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.
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