The Scott and Jean Archives
In this reality, Xavier’s “secret second team”, which was sent to rescue the original X-Men from Krakoa, survived. Years after the incident, Gabriel Summers, codename Vulcan, leads the X-Men, in place of his brother, Scott Summers who’d quit the X-Men when Jean Grey perished.
After leading the X-Men to capture Magneto, Vulcan has been named “the World’s Greatest Hero”. Vulcan prepares an instant dinner of spaghetti and meatballs as he watches his television interview. Vulcan’s pregnant mother was killed by the Sh’iar and he was raised as a slave. With his powers, he escaped to Earth and was taken in by Moira MacTaggert. He soon joined a team of mutants formed by MacTaggert and Xavier. They were sent to rescue the original X-Men captured by Krakoa, but when they arrived, Vulcan discovered that they had perished. Vulcan’s team managed to make it to safety when the “living island” exploded and launched itself into deep space.
Some time into the interview, Vulcan revealed that Scott decided to quit the X-Men after Jean Grey and his other brother, Alex Summers, died. Scott felt that it was his fault that his team perished, and is now a “recluse” sculptor.
At Scott’s home, he turns the television off as he can watch the interview no more. He returns to sculpting a bust of his beloved Jean Grey. Sculptures of Warren and Bobby can be seen. Suddenly, he is interrupted by Xavier using telepathy to contact him. Xavier tells Scott that Krakoa had been found.
As the interview progresses, we learn that Xavier and Moira married, and expanded the mutant superhero team.
At the present, Vulcan has been called to the X-Tower in Manhattan by Xavier. The senior X-Men team is there, as well as Scott who is none too pleased to see his youngest brother.
The Silver Surfer had found Krakoa and brought it back to Earth, where Reed Richards examined it. Sway, a mutant able to replay events in time, uncovered the truth behind Krakoa. An irate Scott lashes out at Vulcan with his optic blast. Xavier reprimands him, and Petra accuses Vulcan of being a fraud. Vulcan attacks Xavier and Sway is able to use her powers to “freeze” Vulcan in time for a few minutes for Xavier to get Darwin to “disable” Vulcan’s use of his powers. Scott physically forces Vulcan to the ground while Xavier extracts the truth from Vulcan. Xavier sees the hundreds Vulcan had killed.
Not wanting to reveal Vulcan’s crimes to the public (as he is a much loved superhero in their eyes), Vulcan is made to announce that he is joining forces with the Silver Surfer to rescue a planet from the Sh’iar, in order to cover up his exile on Krakoa.
It is revealed that Vulcan has been living alone on Krakoa over five years now with limited rations. His only form of entertainment is watching his interview, ironically naming him “the World’s Greatest Hero”. He doesn’t know how long Xavier intended to keep him on Krakoa, but assumes that it will end when his food rations run out.
Replaying the events, it was his own inexperience and competence that set off the disastrous chain of events. By harming the feeding monster island that is Krakoa, he caused the death of Jean Grey, who was linked to the monster. And when Vulcan touched Alex wanting to “stop him talking”, he stopped Alex’s heart instead. If he’d returned to Earth with the remaining team, they’d tell Scott what had happened. Not wanting his eldest brother to find out about his mistakes, Vulcan kills them all. That gave him the opportunity to step out of Scott’s shadow and be the greatest super hero.
His ultimate punishment was to relieve his guilt over and over again.