As a founding member of the X-Men and one of the most iconic of Marvel's mutants, Cyclops and his distinct optic blasts have always been at the heart of the franchise.
Cyclops’ powers don’t operate from a standard physical limitation, meaning he’s potentially limitless in his abilities. But an injury in his youth has kept him from ever realizing his full power.
Cyclops has previously been regarded as an Alpha-Level Mutant thanks to his powers, placing him in the higher levels of X-Men in terms of power. While his abilities may seem fairly straightforward, such as generating powerful optic blasts, they’ve proven to be incredibly versatile over the years. Cyclops naturally absorbs energy from around him, including solar radiation, and metabolizes it as internal energy that has to be released through his optic nerves. Scott's full power output can be measured in gigawatts, meaning Cyclops produces more energy with his optic blasts than some nuclear reactors.
The counter to these amazing powers is that Scott Summers has never been able to fully master his abilities, but can use them whenever needed. While trekking across the Australian Outback with the Acolytes in X-Men #44 by Fabian Nicieza and Andy Kubert, an exhausted and dehydrated Cyclops was still able to generate optic blasts with ease, to the point where he could easily destroy rock structures with no apparent strain. While Cyclops has only ever gained brief moments of total control over his powers, he’s showcased a certain level of influence over the strength of his blasts. When using his visor especially, Cyclops can refine his optic blasts into a precise stream of energy. But when he fully lets loose, he’s capable of amazing feats. He’s destroyed massive advanced Sentinels in a single well-placed blast, demolished an entire tower in one shot during Astonishing X-Men, and has cleared entire mountain passes with a look.
His power has even been confirmed in other universes to be powerful enough that it more or less is capable of neutralizing healing factors, making him among the handful of characters who could actually have a hope of killing Wolverine. If Cyclops ever gained permanent control of his powers, he could further refine them. But those periods only come rarely, as Cyclops still suffers from the result of an injury in his childhood. When he and his brother Alex were forced out of an airplane to escape being captured or killed by the Shi’Ar ship passing overhead, a young Scott Summers was struck in the head. This injury’s most damaging effect was the impact it had on his powers, as it made it harder for Scott to formally control his abilities.
Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday further hinted that this lack of control was at least in part a conscious decision by the young Summers as a means of leaving something for him to try and control after so many chaotic events had torn his young life asunder. Without that injury, Cyclops might have been able to discover the full potential of his abilities, beyond just using them offensively. However, that lack of control has long defined the character and gives him an inherent contrast to his attempts to lead the X-Men into a brighter future, but there's still a chance that, as he briefly accomplished in Astonishing X-Men, Cyclops could gain the clarity he needs to fully control his powers.
