X-Factor: The Complete Collection volume 1 review

X-Factor collects Madrox, a five issue mini-series and the first 12 issues of the third X-Factor series written by Peter David. I previously reviewed David’s run on the first X-Factor series during the early nineties and while there were some good ideas in that series, the highlight was really the character development. It’s unfortunate that there wasn’t a lot of it and the series was plagued by a lack of focus (crossovers with other titles including one major crossover between all the existing X-tittles at the time) and inconsistent art. It made for a run that had quite a bit of potential but ultimately it fell short on providing a good story or even serving as quality entertainment.

Lucky for us all, David got another shot at these characters. Though I’ve only read about two years’ worth of issues, I think it’s pretty safe to say that X-Factor is one of the best X-men comics to come out in the last ten years. The reason is pretty simple; the series doesn’t focus on telling Good versus Evil stories by way of superhero fights. Instead, David focuses on the day to day operations of Madrox Investigations in a post-House of M Marvel universe and how this affects the characters and their relationship to one another.

Madrox #1-5:

It’s my first time reading Madrox and while I wouldn’t say it’s essentially to read in order to understand and enjoy X-Factor, it provides plenty of additional information regarding the setup of the ongoing series and some of the characters that would round out the regular cast. The idea of Madrox is a simple one: what if a Madrox decided to open a private detective office for mutants? Heavily influenced by noir films, David creates a new chapter in Jamie Madrox’s life. Also known as the Multiple Man, Madrox was part of the government sanctioned X-Factor team of the 90s. That incarnation of X-Factor started under David’s guidance and continued after his departure from the title. After leaving the team, Madrox worked for one of Professor Xavier’s X-Corporation offices which was located in Paris. After acquiring a million dollars cheating on a televised game show and uses the money to open up XXX Investigations in the heart of Mutant Town in New York.

Madrox obviously focuses on the character of Madrox and while it also serves to introduce the concept of XXX Investigations, that’s mostly part of the setting and serves as a B-plot to occupy Guide “Strong Guy” Carosella and Rahne “Wolfsbane” Sinclair. David takes a rather bland X-men character and turns him into one of the most interesting characters in the franchise’s history in a mere five issues. He does so by exploring the possibilities of Madrox’s powers and how that changes Madrox and the world around him. For those who might not know it, Madrox has the power to create dupes (short for duplicates) of himself. A concussive force will create a dupe and they have their own personality and autonomy, apart from Madrox prime. Only Madrox prime can reabsorb the dupes and only this ability and the knowledge that he is Madrox prime and the dupes’ self-awareness of being dupes, keeps Madrox as the dominant version of himself. It’s a little complicated, I know, but David complicates things further and it actually improves the character.

Part of his plan to open up a private detective agency was to send out dozens and dozens of dupes around the world to learn various skills, from sports to achieving doctorate levels in various fields of study to becoming a monk. He does this because when he absorbs a dupe, he also absorbs all of the knowledge they acquired when roaming free. While there are obvious perks to sending out dupes and acquiring vast amounts of knowledge and new skills, there are also negative consequences. Madrox prime is starting to feel drawn out. He’s feeling confused and his “internal” dupes (for a lack of a better description) are starting to associate themselves with specific portions of his psyche and they become fully consumed by the part of his psyche that they represent.  In short, his brilliant plan is starting to back fire on him and there is no real way to recall his long range dupes because they’ve attained full autonomy. There’s also no telling when one of those dupes will show up again. It’s a great way to establish the random arrival of a dupe which David uses as a way to introduce new plot elements or to jump start character development. Because this comic is written by David, dupes are also used as way to inject humour in the comic.

The B-plot involving Guido, Rahne and one of the dupes is interesting in itself and it helps to round out the miniseries. It deals with one of the office’s first investigations. One of them is investigating the apparent murder of one of the dupes and Madrox takes care of that one on his own. The other involves mutant marital troubles. A woman asks them to confirm whether or not her husband is having an affair. It’s important to mention that her husband is paralyzed and she thinks he’s cheating with the aid of his astral projection. Weird, mutant related private detective comic? I’m sold.

X-Factor #1-12:
The first issue of X-Factor doesn’t rehash everything that happened during the miniseries but it does present a considerable amount of information regarding Madrox’s powers. David also writes a flashback detailing how Madrox won the money to buy the small apartment building in Mutant Town which now serves as the business location and living quarters for X-Factor Investigations. It’s a a very solid first issue because it simultaneously recaps the Madrox-centric elements from the miniseries, presents the current status of X-Factor Investigations and adds a characters and story elements that the story will focus on. Some of those elements include the problems Madrox is having with his powers, specifically in controlling his dupes, the team’s investigation of what caused M-Day, the arrival of Layla Miller (from the House of M miniseries) a girl who “know stuff”. Another element that becomes important to the series is the budding rivalry with Singularity Investigations, a large PI corporation.

I’m very impressed with just how much David juggles with this series. There is so much going on and most of it is related to characters, what they do, how events in the larger Marvel Universe are affecting them, and how they interact with each other. Perhaps unsurprisingly, because it’s written by Peter David, the series really focuses on characters and everything else stems from that. Aside from Madrox, which is just fascinating to read about, I’m also intrigued by the storytelling potential of Rictor. He lost his powers on M-Day and he’s struggling with that lost. Some days are better than others but his development is engaging. It doesn’t take much time for him to start being useful to the team but I have a feeling that’s because X-Factor Investigations is really dysfunctional at this this point in time and it doesn’t take much for Rictor to provide assistance to the team. There is so much going on that it’s easy to help out. Still, being surrounded by mutants that still have their powers will take its toll on him, even if he’s worked with all of them before.

The other character that really stands out is Layla Miller. She was essentially a plot devise in House of M which was written by Brian Michael Bendis. In David’s capable hands she’s growing into a great character. Like Madrox, her powers are problematic. She “knows things”, things from the past, the present and the future. She also knows about the M-Day incident and she’s actively trying to prevent X-Factor from learning the truth. David could make everything easy for Layla but he powers aren’t infallible. She can’t read Guido too well and when she tries to read Quicksilver she’s often wrong (probably due to his blood relation with the Scarlet Witch and it affects Layla’s ability to read him). She also lies and keeps secrets about the stuff she knows. She doesn’t just know about the future but also which future should happen. When she learns that a member of X-Factor will be severely beaten, beaten close to death, she doesn’t try and stop it because it’s part of the future that should happen. David’s not cryptic about it though, he brings it back a few issues later and explains Layla’s action in a way that feels satisfying, despite the fact that someone was severely beaten. I also like Layla because she and Guido bring a lot of humour to the series.

While Madrox (series) didn't have too much tha set it in a specific time period of Marvel continuity, X-Factor is very much a story that takes place in post-House of M. One of its main characters, Layla, is from the series and the setting, shortly after M-Day, is relevant to the story being told. Still, those elements do not make X-Factor feel dated but they do place the series, a least the beginning of the series, within a specific context of the Marvel shared universe. It’s s little crazy to contemplate that period in Marvel history. Everything was constantly in flux. From Avengers Disassembled, to Hostory and plot of use of M, followed by Decimation and everything leading up to Civil War. It was pretty exciting reading Marvel comics then but sometimes, issues felt gratuitous because their sole reason for existing was to add additional information to these larger event stories. David expertly avoids this with X-Factor. The focus is never on the specifics of the events comics. Instead, it focuses on the effects of those stories on the cast of X-Factor. They’re having their own stories and adventures but everything is informed by the goings-on of the larger Marvel Universe.

It's pretty annoying that a collection like this the credit information is incorrect. It's not all wrong of course, but there are enough mistakes to make it rather embarrassing for the collection editors. Errors include indication the Madrox mini-series is six issues long when it's only five issues long in at least two different places, indicating that the cover art for issues 4 and 5 are by Gabriele Dell'otto and coloured by Jose Villarrubia when you can clearly see Ryan Sook's signature right above Villarrubia's on the cover of issue #5. It makes the whole production look amateurish. I'm almost surprised the issues are all in the correct order of publication. That doesn’t affect the quality of the stories within, because it’s really good stuff. It’s a stellar example of how to write an X-men comic that isn’t focused on a superhero team taking care of battling supervillains or preventing a large scale crisis every other week. I like these fat paperbacks. It’s one of the best ways to enjoy reading an ongoing series and it helps when the issues are as good as these ones. 

X-Factor Visionaries vol. 4 review

Peter David’s tenure as the writer of X-Factor was, in my opinion, the biggest waste of talent on an X-title during the nineties. David is a good writer and his strength are in good characterizations but he never really got a chance to tell his stories without interruptions. None of the three X-Factor Visionaries volumes have been great. David is having a difficult time finding his footing and hitting his stride on the title. This volume is essentially more of the same but some of the stories within are much worse and some are actually a bit better but volume 4 is the last one of this particular run and it’s probably for the best.

There was an X-Men crossover in the early nineties called X-cutioner’s Song. The event happened in the pages of four different X-Men comics during four months for a total of 12 issues. Three of those issues are collected in this volume. I’ve never read the whole event but if the X-Factor issues are any indication, X-cutioner’s Song is fucking crap. The volume begins with X-Factor’s event issues written by David with art by Jae Lee. I’m a fan of Lee’s artwork. He’s more stylized and formal than many other artists working in comics but based on his work here he’s had very similar beginnings as many other artists who worked nearly twenty years ago. It’s completely different than the kind of thing he would produce now or even ten years ago. It’s sad to say but it’s pretty typical of the kind of stuff you would find in Marvel comics from the early nineties. The characters have grotesquely exaggerated anatomy and their bodies have unnatural sharp corners. The crosshatchings and heavy inking makes for art that is pretty unpalatable. The garish colouring doesn’t help, either. To top it all off, David’s scripting is sub-par compared to the rest of the X-Factor issues. His heart is obviously not in it. For three months during the X-cutioner’s Song event, David was writing this comic because it was a job and not because he enjoyed writing them. It’s just awful stuff. I don’t even know why I’m still talking about it.

After the crossover issues, we finally get some really good X-Factor stories. My favourite is the psychiatrist issue. Val Cooper, government liaison for the team, has decided that all of the members of the team need to a have session with a psychiatrist after particularly difficult missions. In this case, Cooper considers the events of X-cutioner’s Song to qualify as a trying mission for the team. I like that David could take something so bad and make something good out of it. It’s also great to see just how quickly and accurately he explains the character and identifies their individual faults in the psychiatrist sessions. The only ones that don’t really work for me is Polaris and Rahne. Maybe it’s because I’m not very familiar with them as characters but something just doesn’t quite click. Guido’s session was awesome. I really enjoyed his origin story and I appreciated the explanation for his physical deformity. Quicksilver’s was another exemplary bit of storytelling and character development. That story will forever affect how I look at him.

The art also improved with the post-crossover stories. Joe Quesada takes care of the art and though it’s not my favourite kind of style nor is Quesada a favourite artist, it’s a definitive improvement following’s the Lee issues (truly, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d write). It’s with that particular issue that David hits his stride but it’s a short lived celebration since his run ended soon after. The characters and stories are mixing together nicely at this point

Peter David had an interesting run on X-Factor but there were too many inconsistencies in the stories being told, some artist fluctuations, and a terrible X-men crossover all contributed to destroy any momentum David and his collaborators were able to build on the title. Still, for those who can tolerate 90s X-Men comics, there are some good stories to be found in these collections but you’ll also have to deal with some of David’s worst comics (as far as I’ve read anyway). For those of you who want to avoid the drudgery, do yourself a favour and go diving in the long boxes for X-Factor #87. “X-Aminations” is really an excellent done-in-one story, worthy to be compared with some of the best that X-Men comics have to offer. It’s sad that this run never attained full steam but David got to write many of these characters when he helmed the relaunched X-Factor series back in 2005. It’s actually one of the best X-Men series since the early 2000s . . . but that’s another post. 

X-Factor: Visionaries Peter David volume 3 review

The third volume of ­X-Factor Visionaries: Peter David brings the focus back on the main members of the X-Factor team. It’s a big frustrating because I feel this is where the story should have picked up after the first volume. The crossover with The Incredible Hulk was a pretty major distraction even if it was a good story in itself. I enjoyed the third volume more than the second one but my enjoyment of it is hindered by the same problems I had with the previous volumes of this series.

The art inconsistencies didn’t really bother me this time around. That’s because the guest artists’ style matched up pretty closely to Larry Stroman’s art even if they did not quite reach he same level of abstraction in their line work. I don’t have much more to say about the art in these issues and that itself probably says a lot. They’re early nineties comics and it’s important to mention that because the inking and colouring have a pretty big impact on the final look of the comic. These issues look like nineties comics. The only exception would the Annual issue which is drawn by Darick Robertson and Joe Madureira. That issue looks sleeker and cleaner and it’s quite breath of fresh air but the annual they make up can best be summarized as a throwaway gag issue. It doesn’t advance the story or the characterization and the only thing it contributes to is a few laughs. Peter David has made significantly better jokes in the regular issues of X-Factor.

Thankfully the story moves along a big more in the rest of the volume. The X-Factor team deals with three mutant related issues. In one, a mutant is accused of murder and they investigate the allegations. In another story, they’re asked to protect a former member of a muscle for hire crew which offered protection to a drug cartel. The third story deals with mutant expatriates from Genosha who are travelling the seas searching for sanctuary but finding only rejection. Mutants are the Jews of the Marvel Universe it seems. All three of those stories could and for a few pages did, form the basis for interesting stories about homo sapiens and homo superior equality but they all fall short. One of the reasons of the stories do not work is that the members of X-factor always end up fighting numerous other mutants or super villains. The resolution to all these stories is a one or more superhero fights. It’s a disappointing story.

The other reason why the stories don’t seem to work is that they try to bring forward topics that would generally seem more serious in tone. Peter David is trying to pull away from the good guys fights bad guys story and steer the book into a more satisfying direction. He’s trying to offer the reader something different that also happens to have depth of story. As I mentioned, the first problem is the unnecessary requirement for superhero fisticuffs and it’s not even a particularly rewarding version of that. The second reason is that the tone of the book is in constant fluctuation form humorous to serious and thoughtful. David is unable to balance the humour and the more serious elements into a cohesive comic. This happens to be the volume which has the best humour in it. He’s done ag ood job on that fron band the best thing about the fight scenes is the banter. It’s problematic though when Havok and Val are having a serious discussion as to how to handle the mutant expatriate (or x-patriate) situation, they’Re also finding time to crack jokes.

It’s inconsistent but it has a lot of potential and it makes for a frustrating read because you keep thinking the story is going to lead to something good and worthy of thought and discussion but it often leads to bad jokes, cackling evil bad guys. The villains in this story are uninteresting and much like the stories in the Annual issue, they feel like throwaway characters that matter because of their role as villains as opposed to their importance as characters in a story. Three volumes in and it still feels like Peter David is trying to find his footing and it’s getting to be too late since he ultimately only wrote one more volume’s worth of X-Factor comics.   

X-Factor: Visionaries Peter David volume 2 review

The second volume of Peter David’s tenure on X-Factor is actually half The Incredible Hulk and half X-Factor. There’s as much jade giant as there is green haired Polaris. Both series are written by Peter David and the members of X-Factor do appear in all six issues, but it made for an inconsistent read. The first two issues in the collection are The Incredible Hulk #390-391, parts one and two of a three part story. Issue #76 of X-Factor takes place afterwards and that is followed by one more issues of The Incredible Hulk and the collection ends with issues #77 and 78 of X-Factor. There’s nothing wrong about that reading order other than the fact that the Hulk issues and the story it tells completely distract from the story and the momentum David was building in the first volume.

Other than the Hulk: The End trade paperback, these are the first issues of David’s popular run on The Incredible Hulk that I’ve ever read. My first reaction is that Dale Keown’s art is excellent. It’s so good and I might have to order the first Visionaries volume of David’s hulk run just to see more of Keown’s art. Keown’s sleek and muscular art contrast pretty heavily with Stroman’s thin lines and exaggerated anatomy. Seeing Guido and Hulk on the same page is startling. Even when drawn by Keown, Guido’s musculature is so bizarre it’s truly because a part of the character. Larry Stroman only draws two of the six issues collected here and although it’s a shame because I was just getting used to his art, it is nonetheless a welcome break. I’m warming up to his style but being so closely juxtaposed with Keown, it does leave something to be desired.

I wasn’t overly impressed with the Hulk issues. The story was somewhat uninteresting but it did provide plenty of opportunity for good superhero action. That’s what the highlight was, in fact. Watching Keown’s Hulk in action was a treat and David has a much better grasp of him and his supporting cast (Rick Jones!) that he has on the characters of X-Factor. It’s difficult to judge the quality of these three issues of The Incredible Hulk since I haven’t read any of the others by the same writer and artist but I have a feeling that just like the X-Factor issues aren’t as representative of the rest of the issues written by David, the same can be said for the three-part Hulk story.

There was some good character develop in X-Factor. David is starting to get a feel for the characters and his story is developing beyond “good guys beat up bad guys” kind of stories.

I can’t finish this review without talking about the humour. It’s better than in the first volume. I think that has to do with David getting to know the characters better, he’s had the time to get accustomed to the members of the government sanctioned team of mutants. Guido especially is shaping up into an interesting character. He’s developing a voice and it’s often pretty funny. Rahne also starts to go through some changes and it’s adding some nice depth to the comic. I really like the cast of X-Factor. They’re interesting because I do not know every little thing about them and they’re not A-list characters so I know there can be and will be some serious and pretty permanent changes to their personalities and character makeup.

It’s unfortunate that The Incredible Hulk gets in the way. It’s a decent story and there are some interesting moral questions raises by some of the characters. I’m glad it was collected somewhere but I’m not sure this was the best place. I honestly can’t think of a better way to have included it. It’s right where it should be but it distracts from the real focus here which should be the X-Factor team. At the very least, Dale Keown’s art helps make the Hulk a bit more welcome in an x-book.

X-Factor: Visionaries Peter David volume 1 review

Like all of Peter David’s other works that I’ve read, X-Factor has a lot of humour. I enjoy it for the most part but it does take over sometime and it can distract from the rest of what’s happening in the comic. Similarly to his Star Trek writing, the jokes occasionally go too far. Not too far in a sense of indecency, but in a way that feels unnecessary. You can only keep a joke going for so long at which point it loses some of its effect.

One of my issues with the first volume of Peter David’s tenure of X-Factor has to do with his main collaborator, artist Larry Stroman. I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of Stroman’s art. I’m pretty certain this is the first book I read where he’s on art duties and it didn’t completely agree with me. His characters look stiff and often times they also look squared off. His lines are thin, which isn’t a problem in itself, but there’s too many of them on the page. It fits into the style of 90s superhero art but that’s something I’m not really a fan of in general. It’s not all bad though. He uses exaggerated anatomy to pretty good effect, particularly on Guido (Strong Guy). I think that where Stroman’s art really excels is with the portrayal of Guido and Lorna “Polaris” Dane’s hair. He draws Guido large and muscular but in such a way that it clearly demonstrates his awkwardness. Guido is physically awkward because he’s so big and so strong. By drawing him in a way that makes him look somewhat deformed, he’s adding quite a bit of personality to the character. It’s physically impossible for anybody to be that big but, being a mutant, of course it’s possible for Guido. But it wouldn’t be a seamless growth and it’s to be exaggerated that his muscles would seriously alter his physical form. The art isn’t all good but it’s not all bad either. There is a lot of potential for a unique look and feel but it’s too unpolished and inconsistent to be qualified as really good in the context of superhero comics.

The same can be said for the writing. David tries to do a lot with six issues worth of pages. He packs a considerable amount of story in a 120 page story but parts of the comic feel bloated while others feel decompressed. The exposition is often done on pages that have a significant number of small panels that have more word balloons in them than is visually appealing. The action and humour scenes on the other hand feel decompressed. They take a lot of space and that shouldn’t be where the focus, especially because David is trying to tell an interesting story. He still accomplishes this but there are a lot of kinks to work out on the title.

I find that often first arcs on superhero comics are slow to start and uncertain in their quality or they’re phenomenal stories. In the case of phenomenal beginnings, many writers cannot keep the momentum they build. There can be multiple reasons for this but essentially it amounts to lack of skill or because they only had one or two really good stories to tell and they didn’t know when to quit. Peter David’s X-Factor falls into the first category of opening arcs. He has plenty of good ideas. One of them is the study of Jamie Madrox, Multiple Man and his powers and the other is to take a waning superhero title composed of A and B-list X-men and try to make a great comic by replacing the existing team with C-list heroes. It’s a smart move because everybody’s written about the most well-known X-men but the lesser known ones have more potential for characterization and interesting stories. Jamie Madrox is an excellent example of this.

X-Factor Visionaries: Peter David volume 1 is a good start. The writer and the artist are finding their footing and it’s apparent but it doesn’t get in the way of enjoying the parts of the comic that work well. You can tell that they’re trying to tell a story that isn’t your traditional good vs. evil comic and I appreciate that. Still, X-Factor is still clearly a superhero comic and there will always be good guys fighting bad guys and the creative team even struggles with that. One of the most boring parts of this volume was the villain. There are quite a few things that were more interesting that Mr. Sinister and his Nasty Boys. The forming of the team, the jokes and Jamie Madrox where all significantly more worthy of my attention that the X-men baddy, Sinister and his goons. This is a good start and I look forward to seeing where the title goes because it’s clear to me there is quite a bit of potential for a great comic within these pages.