X-Factor #3 annotations
We’re going to be running off the normal schedule for the next couple of weeks, so expect things to be running a few days late. As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FACTOR vol 5 #3
“Project Paperclip”
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Bob Quinn
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Tom Brevoort
X-FACTOR
The team are being packed off to autograph signing at conventions, which does at least reflect the PR aspect of their official remit. Havok is still worried about what happened to Polaris after she was left behind with the Mutant Underground at the end of the previous issue. He claims that all he cares about is getting his team back safely, and that he no longer has any misgivings about fighting other mutants (presumably following his encounter with the Underground last issue).
Granny Smite gets a back story here: she lived to 86 without realising that she was a mutant, at which point she lost her entire family within six months in disasters that she survived unscathed. Or at least, that’s Broderick’s account. It does beg some questions: as described here, she’s apparently not just immortal but invulnerable. Could you really live to 86 without noticing that? And since she apparently does age, can she die of old age? Nonetheless, Broderick’s account seems to match her behaviour: she’s lost everything she cared about and she seems to be mainly interested in getting herself killed. She clearly takes some enjoyment in freaking people out – she signs her publicity photo “I welcome death.” Havok isn’t at all convinced that she should be on the team, but to be fair, she does have useful powers and she is perfectly co-operative in a crisis. Then again, she’s also mentally unstable and barely trained.
Cecilia Reyes is preoccupied with texting someone called Oskar, who seems to be an ex – there are no obvious characters of that name that she might have in mind.
Pyro is apparently so dim that he doesn’t realise that fire can’t burn in space – surely he’s joking? Frenzy seems to think he’s serious, though. Xyber, who’s been pretty miserable since the mass slaughter in issue #1, is genuinely enjoying the experience of being in space.
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Rodger Broderick basically lends X-Factor out to Ethan Farthing (see below) – it’s not entirely clear whether this is actually something that the military authorities have signed off on. Mind you, there is a legitimate threat to be dealt with, both in Farthing’s cover story and in reality. Since this mission isn’t public, presumably Broderick’s motivation is to ingratiate himself to Farthing. It’s not clear whether Broderick knows what’s actually going on; after all, it’s Farthing who changes the mission after they’re in progress. But then if Broderick does know, he’d want plausible deniability.
VILLAINS
Ethan Farthing makes his first appearance here. He’s the CEO of “Fartech”, which has built the Luna One research base on the moon. He also owns Clikclok. He’s fairly obviously an Elon Musk stand-in. For some reason he’s cosplaying as Spider-Man at the convention in the opening scene – maybe it’s an actual disguise, given that the costume presumably has a mask.
Farthing initially claims that the base is about to be attacked by a foreign state. In fact, the base’s own AI, Paperclip, has gone rogue. In plot terms, this is a standard “misaligned AI” story of the sort that’s been around for decades: Paperclip is programmed to protect the base at all costs, it works out that the main threat to the base is Farthing himself deciding to de-fund it, and so it’s going to throw asteroids at the Earth. Not sure how that solves the funding problem but, hey, it’s an AI.
REFERENCES:
Page 4 is apparently an advert for X-Factor’s Clikclok page, the favoured social media stand-in of the current era. The “X-Factor Classics” image shows Multiple Man, Quicksilver and Wolfsbane from the book’s early 90s incarnation (also a government-sponsored team). The image of Angel doesn’t seem to match with anything we saw in issue #1.
Page 6 panel 2: “We checked the house where the Mutant Underground was holding its meetings…” Last issue. But do we actually trust Broderick as a source on this?
Page 6 panel 2: “I know we still have a mole on the loose.” General Mills insisted last issue that someone was leaking information to the Mutant Underground, though it’s far from clear whether there’s any actual evidence to support this.
Page 7 panel 5: X-Term were the mutant mercenary outfit led by Darkstar from issue #1.
Page 11 panel 3: “Fire is useful!” Pyro is calling back to a line from the previous issue.
Page 17 panel 5: “Dog breeder! I could have been a dog breeder!” Again, Frenzy mentioned this last issue too.
Page 26. The letters page bizarrely asks readers whether we liked the QR code in issue #1. Yeah, because people who are buying a Mark Russell comic about Elon Musk’s rogue AI are going to love the QR code.
At the risk of stating the obvious, the title seems to refer in part to the “paperclip maximizer,” a well-known thought experiment by the philosopher Nicholas Bergstrom about how even a fairly simple directive to an artificial intelligence could result in catastrophe.
The concept describes an AI programmed to manufacture paperclips, a seemingly trivial and harmless task, that eventually optimizes the process to the point that it destroys everything by turning it all into paperclips.
Assuming invulnerable includes that her skin can’t be broken or burned, it’s ludicrous that she wouldn’t notice during the last 70-75 years (if we assume it started a puberty).
Omar-Well, that’s certainly the intent of the title based on the plot, but (to state the obvious even more) Project Paperclip was the program by the US intelligence community to being German Nazis into the US scientific/military establishment.
Every time I see the name “Rodger Broderick” I feel like Russell wanted to call the character “Roderick Broderick” and Brevoort vetoed it.
Hmm. I wonder if Rodger Broderick is related in any way to esteemed Daredevil villain, Kerwin J Broderick.
That’s his name, right? Kerwin? Or am I thinking of the guy who voiced Simba in The Lion King? Damnit. I can never keep my Brodericks straight.
“Project Paperclip was the program by the US intelligence community to being German Nazis into the US scientific/military establishment.”
I’m also put in mind of Microsoft’s infamous, much-maligned digital assistant, Clippy, which was notoriously annoying in its attempts to be helpful. A fitting thing to evoke in an AI gone rogue.
I remember when Pyro couldn’t generate his own fire, and so had to wear flamethrowers in order to have fire to manipulate. My research tells me now he can generate his own… which kind of sucks because it makes him a more generic pyrokinetic (like Pyro II, who vanished at some point, never to be seen again.)
I’m going to assume Granny Smite’s mutant powers didn’t actually kick in until she was 86 and should have died in that house fire–up to then, she aged, got sick, could be injured normally–it was just a fatal accident which activated what might be some sort of bio-stasis, where her body no longer alters/can be injured. I wonder what would happen if she just strapped on a power neutralizer and jumped off a building.
(It wouldn’t be the first time a mutant’s powers didn’t manifest in puberty, but as the result of a specific trauma.)
That at least would explain her getting to be so old and never noticing anything weird.
The weird part about Granny Smite’s backstory to me isn’t the not noticing she was a mutant part. It’s the part that comes after that. Within six months of discovering she’s immortal/invulnerable, she just happens to lose her entire family in a series of disasters? That sounds kinda cursey.
I can’t believe Breevort approved Farthing when the X-titles spent the last year fighting another Musk stand-in. Feeling. How many Elon Musk stand-ins do the X-titles need?
Some readers found the name “Fartech” juvenile, for obvious reasons.
Some readers thing that Oskar is the mole.
The problem with Granny Smite is that Frenzy is already invulnerable, so she basically winds up doing things that Frenzy would do if she wasn’t around. And it’s ridiculous. Frenzy is not only invulnerable but a former agent of A-list villains like Apocalypse and Magneto. There’s no reason Frenzy couldn’t have sabotaged the reactor.
Also, judging from the way she was jumping around on the Moon, Granny Smite seems more agile than the average 87-year old woman.
“Within six months of discovering she’s immortal/invulnerable, she just happens to lose her entire family in a series of disasters?”
We’ve all seen the movie Unbreakable, right?
Could someone explain the logic of the line at the moment? This is actually a tangent, more down to just having finished that latest Dazzler issue – but I just don’t get it…
If it’s meant to be characterization heavy, then the three core titles (maybe Exceptional and Uncanny, especially) are doing a solid job.
But what are we supposed to care about here – or to like, even? I find Granny Smite oddly endearing in her nihilistic giddiness, but…
Why is Cecilia Reyes in space, on a heavily promoted and highly visible mutant team? Why is Frenzy here for that matter, when all points sign to her decision to join any group in the first place being based on her values?
How does “old school villain, once peer of Mystique” have a successful career as a writer whilst bring so devoid of intelligence that he doesn’t realize how fire – his own power! – works in the first place?
It feels very disjointed to me, and I keep wondering why some of these titles exist at all. You can argue Exceptional X-Men and NYX compellingly pursue similar directions and motifs – heck, at the very least they feel like they’re set in the same universe.
And Uncanny tangentially connects with that with the general doubt as to what to do next, and the introduction to emerging mutants.
But none of this feels very intentional at all – like most of the line is fluff and/or disconnected, with only s few parallels bringing things together…?
Is it about copyright renewal? Would that be an issue under Disney, at all?
God, even looking at the blank generic transient backgrounds on the covers of both this and X-Men feels a bit too depressing.
Is this just Krakoa withdrawal, or…?
I think the idea is to find a book that appeals to whatever a reader is looking for in a mutant title in 2024 and/or post-Krakoa. Which would be a nice idea in the early-1990s, when there were so many X-fans. In today’s dwindling comic marketplace, it feels like a way to get the majority of the line quickly cancelled (within a year).
This is the only book in which I am interested because I enjoy Russell’s writing and this book doesn’t take itself seriously, and if I’m going to read any X-Men titles at this point, is something I don’t do either.
@Salloh: this title is the comedy/satire book, so in theory it’s the X-comic that should appeal to an audience outside of the core titles. It’s most similar to the. Milligan & Allred X-Force/X-Statix, but those comics featured new characters. I’m also reminded of Nextwave, a comic that starred established characters acting out of character for the sake of the jokes. I admit that it’s a bit jarring to see some of the cast acting like idiots, but it fits the book’s tone. I am in favor of an X-book doing something different than the main line.Maybe X-Factor would work better for you if the only members were new characters?
Or maybe not.
As someone who likes Mark Russell’s writing, liked X-Statix and Nextwave, and isn’t concerned with continuity if the comic is good…. I’m not loving X-Factor. The satire isn’t biting enough- Musk is low-hanging fruit- and the humor isn’t landing with me. I will stick with the series for now, but will drop it if the quality doesn’t improve.
My problem with Granny is how duplicative she is of Mr. Immortal of the Great Lakes Avengers. It’s the exact same “immortal person who keeps trying to kill themselves” gag Dan Slott used with the character like going on 15-20 years ago now? They even retconned the team to be mutants at some point so why not just use that established character? Especially since we just had Horticulture in the recent past who already met the wacky grandma quota for the line.
@Salloh Copywright can’t be renewed (except by bribing politicians to change the law), but lasts pretty long (because of said bribing). E.g. the Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse went into public domain recently.
Trademarks have to be renewed pretty often, which is why Marvel now can publish a book called Captain Marvel while DC has to call their book Shazam or whatever. Because the Billy Batson version is older but wasn’t being published for a while after the original company (Fawcet?) went out of business.
@Ryan T, Sailoh- Russell has said that he wasn’t allowed to use all the characters that he wanted to. So he had to find substitutes.
(Of course, the natural result is that the replacement characters are written out of character.)
@Salloh: Brevoort has stated that the new direction should have “an X-book for everyone,” so something for every taste. Hence the huge spread of titles being launched with (mildly?) different tones.
Paired with the sluggish pace you mentioned elsewhere, though, the line ends up feeling really thin in terms of story. Few common threads holding the line together + slow start = feeling directionless.
Farthing was a stand-in for Musk?
That escaped me entirely. Farthing strikes me as far more rational and civilized than Musk.
Probably a far more effective business person as well, albeit a less darkly comedic one.
I just can’t perceive this pyromaniac with cognitive challenges as being the same Pyro that Claremont introduced in the 1980s.
I guess I was never much of a Krakoa fan (not much of a surprise). The inner contradictions and never-coming resolutions of that era bit on me a lot more than the precaution and gentle tone variety of this one.
Between this and Dazzler they are really going for hitting us right over the head with the messages in these books, huh?
Someone explain to me how Russell keeps getting work.
Which books have subtler messages?
Most say something like “character or team X is awesome and worth of rooting for”, sometimes far more blatantly than this one does. Punisher and Venom books come to mind.
I think that Marvel is interested in getting attention for some of their lower-tier books simply by pissing off the “Woke, Woke, Woke, Woke-Broke, Woke-Broke!” hive mind. Those types of fans are long gone from Marvel, so it’s not like Marvel need to worry about alienating potential readers (who will be put off to see a Black person on the cover). They’re busy pumping money into the Kickstarter by the next alt-Right fly by night comic publisher.
It seems to me that people spend too much time in “echo chambers” when they point out that Musk is too easy a target. I think some people forget that Musk is still a beloved figure by a large percentage of the population. Somewhere, someone on the internet is reading about this comic and seething, “Woke! Woke! Woke!”.
Will it get Marvel some free publicity from the media talking heads? Maybe, maybe not. It should remember that DC caused a meltdown on FOX News simply by publishing a comedy story where the Joker got pregnant.
“We have been informed that our new overlord, the All-Mighty Musk, has been maliciously slandered in a funny book! We must let all our viewers know that the valiant battle by Overlord Musk against the Woke Overlords of Big Tech will continue.” Ah, but the real satirical meat isn’t found in attacking “the other side”, but the simple fact that we have overlords (Led Zeppelin reference).
@Chris V- According to this survey , only 6% of Democrats have positive feelings towards Musk, while 62% of Republicans have positive feelings:
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-popularity-poll-democrat-republican-election-endorsement-rcna172353
The point is that most DEMOCRATS view Musk negatively. Comics writing at the Big Two is now pretty much exclusively dominated by Democrats/liberals/progressives, so that’s why he’s considered an easy target. Trying to get attention by antagonizing right-wingers is a cheap way to get readers.
Obviously, yes. That’s why I said that I think people are spending too much time in “echo chambers” by not realizing that there are people who love Musk. I am not denying that it is “preaching to the converted”. Sure, it’s a cheap way to try to attract readers, but Marvel is a corporation: any coverage is good coverage. It’s the same as people who don’t really subscribe to the “culture wars” idiocy who make sure to sprinkle negativity about “woke” or “cancel culture” in their marketing as an attempt to get attention from certain crowds.
I’m just wondering what or who would be an appropriate target of satire in 2024? Surely not Trump. Putin? Dear lord, no. Netanyahu? Leading to both Dems and Repubs decrying “anti-Semitism!”. Joe Biden? Wouldn’t that be far too easy?
Plus, if the majority of the readers are Liberals, do you want to piss off the readers you do have by getting them to go online and start a boycott position because “Marvel obviously is backing Trump”?
@Chris V: I think you’re on to something in regards to Marvel creators making “woke” stories with the “anti-woke” crowd in mind. A lot of it is genuine, as when LGBTQ+ creators include such themes in the comics. In addition to distressing events in the world and increased open hostility toward minorities, the biggest mouths in comics criticism belonging to right-wing critics on YouTube and other platforms probably provides fuel for more progressive writers.
My calling Musk low-hanging fruit for satire has nothing to do with my politics or echo chambers, however. If you can make fun of a person on SNL, they’re an easy target. It has nothing to do with politics, and more to do with the person being famous and having well-known flaws or quirks. Even considering Trump’s most deranged followers, he’s publicly mocked on a daily basis. I consider satirizing Trump as easy as satirizing Musk, Sarah Palin, the Clintons, Biden, etc.
Right. I understand your point, Mike. I’m just asking who in 2024 is a good target? Someone that no one’s ever heard of, where you’d end up with confused stares? At least Musk is the wealthiest man in the world…if anyone is deserving of being a source of satire, it is someone in that sort of position. Or, maybe that’s just an old Marxist talking.
I heard this complaint levelled at Russell way back with Prez. “The satire is far too obvious”. Considering that it was (and still is) timely makes it worthy of satire, in my opinion.
I’m also not sure that the satire of 1984 or Animal Farm was that subversive, regardless of how well Orwell accomplished it. It might have been shocking and upsetting to Communists (what percentage of the population was that though?), but to everyone else, it was pretty much expected (this is bad). I think it’s why it has become so accepted and cliche in the popular culture because it wasn’t difficult or unexpected for the majority of readers.
I can understand why people might find it “easy” though. I’m not here to undermine anyone’s view of this comic, which they can love, like, dislike, hate, feel bored by as they choose.
@Chris V- Animal Farm was first submitted for publication during World War II when the Soviet Union was an ALLY of the United States and Great Britain. (It actually came out a few days after the war ended.) Satirizing the Soviet Union was arguably brave, under those circumstances.
OK, that’s a fair point. I didn’t realize Animal Farm was written before 1984. Still, Orwell was known to attack pacifists and anti-war figures during WWII, so I still don’t know how brave it can be considered. I will give Animal Farm more credit.
Now, Zamyatin’s WE was both brave and original.
“Trying to get attention by antagonizing right-wingers is a cheap way to get readers.”
I think you’d have to either be pretty wildly optimistic or delusional to calculate that making fun of Elon Musk in the pages of a second-tier X-Men series would do either of the following: 1) antagonize right-wingers 2) attract readers.
I expect that this storyline will fly completely under the radar of right-wingers, and I really can’t see an Elon Musk satire luring in readers who aren’t already reading X-Factor.
@Chris V:
One answer to “who is good target for satire” is “any public figure.” I subscribe to that view in theory, but making fun of, say, Netanyahu is fraught. I think Netanyahu is a terrible person committing horrible acts, but I don’t want to read something making fun of that. I won’t say someone shouldn’t do so, however. I’m also discounting racist, homophobic, etc. attacks.
If we’re talking about going beyond simple mockery, I think the satire has to move away from people and more towards concepts. How technology shapes our lives, late-stage capitalism, the sheer absurdity of the political process, etc. As absurd and horrific as the modern world is, I don’t think it’s passed the point in which satire has no use.
Russell did a good job of this in his Flintstones comic from 2016 (and even that had an obvious Trump parody). His efforts this issue fell flat, but I’ll give him a few more issues before I decide whether or not to drop X-Factor.
Maybe not. Yet, would you consider a comedy story where the Joker gets pregnant (something used for comedic effect on the freakin’ Cosby Show) to be something that would make FOX News devote a segment to its “two minutes hate”? It’s 2024. You never know what is going to confusingly create manufactured outrage on either side of the political spectrum.
Mike-I see what you are saying. While the Flintstones could be very funny (I still remember the Thorstein Veblen issue clearly), I think what made the Flintstones comic work so well (or, maybe, at least for mine) was the sympathetic portrayal of Fred as a working class guy just trying to get by. Perhaps the problem with this comic is that there’s no grounding figure like Fred to add more substance to this comic. At the same time, maybe this story simply didn’t click with many people.
Yeah, Havok could be the Everyman trying to adjust to crazy circumstances, but he comes across as dumb and kind of whiny. Xyber isn’t a great pov character either, due to his cartoonish naivety. Cecelia Reyes would work in that role (or at least as the same person stuck in a crazy situation), but she’s not the lead. As I wrote above, I hope the book improves.
Another reason Elon Musk parodies might not feel particularly daring or hard-hitting is that “pretentious billionaire who fancies himself a visionary genius while getting rich off the backs of employees subjected to horrific working conditions” has been a common fiction archetype since before Musk was born, such that even when the writing is quite specific about which pretentious billionaire is getting parodied it doesn’t read as something we haven’t seen before many, many times.
That description also applies to many comic book babyfaces, including MCU’s centerpiece.
Speaking for myself, I’m all too aware that there are people who love Musk – or, for that matter, Trump. And that there are people who chant that “go woke, go broke” or some such.
I just can’t be bothered to care about them. There is only so much concession to allow others.
So, _is_ that man supposed to be a Musk parody? Sincerely, I am not seeing that. What are the clues?
@Luis: Narcissistic asshole with full impunity to whatever ethical quandaries or juridical parameters decides to set up a fully automated base on Moon. Dresses up as Spiderman, reads as an infantile egotist.
I think what’s been said above is spot on, though. American politics (and the American public sphere, more broadly) have become so wildly untethered from common sense and any abstract limit of concession to respectability that everything goes. The archetype is no longer extreme enough to feel like a novel rendition of the horrendously stupid performativity of billionaire protofascists.
How do you produce a caricature of someone who steps on a stage – at a political congress, no less – and proudly sneers that his MAGA hat is “dark and goth” amidst off-key barks? The parody is exhausted already beforehand.
Desperately, and thinking back to a previous moment in the discussion, I don’t think the visual design for this book helps in the slightest – from the regular artists to the garrish cover.
The book isn’t blunt, violent, and Uncanny enough to read like “Hellions”. But it completely lacks the formal camp and distance of something like “X-Statix”. Or even the weird kinetic energy of something like PAD “X-Factor”.
People have made really solid points about the groundlessness of the book, which I largely agree with. But it’s also just hit me how disconcertingly normal the art style is, and how that makes it even more difficult to situate the title (tonally, but also in relation to other titles being published).
UFF, not “desperately” – maybe “separately”?
@Sailoh, Luis- also, ClikClok seems to be a parody of Twitter/X (even if it’s named after TikTok.)