X-Factor #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FACTOR vol 5 #1
“Red Carpet”
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Bob Quinn
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Darren Shan
X-FACTOR:
This is the fifth volume of X-Factor, a name which has been attached to all sorts of unrelated concepts. Volume 1 started as a reunion book for the original X-Men and changed direction completely in the early 90s to become a book about a team working for the US government. Volume 2 was a miniseries about the Mutant Civil Rights Taskforce, volume 3 was Jamie Madrox’s X-Factor Investigations, and volume 4 was the Krakoan group who investigated mutant deaths. (EDIT: For those asking in the comments, the book about a corporate X-Factor team isn’t in the volume count because its official title was All-New X-Factor.)
This new version of X-Factor is essentially the 1990s government team, but hybridised with Peter Milligan and Mike Allred’s X-Force/X-Statix – though tonally, a better comparison might be Justice League International. That said, it repeats the trick from the first issue of X-Force of introducing a team and promptly killing most of them off, which feels like it might be a homage. To be fair, what we’re actually told is that the team members are “dead or clinging to life”, which leaves a back door for anyone who wants to bring the characters back.
The Angel is the team leader, and far and away the most high profile member of the original cast. He’s signed up for an 8% share in this venture and seems willing to go with Broderick’s ideas, but right from the start he’s clearly getting a sinking feeling that his team of D-listers is going to be a disaster. To be fair, he’s even a bit dismissive of characters like Havok and Frenzy who deserve a bit more credit than that.
Angel claims that he can’t turn into Archangel any more. Since he was doing it in Heir of Apocalypse just last month, either he’s lying or something has happened off panel. He survives the first mission but gets sidelined, ostensibly because he’s so badly injured – and understandably, he views it as a failure. But since he still presumably owns 8% of X-Factor, maybe we’ll see more of him.
Xyber (Daniel Choi) is a new character with the power to fire an EMP that shuts down all the electronics in the area. He’s 17. Other than Angel, he’s the only member of the original line-up to survive their first mission. He seems much more happy posing for the cameras than the others, at least at first, but does seem disappointed to be treated as a pariah. He seems much more uncertain about what he’s doing when he poses with the second team at the end of the issue.
He appears to have no meaningful combat experience, and freezes when asked to jump out of a plane, but he has genuinely useful powers and seems like a decent guy who just needs more time. His power is dangerous to people around him, at least in repeated exposure, but he does warn everyone about this. Using his power seems to exhaust him, so he’s basically just a normal guy except for the big attack he can use once per fight.
Firefist is Rusty Collins, one of the trainees from the original X-Factor series in the 1980s – and yes, he did use this code name, very briefly, back in the day. He died in X-Men #42 back in 1995, and although he was resurrected on Krakoa, he did essentially nothing while he was there. Given that he was at least a recurring character in a main book for most of a decade, he’s a bit put out to be treated as a nobody by the media. He (probably) dies, but hey, even during Krakoa nobody wanted to write Rusty Collins stories.
Feral is easily the biggest name to be put in this book as cannon fodder. The pro-mutant public mostly seem baffled by the nobodies that X-Factor are presenting them with – Feral gets an actively bad reaction, and seems surprised by it. It does seem a bit harsh for somebody who never did anything that bad in public. She (probably) dies.
Cameo is a shapeshifter. He (probably) dies.
Havok has applied to join X-Factor. His reputation is apparently so flaky that he didn’t make the cut for the first team despite the blatant barrel scraping. Well, either that or Broderick actually expected the first team to get themselves killed and he was deliberately holding some bigger names back – but Angel seems to agree that Havok would be a desperate choice.
Over in X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #7-9, his zombie status turned out to be a hex placed on him by the Goblin Queen, he got cured, and he understandably quit. Several months have passed since then, during which he was approached to join Darkstar’s mercenary group X-Term and turned them down. As the series begins, he’s with Polaris in Malibu. He seems to have lost self-confidence and he’s applied for X-Factor in the hope of influencing the system from the inside and doing some sort of good. In what seems to be a call back to his depiction in Uncanny Avengers, Havok expressly rejects mutant separatism, and the notion of “mutant names”. He insists that Lorna call him Alex. He wants to reintegrate with the humans.
Havok is appointed as the leader of X-Factor II, and we only briefly see the members of his new team. They don’t get any significant dialogue.
- Xyber is the one hangover from the original team.
- Frenzy also didn’t make the cut for the first team, and similar points apply. She seems happy to be there.
- Pyro has done this before as a member of Freedom Force, and seems reasonably happy to have a chance to show off and burn stuff. He still has the skull tattoo on his face from Marauders.
- Cecilia Reyes is a very odd choice, since she’s traditionally had zero interest in being a combatant, and still doesn’t have a codename. We’ll doubtless find out more next issue about why she’s here. To the extent you can read anything into her brief appearance, when she poses with the team she looks like she’s trying to be professional but isn’t entirely convinced.
- Granny Smite is a new character. She’s a granny and we don’t find out anything more than that.
SUPPORTING CAST:
Rodger Broderick is a mercenary TV producer who has somehow or other struck a deal with the US government to create a mutant strike force for them. From his point of view, this new X-Factor are “soldier-tainment” and he believes he can make a fortune off them once they’re fighting for America in a
Basically, he’s an awful reality TV type who seems largely indifferent about the wellbeing of individuals on his team. He openly tells Angel that the team are interchangeable. That said, he does want the team to succeed, and he seems curiously convinced that a mutant superhero team is a marketable, popular proposition. He seems to honestly believe that America is going to turn the corner on its attitude to mutants, that pro-mutant views are in the ascendance and that he can profit by getting in on the ground floor. While some of this is doubtless a sales pitch, it’s not obvious how anything he’s doing makes sense unless he believes it to some degree. And the one area where he does have common interests with the team is that he genuinely wants to make mutant heroes successful and popular, even if he has ulterior motives for doing so.
General Mills is the US general to whom X-Factor are answerable in the military chain of command. She has no faith in the project, thinks Broderick is an idiot and believes that the American public are irredeemably anti-mutant. But she doesn’t seem to be personally anti-mutant or to have anything against the team members, and she does want the team to be used for sensible missions. Basically, she seems to be more of a level-headed cynic who thinks she’s been saddled with a stupid idea.
She works from a secret military base called Nevermor, but note that this isn’t X-Factor’s base (a Hollywood mansion called the Factor House). We only see one of its mutant residents – a guy called McCloud who doesn’t get any dialogue – but he seems happy and well treated. The base also includes something kept behind a “top secret” vault door, and she thinks it would be pretty disastrous if anyone found out about it.
Polaris is deeply unhappy about X-Factor and seems to be keeping an eye on it out of concern for Havok. She completely rejects his idea of working within the system, and insists on being called Polaris rather than Lorna, which she no longer acknowledges as her name. She tries to get Alex to do the same, and he won’t have it. Mark Russell’s essay on the letters page makes clear that he agrees with Polaris that the members of X-Factor are wasting their time trying to help mutants in general by signing up for this group.
VILLAINS:
X-Term are a mutant mercenary group led by Darkstar – a very odd choice of character, because as far as I can tell, Darkstar was never on Krakoa. For at least some of the Krakoan era, she was still appearing as a member of the Russian superhero team Winter Guard. Nor is she traditionally the sort of cynical villain seen here. It’s hard to tell whether it’s some sort of act, or something’s happened to prompt this, or she’s just being written wildly out of character. But she is out of character, whether there’s a reason for it or not.
Although X-Term appear to be mercenaries, Darkstar claims that this puts them in a position to influence the course of world history by affecting the outcome of armed conflicts. She’s very vague about how they might use that influence, other than to say that they’d be fighting for themselves. In context, that could mean fighting for mutants, or just for the X-Term members.
The rest of X-Term appear to be generics in normal military uniforms with a small logo (a yellow diamond), but they do mostly seem to be visible mutants.
Broderick selects X-Term as X-Factor’s first target because fighting other mutants will boost their popularity. Mills seems to regard it as a legitimate choice on purely military criteria, though.
OTHER CHARACTERS:
Refusenix are a mutant campaign group who reject the fall of Krakoa and think that mutants should boycott human nation states. They’re not very happy about the idea of a government sponsored mutant group. They are in no way stand-ins for a segment of the readership. At any rate, Refusenix mean that there are both pro-mutant and anti-mutant campaigners who oppose X-Factor: “Go back to Krakoa!”
OTHER SPECIFICS:
Page 8 panel 3: “Actually, I was an original member of X-Factor.” He wasn’t. If you’re willing to push it, Rusty was a member of the original X-Factor, but even then it would be fairer to say that he was one of their trainees.
Page 11 panel 3: “They hold on to this idea of Krakoa like it was this utopia that everyone’s somehow misremembered.” Clearly, for Broderick, Krakoa was a false paradise. He’s not entirely wrong, to be fair.
Page 17 panel 1: The Soviet propaganda poster shows their national superhero the Red Guardian. The Russian reads “Mutants of the Future!”
Page 18: Kunashir Island is in the Kuril Archipelago, and it’s under Russian control, though it’s claimed by Japan.
General Mills? Really? Is she going to turn out to be a cereal killer?
General Mills is also a major cereal company in the United States. So perhaps there’s a military-industrial complex joke of some kind in there somewhere.
The name “X-Term” seems like a callback to the X-Terminators, a team name that started out as the cover identity for the original, secretly pro-mutant X-Factor, and then became a name for their trainees when they went on their own mission during the 1980s Inferno event.
In practice, the Refusenix seem a bit like the X-Patriots from the first Peter David run on the title. it seems kind of odd to play off the term for Jewish people being refused the right to emigrate from the Soviet Union.
I was never a fan of X-Statix. But I like Mike Allred’s art.
Nothing against Bob Quinn, but he’s no Allred, and this first issue… doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence that I’ll enjoy Russell’s satire.
“The base also includes something kept behind a “top secret” vault door, and she thinks it would be pretty disastrous if anyone found out about it”
It’s probably just the pantry where General Mills keeps her cereal.
I really enjoyed this comic. I loved the dripping cynicism. It reminded me of Peter David scripting an Anne Nocenti plot, or maybe Peter Milligan (although his humour and satire tends to be more subtle, while this is more PAD or DeMatteis/Giffen on-the-nose). I’m a fan of Mark Russell’s writing, myself, though.
I could have seen this comic being published during the Krakoa era, in many ways. It’s something I would have liked to see during the existence of Krakoa; mutants who had no interest moving to Krakoa and what the wider world would have been like for them during the existence of Krakoa. Instead, we were supposed to accept that the vast majority of all mutants wanted to live on Krakoa; which, I’d grant worked well for where Hickman was going with Krakoa, but once Hickman’s Krakoa was gone and we were supposed to accept Krakoa as an actual utopia, the idea of accepting that the vast majority of all mutants still wanted to live on Krakoa became too unbelievable.
So, I will keep reading this, Immortal Thor, and FF from Marvel now.
I remain dubious. Mark Russell writes a very specific sort of humor/satire story, and here we go with his take on Youngblood/X-Statix. i.e. highly publicized and marketable strike force with a body count. It’s a rather distinctive flavor and I wonder how well it’ll do in the long run, or if he’s only on for like… 12 issues or so.
I think it’s a misstep to IMMEDIATELY start the post-Krakoa era by killing off named characters now that resurrection is mostly off the table. I was hoping maybe we could have taken a break from gratuitous slaughter.
Especially since X-Statix went that route by introducing any number of previously-unknown adult mutants before killing them off. Do we really need more of the same? Since the end of the Krakoa era made such a deal out of offloading millions of mutants into another dimension…
While I’ve no love for Feral as a legacy of the Liefeld era, I do have a lingering fondness for Rusty. I feel like we waited decades for his return, and he was shoved into the background and now presumably killed and/or sidelined yet again. I fear the same might happen to characters I like even more if Russell decides to pull them into this book, depending on if the high body count was a one time thing or a recurring feature.
I don’t dislike this book, but I remain wary based on my first impressions.
One facet I found fascinating was the idea that the world governments are all trying to snap up Krakoa’s superpowered individuals in a sort of arms race.
Because Kieron Gillen’s The Power Fantasy just debuted last week, and that’s very much the same idea at play.
When you listed out the past X-Factor teams, you missed one of the better ones: the corporate team with Gambit, Polaris, Danger and Warlock. I don’t recall much of the plot (was this where Gambit got his cats?), but I did enjoy it at the time. The logo on their uniforms was vaguely similar to the logo used here.
“We only see one of its mutant residents – a guy called McCloud who doesn’t get any dialogue – but he seems happy and well treated. ”
I think the point is that McCloud appeared in the propaganda video but he’s still a prisoner.
“It does seem a bit harsh for somebody who never did anything that bad in public.”
Feral was arrested in X-Force 41 for killing her mother and the announcer in that issue describes her as a member of the MLF. Since the public probably thinks of her as a terrorist who killed her mom, it’s no wonder she got booed.
The crowd seemed to want to see the real Beast and was disappointed when it turned out to be Cameo. Can we get a clear explanation of what the public thinks about Beast? Beast’s crimes seemed to be public knowledge- when Colossus was mind controlled by Mikhail, he told the members of X-Force that they couldn’t appear at the Gala because they were associated with Beast. It makes no sense that Mikhail would have him tell the lie unless the other guests knew about Beast’s crimes. But the public seems to have forgiven Beast. So does the public think that Beast’s crimes were another of Orchis’s tricks? Or did someone like Strange or Reed explain what happened to the public in a way that assuaged their fears?
Why does Lorna claim that if Havok dies again, he won’t be resurrected? From the Ashes 9 ended with Maddie worried about Alex, not angry at him. Is there any reason Maddie can’t or won’t just resurrect him again?
Darkstar’s portrayal is really the biggest problem with this book. She’s usually portrayed as a well-meaning woman woh will sometimes do questionable things if her government asks her. So having her as an antagonist doing immoral things because the Russian government asked her would make her a perfect foil to Alex. But instead Russell just writes her as Generically Evil.
There could be a couple of explanations for her behavior, though. She’s currently in the body of a Dire Wraith IIRC. It’s possible the Wraith’s evil is influencing her. Alternately, she was last seen being used as a portal to the Darkforce dimension by the vampire Varnae, so maybe the experience somehow caused her to be infected with Varnae’s evil.
Russell doesn’t seem to get that Darkstar and Angel used to be friends.
In a way, it sort of makes sense that Rusty died. Rusty, Skids, Rictor and Boom-Boom were trained by the original Five on how to use their powers. Rictor and Boom-Boom were also trained by Cable and they’re the ones that became major super-heroes. The original Five weren’t training their charges to become super-heroes- they were training them so that could live normal lives, and defend themselves if necessary. Rictor and Boom-Boom were trained by Cable to be soldiers- to strike at villains as part of X-Force. So without the additional training that Rictor and Boom-Boom got, it makes sense that Rusty isn’t as effective a hero.
I realize that they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel but I don’t think Frenzy.works as a member of a team that’s supposed to produce good PR. She’s an African-American woman who killed a nurse that was defending a kid with Down’s Syndrome from her. Frenzy probably gets hate from everyone ranging from white supremacists to disability activists.
Lorna after hearing about Alex and Maddie: “She turned you into a zombie to stop you from being a super-hero and doing something stupid? That’s the craziest thing I’ve heard.”
Lorna after hearing Alex agreed to join X-Factor: “Hi, Maddie- can I have that spell? Yes, I do know a good store that sells eye of newt.”
@The Other Michael- Writers have no problem using other Liefeld creations like Cable, Deadpool, Domino, Shatterstar and Stryfe. The issue with Feral is that it became obvious almost immediately that she should never have been a member of X-Force. She almost killed Sam when he tried to calm her down during a training exercise and when Boom-Boom got mad at her later, she was completely unrepentant.
The problem with Rusty has to do with how he was handled after his first few years as a character. After he joined the New Mutants, he and Skids were split off from the other New Mutants in a plot involving Freedom Force trying to stop Rusty and Skids from revealing that Freedom Force had kidnapped mutant babies and the Vulture trying to use Nitro to kill people. Then Rusty and Skids get kidnapped by the Mutant Liberation Front. Then they show up as loyal members of the Mutant Liberation Front. Then it turns out that they were helping the MLF because they’re brainwashed but Xavier can’t cure them. Then Magneto cures them. (So I guess Lorna could have cured them but didn’t know how?) Then they join Magneto’s Acolytes. Finally in the story where Rusty is killed, Nicieza has them say that was because they were acting impulsively out of gratitude to Magneto. Then Rusty gets killed. And Skids is rarely used after that. The problem is that writers kicked Rusty and Skids around for so long that readers stopped caring about them.
And as a result Rusty and Skids are remembered as those characters who were New Mutants for five seconds. As opposed to Boom-Boom and Rictor who got to become members of X-Force, forge bonds with New Mutants members like Sam and Rahne , and as a result are periodically brought back as members of teams.
Boom-Boom and Rictor weren’t part of the pre-Simonson New Mutants but like Shatterstar, Warpath and Siryn, are considered New Mutants/ X-Force characters. Rusty and Skids are remembered as two people who were New Mutants for five seconds. And Feral is remembered as the psycho who should never have been a member of X-Force.
My favorite debut so far! I’m really excited to see where this is going. I love how pointedly Russell is using satire towards a variety of real world issues. This is far from the “back to basics” approach so many fans are claiming From the Ashes is going to be. This isn’t just a team of mutants doing things just because. They’re purpose and mission is impacted by the real world things that impact the reader.
In fact, a month into the new direction I’m comfortable saying that Brevoort and the new creators are not desecrating the grave of Krakoa. All of these books are directly responding to what happened for the past 5 years. I vastly prefer what we’re getting to seeing the Krakoan status quo limply jog in place.
So far X-Force is the only title that didn’t work for me. I’m getting the second or third issue of everything else we’ve seen so far!
“Rusty and Skids are remembered as two people who were New Mutants for five seconds”
I remember them for early X-Factor more than anything else.
Perhaps it is too soon to take the pulse of this series, but somehow I don’t think it will attempt to repeat Peter Milligan’s X-Statix formula despite the obvious similarity in this first issue. Too many pre-existing characters.
I may have misread the issue, but Darkstar seems to be acting well outside of any governmental control. X-Term appears to indeed be a non-governmental, basically mercenary albeit ideologically mutant-sympathetic force – which it would pretty much have to be if we are not willing to otherwise explain how come X-Factor isn’t risking starting a war with Russia, or at least how come General Mills would so easily accept such a risk.
Is “Choi” a common surname? Can it be that Xyber is related to Brawn?
This team’s premise seems reminescent and even derivative of so many separate and contrasting previous teams that I am having a hard time avoiding the feeling that it is meant to be a patchwork concept. It has elements of X-Statix, of the original X-Factor and even more of PAD’s “All-New X-Factor”. Even a touch of a better-executed De Matteis-Giffen JLI for flavor.
I sort of expect some sort of swerve in #2, if only because this #1 does not seem to be a workable template for an ongoing.
Coincidentally or otherwise, Cecilia Reyes has a power that is similar to that of Rusty’s frequent associate and largely forgotten early X-Factor mutant Skids.
Frenzy is also from early X-Factor, incidentally, and it would be reasonable to interpret her participation in the X-Men team that was slaughtered by Nimrod as something of a PR move not all that dissimilar to what appears to be intended here.
I just don’t know what to make of this issue. It feels like it was written to be somewhat ambiguous on purpose, to leave a few directions open. That again reminds me of the DeMatteis/Giffen JL, which started out significantly different from how most people remember it.
Apparently Mark Russell has a DC portfolio significantly bigger than his Marvel one, and often writes humor, sometimes with a sizeable side of social commentary. That is a good sign IMO.
I still think of Havok as the cool Summers. Cyclops without the angst and restraining goggles. I have no idea why he’s been so neglected since the 90s, and the new flake persona he’s had the last few years is a real disservice. He’s got the Scott Lang syndrome, see also Black Knight.
And yeah, Feral is a literal psychopath who killed her own mother and ate someone’s pet pigeons. The media would have gone crazy over the case. And character-wise, she’s an EXTREME 90s Wolfsbane, best used as an example of how for every Cable or Domino, Liefeld has at least 20 near-identical terrible characters under his belt.
X-Term are a mercenary force outside of any national government, yes. This was made clear in the comic. They are mutantcentric, but I’m unsure if their agenda is in any way sympathetic to mutants or that they hold any ideology, so much as they are ultra-cynical.
Choi is a fairly common Korean surname.
Yes, Russell has written more for DC, Ahoy Comics, and AWA.
I’d recommend his run on Flintstones, Snagglepuss (both from DC), Second Coming (Ahoy), and Not All Robots (AWA) as his top comic work, so far.
Some people love Russell’s stuff at DC. He did Flintstones, IIRC, which many people liked. That One Star Hero (or similar title) that Lieber drew tried to be Superior Foes or Jimmy Olsen, but was really not my cup of tea.
He’s another guy, in my book, who loves to do humor by punching down on B and C list heroes and villains, which irks me to no end. Same with Spurrier and King.
People also seem to love his Creator owned stuff too, never read any of it,
@Luis- Sorry I should have worded that more clearly. Darkstar is indeed acting independently of any government. What I meant was that the story might have worked better if Darkstar was reluctantly doing bad things on behalf of the Russian government instead of running her own independent Evil Organization For the Evulz.
@Si- Feral didn’t kill anyone else’s pigeons. What happened was this- Feral’s mom’s boyfriend tried to rape Feral’s sister, Feral kills her mom’s boyfriend, Feral’s mom kills Feral’s pigeons, Feral kills her mom.
This was very much a Mark Russell comic- characters acted however he thought they should in order to forward his ideas and plots. That said, I like most of Russell’s output to date, and I’ glad we have a funny/satirical X-book. I thought this issue followed the template laid out in the first Milligan/Allred X-Force issue a little too closely, but I am curios to see how Russell handles the much more interesting new team. Most of the gags worked, and the art was pretty good.
So let me get this straight: *Polaris* is trying to convince Havok that trying to live a normal life around humans is a waste of time….
Right….
I like this one. A little bit of fun to contrast the mourning/disillusion in some of the other books. The twist explains why there were so many characters on the roster in previews.
The (probable) deaths really worked for me. They felt shocking in a way that deaths haven’t felt since back in HoXPoX when Krakoa attacked Orchis’ Master Mold.
I can do without the Havok/Polaris romance drama. Didn’t they used to be the stable couple on the X-Men?
Looking forward to more.
@Thom H- No, Havok and Polaris weren’t the stable couple. Lorna got possessed by Malice, Alex tried to kill Lorna, Alex slept with Maddie, Alex slept with Scarlett MacKenzie, Alex slept with the Living Pharaoh’s niece, they got back together, Alex got kidnapped by the Dark Beast, Alex tried to kill Lorna, they got back together, Lorna cheated on Alex with a stripper after badmouthing his lovemaking abilities to their friends, Alex left Lorna at the alter for Nurse Annie, Lorna tried to kill Alex and Nurse Annie, they got back together, etc.
Alex and Lorna haven’t even been a couple for years.
I’ve only read two comics that Rusty Collins appears in and he gets killed in both of them.
“it’s not obvious how anything he’s doing makes sense unless he believes it to some degree.”
Broderick is a very recognizable type from real life. This type usually *does* sincerely believe whatever they say while they are in “sales mode”. Whether it is actually true, and whether they *keep* believing it are different matters …
This was a Diet Coke version of Allred’s X-Force/X-Statix, rather than a homage.
I guess it’s because I read early X-Factor and New Mutants at the time, so I always did have a soft spot for Rusty and Skids. I agree. They got a raw deal in a whole bunch of ways, and as a consequence he was killed, and she was shuffled off into Cameo Land. It’s a shame that Rusty is remembered more, now, for the rather liberal reinterpretation used in Deadpool 2, and for being dead.
I agree that Russell’s humor does rely on punching down on C-List heroes… I was not impressed by his One-Star Squadron, which both mistreated its cast -and- played fast and loose with their natures. (Like including the WWII-era Flying Fox in the modern era with absolutely no explanation to my knowledge, not even a “I’m his grandson.”)
Anyway, this is one series I’ll watch with trepidation to see if Russell can tell a solid story that doesn’t rely on too many shocking deaths (or maybe deaths) and remains true to the characters, such as they are.
Yeah, I guess I’m reaching back pretty far for Lorna/Alex stability. I was specifically thinking of when they were retired and in grad school, but that’s decades ago now.
I didn’t realize there was quite that much drama between them over the years. That makes me want more relationship drama even less now.
@ Michael – “No, Havok and Polaris weren’t the stable couple”.
To be fair, half of that was written by Chuck Austin, which legally means we can all exclude it from canon and pretend it never happened.
But yeah, most of the time they were on the X-Men, it was a bumpy ride. Interestingly, it was in PAD’s X-Factor where they seemed to have their most stable period.
As for the rest of the book. It kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. It didn’t in any way feel like an homage to X-Statix, but a cheap rip-off. And I too have a soft spot for characters like Rusty and even Feral. To see them so neglected for so long, and then to be brought back for cheap shock-value deaths just didn’t sit right.
“And the one area where [Broderick] does have common interests with the team is that he genuinely wants to make mutant heroes successful and popular, even if he has ulterior motives for doing so.”
Soooo, Broderick is their Maxwell Lord?
Can’t wait for the story twenty years from now when Marvel decides Broderick was actually evil all along and he shoots Pyro in the head.
Broderick certainly comes across as very similar in role and personality to Maxwell Lord.
Who, I tire not of pointing out, was very evil in his first appearance – even if that was immediately forgotten about by the very writers that created him.
“Interestingly, it was in PAD’s X-Factor where they seemed to have their most stable period.”
Actually, I’d say Alex and Lorna’s most stable period was the 17-year period between the time they first became a couple and the time Claremont brought Alex into Uncanny X-Men as a series regular. Their relationship seems to go much more smoothly when they’re not being written by anyone at all.
“Their relationship seems to go much more smoothly when they’re not being written by anyone at all.”
They’re like reverse Weeping Angels. If you look at them, it’s total carnage and pandemonium. Turn your eyes away, even if just for a MOMENT….and they chill the fuck out.
For those asking, the corporate X-Factor isn’t in the volume list because their book was called “All-New X-Factor”.
Maxwell Lord’s origin involved an intended but not attempted murder.
Then he hired terrorists to attack the UN and fabricated a JLA signal device.
Then he created a Royal Flush gang to besiege the JLA HQ in Happy Harbor.
Max did not get a face turn until a Manhunter agent shot him in the chest and his computer partner undid the repairs as… Metron and the JLI undid the computer….
I don’t love Duggan’s X-Men, but I like that Polaris got ahold of her mental health, finished her phD, and became a better super-hero. I can’t picture that version of Polaris going back to Alex. I’m not super hung up on consistency with a Mark Russell comic, but it rang false to me.
Man, did this do nothing for me.
“Superheroes as corporate product” and “superheroes as social media stars” have both been done a lot. (Or if they haven’t been, they FEEL like they’ve been done a lot, and that’s bad enough) For this to have engaged me at all, it would have had to come out of the gate swinging a hell of a lot harder.
I guess they’ll eventually reveal why Warren is working for dimestore Max Lord instead of just (1) forming his own X-Men team, or (2) joining one of the existing ones, but I don’t care to wait and find out.
And just to be petty, I thought it was funny that Polaris called him “Alex”, then snapped when he called her “Lorna”, THEN called him “Havok” just so he can retort with “It’s Alex.” Bit of an editorial whoopsiee-doodle.
Speaking of Rusty Collins being underused, and Deadpool 2 and all that, why didn’t they ever bring back Jesse Bedlam? I liked that character.
Not much to add – X-Statix lite, basically. I kind of hope maybe the new characters are there to make it across all the death and drama to figure out something better. If the book figures out a way to be closer to Hellions (ie, damaged goods as unlikely heroes), it can lift up it’s premise.
But right now I don’t see it. I dislike that Angel and Havok have to be written as being so deeply stupid for the plot to cohere – and I *hate* seeing Cecilia Reyes thrown in there for kicks…
@Luis, Chris- Maxwell Lord’s backstory was that he plotted to kill his boss so he could have his job. But when his boss had a real accident, Max found that he couldn’t leave him to die.But then he happened upon an evil AI created by Metron and it told him that if Max left his boss to die and helped the AI, they could do a lot of good for the planet. So Max, now that he has the excuse that he’s acting for the “right” reasons, leaves his boss to die and helps the computer try to take over the world. Of course, neither Max nor the computer really care about humanity- that’s just the excuse they use to indulge their worst instincts.
Later on, Max is shot by an agent of the Manhunters, and saved by the computer but the experience seems to have changed him. Finally, he destroys the computer before it can transfer its intelligence into NORAD. Even though he almost dies as a result.
So yes, Giffen and Dematteis acknowledged that Max started out as a villain. The entire point of his arc was that he started out a selfish man, showed some shreds of decency, then gave into his worst instincts when hs partner convinced him he was acting as a hero. And then saw the error of his ways when he encountered real heroes.
“I’d recommend his run on Flintstones, Snagglepuss (both from DC), Second Coming (Ahoy), and Not All Robots (AWA) as his top comic work, so far.”
I’ll second (Coming) that. I’d throw Fantastic Four: Life Story and his run on Wonder Twins in there as well. I’ve come to the conclusion, however, that Mark Russell’s best on his own creations (or at least creations over which he’s given complete control) than on existing IP.
X-Factor #1 was a promising start for me, though I say that having not read X-Statix. It’s the only From the Ashes title that appears to be doing anything novel thus far, even if it does share similarities with a couple predecessors.
@ JoBuNYC
Go read X-Statix (starting with X-Force #116), and you’ll see this concept executed with auteur brilliance. This X-Factor version just feels like a cheap knock-off. Which may be unfair, but that’s what you get when you so closely hew to the same story beats of something so good that came before.
I mean, Russell had to know this would be compared to that, so I guess the comparison isn’t entirely unfair.
I read all of X-Force/X-Statix for the first time not long ago, having read just a bit of it at the time, and I’m honestly surprised at how people are talking about it. Milligan’s satire typically isn’t too subtle, but it’s even less subtle than that and hasn’t aged well IMO.
@michael and I are both correct about Maxwell Lord’s origins
But from different angles
I didn’t care so much about characterization so much as the fact that Max was initially doing bad guy things right off the bat, and the audience knew it
It sure was distracting. Maxwell Lord was apparently well-liked by many from the start, perhaps because he fit well with the pie-throwing style of that League, which used every opportunity to ridicule the superhero genre.
Come Millenium, he was fully exposed to the Leaguers as the manipulator with shady business as he conflicted with the computer (years later revealed to be Flash villian Kilg%re). And all of a sudden they decided that they wanted to have him around after all.
There is no non-meta explanation for that.
In fairness, Luis, Max almost DIED stopping the computer from taking over NORAD. And J’onn read his mind and determined his desire to reform was sincere.
General Mills is likely a reference to how mark Russel ended up in superhero comics: he was writing cereal mascot fanfic on Facebook (he was already a published author by then) and was noticed by someone at DC. The cereal fanfic eventually became “Cereal” at Ahoy Comics, a legally distinct version.
Michael
That’s absolutely true about Rusty and Skids. They appeared to become cannon fodder for whenever a writer needed to populate another mutant organisation but who wasn’t characters anyone especially wanted to use.
Similarly, Colossus is a character who they never seemed to quite figure out what they wanted to do with after Illyana dies in 1993. From his Acolyte period to Excalibur and back to the X-Men, he was never able to get past his sister’s death and by the time he died in 2001, it was easily the most interesting thing anyone had done with him in years.
Whedon brought him back and restored some interest in the character but it’s never felt like anyone in recent decades has any idea of what to do with the character.
It bodes poorly (for my ongoing attachment to the IP) that this new X-Factor book is the only title in the X-line doing anything I find remotely interesting with the post-Krakoan setting … but then I can’t help but be put off by the cannon fodder treatment and undue verbal disrespect cast at an assortment of C- and D-listers who I’ve always been very fond of.
That’s before even taking into account the out-of-character or plainly stupid behavior of Angel and Darkstar; the nonsensical train of thought behind the codenames-as-“real names” subplot, along with its inconsistent portrayal within the same scene; the random disregard of continuity (Angel was still turning into Archangel in his most recent appearance …); and the return of a long-dead tried-and-truly dysfunctional romantic coupling editorially slapped together off panel at the expense of an earnest, halfway functional one.
If the title in the lineup that I find most interesting is also the one I find most poorly constructed and even outright offensive, then just FML.
Mark Russell was asked why Warren can’t turn into Archangel anymore- this is the exchange:
@AgentXerro: will Warren not being able to transform into Archangel be explained? We just saw him in Heir to Apocalypse as Archangel, what happened between then and now?Also why does he not have a healing factor anymore?
Mark Russell (@Manruss): Was directed by editorial that Angel not being able to go into Archangel mode is the status quo. I mention that in Issue 1, not sure if there’s need to explain it in X-Factor beyond that.
I can’t believe what bad writing and ediitng this is. We saw Warren able to change into Archangel in Heir of Apocalypse 4- just two weeks before this issue. OF COURSE you need to explain how Warren lost an ability he had two weeks ago- you can’t just say “He can’t do it anymore”.
I don’t know why the editors wanted Warren to be unable to transform into Archangel- maybe Breevort wanted to go “back to basics”. But if they wanted Warren to be unable to transform into Archangel, they should have either told Foxe to have something happen to Warren in Heir of Apocalypse to cause Warran to lose the ability to change into Archangel or told Paknadel to address the issue in the From the Ashes Webcomic.
So I apologize for being a bit lost here, but I’m a bit behind on the characters. Either way, the way it sounds like Polaris is being written kinda bugs me.
I mean, I’ve only ever read three runs that featured her: early Claremont, Chuck Austin, PAD’s second go at X-Factor. Of those, the only time the character has even made sense to me was in X-Factor where she explicitly said she liked being on the team because they based their identity around more than just being mutants. To me, that’s what makes the character work. She’s the one most comfortable in normal life and who works best when she isn’t defined by her powers or here relationship to Havok or anyone else. Otherwise you just get a discount version of Jean or Lady Magneto or something boring.
So I just can’t get my brain around her being the mutant supremacist while Havok is trying to convince her to be more comfortable around humans. Is this another case where she’s falling victim to wildly incoherent characterization over the decades or have I missed something here?