As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-FACTOR vol 5 #6
“Traitors”
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Bob Quinn
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Darren Shan

The previous issue ended with Polaris showing up to rescue the team from Darkstar’s getaway helicopter; apparently, Polaris was willing to hand Darkstar and her X-Term men over to the authorities, or at least didn’t put up any resistance to X-Factor arresting them. So the story picks up with X-Factor back at the Nevermor military base, and X-Term as prisoners.

X-FACTOR.

Havok breaks off from the group to try and speak to Polaris and Bruin before they leave, and thank them for helping. He also wants to know how they “survive[d]” after the end of issue #2, when the X-Factor rescued him from the Mutant Underground and Polaris chose to stay – granted that she was being restrained by armed gunmen at the time, it’s not obvious that she was in any immediate danger of being killed, and Havok’s brooding in issue #3 seemed to assume that she was alive. His conversation with Polaris in this issue seems to have him wanting to break X-Factor away from the government, although matters seem to be left with X-Factor refusing an order to go hunting for McCloud and returning home.

Frenzy acts as the team’s spokesman in Havok’s absence, and has dropped all pretence of respect for the team’s military management. When Mills tries to fire her from the team, she’s completely unbothered, and (calling back to a running joke in this series) remind us that she’d rather be a dog breeder.

Clearly, Frenzy at least had the contact details for the Mutant Underground all along, since she called them in last issue. When Havok asks Polaris and Bruin whether Frenzy was “spying for you”, he gets a somewhat evasive answer: “We don’t have spies, we have members.” That sounds awfully hair splitting, so maybe General Mills was actually right all along.

Cecilia Reyes is distraught about the death of Winterstein last issue, and Pyro consoles her. He claims that this sort of thing isn’t really what he’s good at, but he can’t be that bad at emotions – he’s meant to be a successful romance novelist, after all. Mind you, it’s not really part of the persona he tends to project.

For the second issue in a row, Granny Smite and Xyber don’t appear.

SUPPORTING CAST

Polaris and Bruin are now in charge of the Mutant Underground. According to her account of events, the soldiers who restrained her at the end of issue #2 were “the militant wing of the Mutant Underground”. Lorna claims here that Alex “fled” and “abandoned us to our fate”, which is not really what happened at the end of issue #2. Havok and Pyro both tried to help Polaris aboard X-Factor’s aircraft and she actively refused to go. But perhaps Lorna’s objection is to the fact that Alex then left and made no apparent attempt to follow up on her position until now.

Again, according to Polaris’s account, the militants put her and Bruin on trial for exposing the Mutant Underground to an infiltrator (because Havok was wearing a wire in issue #2), but the militants are a bunch of amateurs with no real experience in this sort of thing. They seem to have handed over control through a combination of Bruin revealing his close personal relationship with the movement’s inspiration Jovius (more of him in a bit), and Polaris demonstrating how far out of their league she is. Bruin’s explanation is that they were able to remind the militants of the values that they’re supposed to stand for.

At any rate, Polaris still regards Havok’s life as going in a completely different direction from hers, and leaves with Bruin. They claim still to love each other.

VILLAINS

Darkstar and her X-Term henchmen are seen in a cell at the start of the issue. This one is actually functional, and has power dampers that work (at least on Darkstar’s powers).

McCloud did escape last issue, however, and shows up on the deck of a yacht, to the surprise of the owner. There’s a suggestion that his powers are also responsible for the unexpected rain. While it looks as if McCloud is planning to attack the guy, we don’t actually see what happens next.

General Mills doesn’t deal well with being humiliated. She’s angry that Frenzy leaked their whereabouts to the Mutant Underground – which is at least a semi-legitimate complaint, even if it worked out well in the end – but grudgingly agrees to accept the team’s version of events after learning that Broderick has already posted footage of the battle presenting her as a hero. She no longer trusts X-Factor, if only because she’s lost control of them, and bizarrely tells to them to their face that they’re there as an expendable publicity stunt. Quite how she thinks it benefits her to say that explicitly is difficult to fathom.

Rodger Broderick says that he “sorta leaked some footage of the battle [last issue] on Clickclok”. He’s normally presented as a bit of a moron, but this seems like an interesting decision, since if it’s a “leak”, then presumably he didn’t post it on the official channels. He also seems to have done it in such a way as to help keep General Mills on side. His personal incentive here is to profit from marketing X-Factor – is he trying to keep the show on the road at all costs? Or is he just a moron who gets lucky here?

Jovius has shown up in previous issues as someone whom the Mutant Underground view as an inspirational, quasi-religious figure – several of them have him on their T-shirts, including Polaris in issue #1 and Bruin in this issue. If Bruin is to be believed, Jovius was Krakoa’s official recordkeeper, and Bruin worked alongside him in the “Cave of Names”, where records were stored of the identities of every mutant in the world. According to Bruin, Jovius allowed the Orchis soldiers to kill him, knowing that a “dead man’s switch” inside him would then destroy the records. For Bruin, this is an inspirational moment.

There are a number of problems with this account. Death wasn’t expected to be a major thing on Krakoa, so why would you tie the deletion of all records to the record keeper dying? What about the records kept elsewhere, in the cradles that were linked to Cerebro? Why were Jovius and Bruin still on Krakoa at all? This is supposed to be the fall of Krakoa in the X-Men: Hellfire Gala one-shot, but by the time Orchis are on the island, surely Professor X is marching everyone through the gates.

That said, Jovius shows up alive and well at the end of the issue as the man in the mystery high security cell first shown in issue #1. Of course, if Bruin’s telling the truth, then Jovius ought to have been among the mutants killed by Orchis who were resurrected in Rise of the Powers of X. According to Broderick, he’s “the most valuable mutant on the planet”, since he “allows us to, at will, locate every other mutant”. Again, it’s not obvious how his access to Krakoan records would enable that now, but maybe it’s something to do with his powers. He seems to be living in luxury, albeit within his cell, and Mills regards him as a traitor to the mutant cause.

Some Mutant Underground militants appear in Polaris’s flashback, all of whom are new characters. Flint has a burning head and what looks to be either jet black or purple skin. Gallerie’s head appears in he form of a stylised painting, with a symbol on one side. Limbo has a head and hands that float away from his body. Pandora is wearing some sort of containment suit, implying that her name is a Pandora’s Box reference.

Orchis show up in Bruin’s flashback to the fall of Krakoa, trying to raid the records of mutant identities. They’re drawn here in red uniforms but without the AIM-style helmets.

REFERENCES

Page 24. The account of the etymology of “traitor” is basically accurate, though the Latin word tradere is a verb (to hand over) and the term used in Ancient Rome for Christians who handed over sacred texts under threat of persecution was traditor.