So, yesterday I was reading the second issue of X-Factor Forever, a five-issue comic book series from Marvel Comics written by Louise Simonson, who is basically picking up with the storyline left off when she left the X-Factor series back in the early 1990s (and approaching it as if the last 18 or 19 years of stories never happened). I’m enjoying the heck out of it, because a) I loved Simonson’s run on the series back in the late ’80s, and b) Dan Panosian’s art is just fun and full of energy.

BUT. I have to take issue with this panel, whose appearance in the midst of an otherwise innocent birthday party scene is insignificant, except for one thing:

Anyone who’s been reading X-Men comics for any period of time — or, in my case, for 25 years, knows that CYCLOPS’ EYE BEAMS DON’T EMIT HEAT. They are beams of force, of pressure. Wikipedia says it right here: “they do not give off heat and instead deliver concussive force.” WIKIPEDIA DON’T LIE.

So … cute as the idea of Cyke lighting up young Timmy’s birthday candles with his optic blasts may be, it’s off-character and (sorry Louise) Simonson should know better. It’s as ludicrous as, say, Iceman conjuring up a delightful ice cream topping out of thin air.