neatly. That search runs directly into Inferno. In #38, saving his son brings him into conflict with Madelyne and with his brother, Havok. The rescue does not erase the damage surrounding it. The funeral in #40 leaves Scott with a living child and a history he will eventually have to explain. Being X-Factor’s leader in this period therefore means more than choosing a target and giving an order. Scott is trying to make the team’s public identity honest while his own family life is painfully exposed. His friends can help him rescue people and confront enemies. They cannot make those relationships simple, or remove his responsibility for what happens next.