All-New X-Factor #20 (Final Issue) Review
The final issue of the series is here, and here’s my All New X-Factor #20 review!
Okay, the issue opens with the team on the ship. It’ll be a couple of weeks before Polaris recovers, but she asks Warlock to try and comfort Danger after her realizing she has no soul, so to speak. While he and Cypher made up with one another, with a parting hit to seal the deal., it’s still a bit bitter. Warlock meets with her and tells her that he has a soul, or something inside of him that he cannot explain with words. Instead he shares it with her, and I think robot sex ensues.
While that’s going on, Polaris is instead dealing with a message from Quicksilver. He’s leaving the team for the Avengers Unity division and taking his daughter with him. Personally, I blame Scarlet Witch and would love to be there when he has words with her, but he states he’ll be there if she needs him.
On Serval side of things, Snow has a meeting with Ty Stone of Alchemax and continues to be a sort of corporate sleaze ball who wants his assistant in on the meeting to provide eye candy. This brings him into contact with Miguel O’hara, aka Spider-Man 2099, who recognize one another. As soon as Stone and his assistant are out of the room, secrets come out.
Harrison Snow, or Harry as Miguel calls him, came from the future in a Time Dilation accident with Barry, the man from the last issue. Naturally, an accident sent them both back. Harrison explains that the handgun he used last issue was a device to send him back to the future, however, Miguel explains that time is wonky because of Age of Ultron and thus he just killed the man and his wife as readily as if he had incinerated them.
Harrison then reveals he plans to take down Alchemax using mutants. He plans on recruiting them all, and then the Avengers, and then all the heroes under Serval’s banner. Then he’s going to sic them on Alchemax and obliterate it in five years. It’s ballsy, and he believes that it will lead to a golden age for mankind.
Given how cutthroat Alchemax is in the future, I’m kinda with him. That being said, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Anyway, the team returns just as Miguel leaves and the comic ends its run.
Okay, review time.
Well, it wraps up the series fairly well given the circumstances. While there are some inconsistencies, we can honestly say that X-Factor was probably the best X-Men series out at present. It has better pacing that Uncanny X-Men, the team actually accomplished something unlike the Uncanny Avengers, and it held more worth than All-New X-Men and all the damn Wolverine comics.
I’m still not a fan of the art work though, so the issue and series gets a 4 out of 5. I’d read a sequel.
All-New X-Factor #18 Review
The aftermath of Axis is felt in All-New X-Factor. Read on my recap and review of this issue!
Our comic begins with Harrison telling the team about how his goddaughter’s corpse was taken from a funeral procession and into a series of tunnels. He wants them to retrieve her body so it can be laid to rest. Everyone is in agreement to get to work, which both Gambit and Quicksilver find odd since they never agree with each other on anything.
Meanwhile, Cypher apparently had sex with Danger, somehow. Honestly, I question if this was really consensual, but either way he begs her not to tell Warlock. True enough, this violates a number of things in the Bro Code.
The team assembles with Sunfire there to apologize for attacking them. Now that Axis is over the nuclear football had been returned to the president, and Polaris invites Sunfire on the mission. Quicksilver protests and then decides to stay with Luna at the base if he’s coming along. Along the way, the news comes out about Danger and Cypher, leading to Warlock being more than a little mad.
After they land, they venture into the tunnel where they find hieroglyphs and two men try and shoot them. They are quickly subdued before telling them they took the girl’s body because they want to use her for some kind of ritual, having guarded over her family line for thousands of years. As the comic ends the team arrives to see that the girl has been turned into an Avatar of Ammit.
Okay, review time…
This issue starts what may be the last arc of the series. I find that animosity between Sunfire and Quicksilver, one-sided as is, is a bit weird. The fact that Danger also slept with Cypher showcases her lack of empathy, while Warlock has a more emotional response since Cypher is his closest friend. Also, I do question just how consensual it was since she came in during the middle of the night… or the logistics of how it was possible.
Anyway, it gets a 3 out of 5.
All New X-Factor #17 Review
My review of All-New X-Factor #17 is out now! Read on!
The comic opens with Gambit remembering the time he, Sunfire, and Polaris were members of Apocalypse’s Four Housemen. It wasn’t a nice time, and now the three of them are in a fight over who gets the Nuclear Football. Sunfire and Longshot, inverted by AXIS, were sent here by the X-Men to take it, while the Serval crew would rather that not happen.
Sunfire then tries to set them on fire with a blast that Danger simply walked out of and slaps him before they have Warlock trap him in an airless sphere, meaning no flames. Round one to the Serval team….wait, didn’t he produce bio-oxygen or some BS to explain how he could breathe in space in Uncanny Avengers?
Anyway, Longshot tries to get past them but Quicksilver goes to stop him. That ends when he’s suddenly yanked into the sky by some invisible force, which is weird since he can’t fly. Oh yeah, and Sunfire escapes by burning up Warlock (so I was right on the bio-oxygen thing) and then melts Danger who was mad because she didn’t get a chance to bang him. It’s this type of thing the comic has devolved to.
Longshot gets in and takes out the guards, Dakota takes him out, and Sunfire stops her from finishing him off. After discussing how they plan on nuking the place after they get the Nuclear Football, Cypher leads them on a goose chase before using the teleporter to drop them off in Tokyo. As the comic ends we see that Pietro was being pulled up by Magneto who wants his help in stopping his insane sister again.
Okay, review time…
On the one hand, I believe this to be the last AXIS tie-in, which is a good thing. I’m tired of the event and Wanda already. Anyway, the art was… okay, no real complaints there, and it was the follow up to the tie-in. It gets a 3 out of 5 for not being too bad, but not really doing much.
All New X-Factor #16 Review (AXIS Tie-In)
Okay, we’re following up on the events of AXIS on the Serval Team in All-New X-Factor #16 and here’s my review!
The comic opens with the Sentinels attacking Serval fruitlessly in order to retrieve the nuclear football. Harrison entertains the thought of letting them into the barrier to prevent them from being affected by the Hate Plague but they’re on orders so it wouldn’t help. Lorna does point out that they will try to get in some way though, which is proven when they go and kidnap his wife.
Meanwhile Pietro is feeling bored watching with his daughter when Lorna comes up and asks him about what Wanda said about him spying on them. But asking I mean she slaps him hard enough to knock the speedster down and he points out they have bigger issues but explains why he quit the Avengers. She took more offense to that second-stringer line than the whole spying thing, but any further discussion is cut off when the Sentinel with Harrison wife gives him a minute to drop the shield before he crushes her, to which she tells the robot she’s screwed because he won’t do it.
He doesn’t as he can’t let them get the nuclear football so the team acts to bring the robots and/or the dome down. Doug gets it down before Pietro saves her but he gets hit and then Warlock gets taken out. Danger takes offense to this and turns their Sentinels onto one another until Longshot and Sunfire arrive as the comic ends.
Okay, review time.
Uh… we see some developments in regards to the team, like Danger going off when they hurt Warlock and Lorna confronting Pietro, but there’s something missing I feel. Maybe because they’re dragging it out longer than World War Hate.
Meh, a 4 out of 5.
All-New X-Factor #15 (AXIS Tie-In) Review
Okay, AXIS is in full swing and right now we’re getting a tie-in in the form of All-New X-Factor #15. Who will fall to the hate-plague running rampant around world on our corporate team? Read on and find out!
The story opens with the president getting ready to start a nuclear war with Russia and abandons his family at the White house, where they would likely return fire. See what happens when you don’t vote in Marvel Universe? Anyway the soldier carrying the nuclear football trips and when they’re in the air they discover the briefcase holding it only contains magazines. So while that poor bastard is getting the Guantanamo treatment we skip back to the scene and see that Quicksilver stole it and left the poor bastard to suffer.
The Serval team is working overtime to try and stop Washington from burning. Unfortunately an implant that Warlock gave Gambit burns out and he has to go replace it while Georgia, Luna, and Cypher deal with a riot when the police try to kill Luna, upon which Quicksilver saves her and knocks them out. Oh, and Georgia wants the uniform.
Back with Gambit, he tries to kill Lorna, who states she doesn’t mind if he goes after her brother and sister, but she draws the line when it comes to her. He… really kinda does her up. If it weren’t for Warlock she would have died, but he gets the implant back in to stop the hatred and Gambit apologizes.
Back at the base they are spared from the hate wave by the barrier, but since the nuclear football has a GPS they get found out. The president sends Sentinels to deal with them as the comic ends. Figures.
Okay, review time.
I’m not really sure how much value this has because it drew away from the last issue with Wanda outing Quicksilver as a mole. But Marvel just can’t seem to help but do tie-ins, so it’s a moot point anyway . 3 out of 5.
All-New X-Factor #14 Review + Rant
Well, after the family bonding moment last issue why stop now? In my review of All New X-Factor #14 we look into what happens when Wanda pops up to complete the Children of Magneto arc. No, it’s not a real arc but still…. Also, as soon as the review is over I’m going on a minor rant, fair warning.
Anyway, the comic begins with Danger asking Polaris if she wants to have sex. Polaris is promptly confused, but Danger simply wants to experience what it feels like. It’s then that Wanda pops up, with whom Danger has a better chance to score with. Now my feelings on her and what she’s done are plain as the day is blue in the middle of a cloudless summer sky, so I won’t go on a four page rant about it. I don’t really need to given that Polaris points it out and Wanda is only exasperated because she’s still holding it against her, which proves my point as much as Uncanny Avengers did.
Wanda has come to try and reconnect with her, although given the timing that seems a little contrived, but Danger suggest that they go to an old medieval fair and they’re off. There’s also a subplot about some jealous prick, but he’s a nobody and no one cares for shoehorned drama. There’s not really much to go on, Wanda wants to do some sibling bonding since Quicksilver doesn’t socialize well while Danger looks like Doctor Doom in a cloak and then the jealous guy tries to murder his ex-girlfriend in a witch burning that the three promptly stop and do something that’s in all rights illegal if Polaris actually let him die.
After that they go to a bar and Wanda tries to get Polaris to join the sellouts now that Quicksilver quit. Again, contrived timing for her to show up and she even reveals that Havok had Quicksilver join as a spy in a casual manner, which is something you would expect them to keep a secret so it doesn’t get back to the people you’re spying on. I swear Havok sent her and is sitting in a chair with his fingers steepled like Mr. Burns and saying “Excellent” since he knows that’s going to fuck up the team cohesion.
There’s also a minor incident where two of the dumbest robbers in history try to hit a bar that hasn’t even been open long enough to get a decent amount of money and has three super-powered heroines who should have tied them to a pole or something but let them go instead since they have the gun clips, I mean it isn’t like they can buy more or anything.
Okay, review time
There are some things that don’t make sense, like why Danger needs a cloak when she has holographic technology or why they let the bad guys go, but those are minor compared to the fact that Wanda has once again fucked up in a way that has created more shoehorned drama that I don’t like in a comic I do. I mean she couldn’t be satisfied with just getting some character development that may have lightened the immense dislike I had of her, which they sucked at attempting for the record, but she had to fuck over Quicksilver after he just had his and started getting into my good books.
Before I start ranting further, the comic gets a 2 out of 5 for being mediocre with the only plot relevant thing on the last page.
Now, I honestly don’t know whether to blame the writers who make her an unrepentant bitch or the character entirely.
It’s bad enough they made her a goddamn reason for the long-ass Twin Apocalypse and Planet-X part of Uncanny Avengers, which I still peruse and then toss in the garbage like Linkara because fire is too good for it, but they are intent on trying to make her unlikable with the whole Children’s Crusade retcon, which didn’t work either because she’s on a steady supply of bitch pills and Doctor Doom could do better.
Whether there’s a mandate at Marvel saying make her unredeemable or the authors stuck at redemption stories I don’t know, but you’d think at some point they’d just say fuck it all and send her to get some mental help or slap a power dampener on her so she doesn’t go on another genocide kick because of Daddy issues that made it possible for men like Red Skull and the Purifiers to take advantage of the damage left behind on top of the millions who died when their powers went haywire.
Honestly, this is the reason I cheered when Rogue gutted her and then swore when they made her apologize after Wanda finished banging Wonder Man. I think I speak for all of us that a happy ending involves her being depowered and living a humble life out of sight and mind. At this point death is too good for her character so going into comic book limbo would be more fitting.
All-New X-Factor #13 Review
What has come about due to Pietro’s admission of guilt last issue? Read this review of All-New X-Factor #13 to find out.
The comic opens with Harrison Snow more than a little displeased about what came out last issue at the press-conference. He wants Polaris to fire Quicksilver to save face, but she tells him if Quicksilver goes the team goes. It shows that, as messed up as the Magus family is, they do have strong family bonds. Unable to lose the entire team, Snow lets it go as long as they don’t hide anything else important, which prompts Gambit to say he runs the Thieves’ Guild, Doug is obsessed he might turn evil, Polaris may have been responsible for killing her mother, and Warlock might turns nuts. They leave out afterwards and Gambit reassures her she was a decent leader before kissing her and getting slapped, but to be fair he said he had it coming….somehow.
Luna, in the meantime, hangs out with Georgina in the middle of brooding when she suddenly decides to come with them on their visit to a historical site. Warlock tries hanging out with Danger and once the topic of sex between them comes up, somehow, he bolts. I’m as confused as Doug was, wasn’t that what he was going for?
Quicksilver is with his daughter and Georgina, who he notices is off and calls Luna out for using her powers on her. Luna says she wanted to help her because she was depressed and is actually happy he talks to her like a father since things with her mother are off since she left her last boyfriend, Ronan. It’s about here that another Inhuman, Gorgon, has come chasing after Luna since she ran away without telling anyone and proceeds to try and kill Quicksilver.
Georgina tries to make him go away, but he tries to stomp her and Quicksilver gets her and Luna out of there before laying on the hurt. He doesn’t do well since a thousand hits from him don’t pack enough punch. Polaris shows up and does much better with cannonballs until Quicksilver tries to say it’s his fight and gets hit from behind.
Luna’s mother, Crystal, shows up to end things here and take her daughter back. Despite her clearly being upset with him, he does apologize that things between her and her last boyfriend didn’t work out. She lets Luna stay with him until she returns as the comic ends.
Okay, review time…
I found this issue sweet in we see family bonds, with sparse moments of comedy. It was okay for a filler issue to me and touching. So I’ll give it a 4 out of 5.
All-New X-Factor #12 Review
It’s time for Serval to announce the All-New X-Factor to the world. What will go amiss? Read my review of issue #12 and find out!
It starts with Havok meeting with his spy, Quicksilver, in a downtown bar. After his report, Havok tells him to come back to the Avengers, but he feels Polaris still needs him. Havok tries to pull rank, but Quicksilver up and quits the Avengers because he didn’t want to be another power-set like the sell-out that Havok was. This alone earned my respect for Quicksilver.
We then skip to Danger questioning why she has to wear a uniform, before she encounters Warlock. He tells her she looks nice and she notes he changed his speech pattern, despite it being hard for him, because he thought it would impress her. He got a kiss on the cheek for it, so good for him.
With Gambit, he goes to confront Harrison Snow about being left to die. The man is so damn smooth with pretending that being with his wife didn’t bother him that Gambit is confused. If it weren’t for the evil eyes at the end you might even believe him.
Things aren’t as smooth for Doug, who is trying to comfort Georgina after losing all her parents and home because of him, technically. He offers her the chance to slap him if it would make her feel better, which she does so hard it hurts her hand, but it doesn’t make her feel better in the slightest. She then apologies and thanks him for everything he’s done regardless before he leaves for the press conference.
Cut to the conference, where Quicksilver asks a final time if the PR lady, Linda, wants to do this because it’s waving a flag for villains to come and attack them. She points out it has happened a few times now and they were fine. The press conference is derailed when Fatale calls Quicksilver out on his actions in Son of M, which he owns up to live and on camera, before leaving for his room.
There, hours later, when he expected Captain America or someone to come and take him in, his daughter Luna shows up. Now, because of Son of M and that Quicksilver claimed that a Skrull did it in preparation for Secret Invasion, she was ashamed of him and told him she would love him because he was her father, but she would never forgive him and would always be ashamed of him. Since she was watching the press conference and saw him admit the truth, she forgives him and they hug as the comic ends.
Okay, review time.
This was not an action piece, but I loved it all the same as it served as development for Quicksilver. He owned up to a mistake (granted most of the other Inhumans are too busy with the Inhumanity event to bother him about it now) and earned his daughter’s respect again after years later our time and like one in theirs. He’ll probably get arrested, but I like him more than I did before this series and when he was working with the sell-out.
5 out of 5.
All-New X-Factor 9 Review
A day late and a dollar short, but here’s my review of All-New X-Factor # 9!
Our story starts with two men monitoring a random woman in ways that not even SHIELD gets to, invading her privacy and watching as she changes. Although at least one of them has the decency to act better, they’ve apparently been doing this for years without her knowing. Yes, it is disturbing. But anyway, what they were sure was going to be a boring day turns interesting when the X-Factor crew shows up on her doorstep with Georgina and they decide to call in their boss.
The comic then picks up in the aftermath of what happened last issue, with Snow furious about what happened. He has that right, they’re his team and they broke five or six laws while on his payroll without even telling him. We’ll just pretend he isn’t violating her rights with his eye-camera. But as mad is he is, he doesn’t break up the team and just asks them to inform him of shit like this so he can get a say in rather than having to take a matter transporter over to save their asses.
Georgina isn’t all that happy with her circumstances and Cypher and Danger don’t exactly make her feel better, despite their best efforts. But Gambit, who said nothing the plane ride over while thinking how messed up that last mission was, gets a thanks and a hug. This is enough to make Cypher jealous and push past him on the way out, but Gambit decides to let it slide and go drinking, where he runs across Angela and the flirting starts over drinks.
Meanwhile Georgina gets a tour of the place and at the Computer Center the crazy guy there decides to go an experiment on her and has his computer bite her. Her DNA is taken and then the computer brings up her personal history to a level that, again, SHIELD wishes they had. Including the fact that she’s adopted and her actual mother is still alive.
Georgina wants to go visiting, which Quicksilver supports and if they deny her the right he says he’d run her over to Dakota in minutes (since when he’s carrying someone else he has to drop the speed or turn them to dust). Harrison calms them down by saying they can take the plane in the morning and Cypher does the same thing he did to Gambit to Quicksilver since Georgina hugged him.
The next morning we spy Gambit after having gotten laid last night with Angela when Linda walks in and reveals that he just slept with his Boss’s wife. Now, to be fair, he didn’t know and neither the husband nor the wife seems to know the definition of faithful. But this won’t end well.
We then pick up from where the comic began with Georgina’s mother happy to see her and inviting her in. This happiness lasts about thirty seconds before Georgina’s father shows up, her birth father, and levels the place. He goes by the name Memento Mori and kidnaps his daughter as the comic ends. What a dick.
Okay review time…
An overall okay transitional issue. No complaints really, but where the hell did Cypher’s crush on the girl who turned him into a mummy come from? Was being alone in that cabin for so long enough to make him go with the girl closest to his age range?
A 4 out of 5 solid issue.
All-New X-Factor #5 Review
Out of one murder attempt by a future member and into another as All-New X-Factor #5 picks up shortly after the end of the previous issue. This is my review of it.
This time around the story opens with Gambit waking up to find a woman in his room while he’s naked beneath the sheets. While this probably wouldn’t be uncommon for him, he didn’t invite Danger to bed last night so he’s confused as hell when he finds her there. She claims that his kiss reset some of her functions, but she needs more interaction to become whole. Better than nothing as an excuse to why kissing her worked I supposed.
It seems that Gambit isn’t the only one who woke with a pretty woman in his room. Harrison Snow, like all married but corrupt CEOs, is having an affair with Linda from his company. Their post-coitus talk is of a new player on the computer market that Harrison wants to buy out and he’s having a meeting with him later on. As he leaves out, he tells her to be out by the time his wife gets back from her business trip and then goes about his day with a swagger in his step.
Quicksilver and Polaris are already up, sharing breakfast and exchanging obscure trivia when Gambit tells them Danger is in his room. Polaris brings up the possibility that she wants him sexually, and Quicksilver sees nothing wrong with it. Then again, their sister married Vision and then magic’d up some kids so…
Anyway, Harrison pops by to tell them he wants them at the meeting and Quicksilver runs out to tell Havok, who somehow comes out acting like even more of a sell-out asshole than normal. He’s like one of those damn stalkers who have a PI following your every step. Quicksilver makes it back to Serval before they think he’s done in the bathroom, smooth as silk, only for Danger to sense his vitals and know he’s been running, but he gets out of it by lying. Same goes for Linda when Danger notes that she has Harrsion’s DNA on her in a way that only comes from being intimate with one another.
The meeting takes two turns, the first being the guy who Harrison planned to buy out turned to be The Magus, an enemy leader of an alien race. Danger discovers this by putting her hand through his chest, and Polaris gives its metallic butt a one-way trip out of the building. The second is when Warlock shows up defending his father, before the two of them split.
I’m sure they didn’t wake up planning to get into a brawl, but now that they were in it they were going to get some answers. And so, as the comic ends, Polaris suggests they pay a little visit to Doug Ramsey aka Cypher of the X-Men, aka the guy who can talk to anything and read any language.
A bit more crude humor-wise, but character development is always welcomed. I’ll give it a 4 out of 5.
All-New X-Factor #4 Review
Its comic book day today and thus it’s also time for my reviews, with the first of the day being All-New X-Factor #4.
The comic picks up where we last left off, with Danger being freed and subsequently deciding to go the usual evil robot route of killing everyone present after she’s dealt with her captor. Gambit tries to reason with her, but she claims she doesn’t know who he is and blasts him with a rocket punch before looking to find Nil gone. He’s fleeing the scene, passing by Jean-Luc as the building explodes and leaves the guy to the mercy of the angry robot.
Gambit intervenes to save Jean-Luc, while Quicksilver saves him. Danger then catches up to Nil, with it being revealed he took her memory from her and offers to give them back. She decides to go without them as long as she gets to kill him, but Quicksilver once again intervenes to save the guy and Danger decides to take off the kid gloves by generating Hard-Light holograms to trick Quicksilver into running off of a cliff.
Lorna stops their fall by levitating them and gives Danger one opportunity to surrender, which she refuses. The mistress of magnetism then tears her apart, causing an argument with Gambit since she and he have a difference of opinion on the robot that was trying to kill them. That ends when Danger turns out to have inhabited their plane, which is something that Gambit should have remembered she could do earlier, and opens fire on them.
While Lorna stops the plane, Gambit faces off against a construct of her and tries to reason with her again on the belief that there is still a part of her that remembers their bond. That’s tested when Danger blows apart the escape ship Nil was boarding, subdues Lorna by distracting her with an image of her father rocking his new solo series outfit, and Gambit arrives to stop her from killing the 150 year old technomancer by following Disney’s mandate and kissing her.
It worked, of course. Danger calmed down and they gave her memories back to her. Then the comic ended with Gambit asking her to join X-Factor since she had nowhere to go, much to Lorna’s displeasure.
Okay, review time.
I can’t lie. I didn’t really like how the comic issue was resolved. In the first place, the “Kissing cures amnesia’” thing is really played out. They could have done a better job with it. Then again, this was basically an excuse plot so that they could add her to the roster and at least it ended quickly.
Secondly, Danger kept putting off killing them to get to Nil when it would have been in her best interest to simply kill them and go about her way. That’s poorly done, unless they justify it by her programming hindering her from doing so or at least show that she had fragments of memories whenever it came up. If the villains aren’t going to actually kill off the characters, or make a solid attempt, then they shouldn’t say so.
In the end, I can only give this an average score of 3 out of 5.
All New X-Factor #3 Review
The latest entry in the newest iteration of the X-Factor series is out now and I’m here to review it, no strings attached and my personal opinions abound. So, let’s get straight into it.
The story opens with Havok, brother of Cyclops and figurehead of the failure of a team that is the Avengers Unity squad, playing pool in a bar and getting briefed on Serval and the X-Factor team by his man on the inside. Yeah, no one is really surprised that it’s Quicksilver, what with Gambit pegging him from the moment he walked into Serval., but let’s talk about Havok. Now, if there is one person I dislike more than Wolverine and Captain America whenever they show up in an X-Men book, it’s this sellout right here.
First off, he left Polaris at her wedding for the nurse he was psychically dating while in a coma with the help of her mutant son. Second off, wasn’t he flirting to high-heaven with Wasp in Uncanny Avengers? They have a child together and are married in the upcoming arc, which I know will be retconned soon enough since Cap got disfigured by acid and Marvel can’t have that, but still. Now he claims he wants Quicksilver looking out for her because she’s his girlfriend and she’s nuts, and he uses these exact terms in the same page.
Quicksilver wisely points out that she has no reason to trust him well enough to serve as a mole and she tried to shoot him, but she was drunk and their whole family has issues like…well, every major character in these books. Wolverine kills his kids, the Summers brothers are currently on the opposite sides of the law and don’t get me started on their extended families, do I need to cover anymore? For that reason Havok’s claim that she’ll trust him because they’re blood rings hollow as hell. They wrap it up with Havok also being a deadbeat and Quicksilver saying everyone hates him, which he tends to bring on himself and I think Finesse likes him as a mentor.
We then skip to Serval, aka Google, and learn that Harrison Snow had implanted a nanotech camera in Polaris’ eye while she was sleeping so he sees what she sees. Yes, he violates her privacy like it was a Tuesday for him, but he’s big business. It was probably in her contract under the terms no one reads. Anyway, he learns at that moment they’ve been hacked from the PR head and decides to give his new team a call.
Two members of the team, Polaris and Gambit, are in his new room in the building and playing with his cats that Mystique gave him when Iceman decided to freeze the world over after corralling his ex-girlfriends into a snow cave for their safety, his ice clones claim, in Astonishing X-Men…including Polaris. Anyway, one cat scratches her and she flips out and gets ready to deal with it violently until Gambit snaps her out of it. Okay, maybe she isn’t a paragon of good mental health but I refuse to say Havok was right.
Snow pops up then and takes them down to their server room, where the guy running the place reveals they are being hacked and he knows the location for their team to go deal with it. Gambit notes he’s screwed as the place is the headquarters of his Thieves’ Guild even though it doesn’t pop up on the map. So he and Polaris suit up as Quicksilver arrives (with Gambit correctly claiming he was updating the Avengers about them) and take their shiny new jet out for a spin after it beams them up.
Meanwhile Snow goes to confront last arc’s villain of the week, Hoffman, and recruits him after illegally detaining him. He still has his mutant powers, but his DNA reads human, so naturally the megacorp wants him to work for them. Hoffman signs up when he learns they get benefits, which A.I.M doesn’t I suppose. Must be because they keep getting blown up or attacked…
As the team arrives on location, Gambit come clean that he knows who’s responsible despite the fact that he’s not involved in this one. One of his members is Nil, a technomancer. He uses magic to control computers and such…really, magic for that? Anyway, Nil confesses he was only able to get into Serval by using a new medium for his powers.
It’s Danger, who helped spring Cyclops from prison and hates being locked up and controlled more than anything. So naturally when Polaris springs her she’s too pissed to think about anything but killing everything. Cue fight next issue before she joins the team.
Okay, so while it isn’t an action-based issue it does move the plot along and reveals several key things while introducing a new team member. We learn that Serval is basically any big corporation in Marvel like Roxxon or Alchemax or Oscorp and we learn Quicksilver is a spy, but no real shocker there until his sister finds out and tries to kill him again.
So I’m giving it a 4 out of 5 because the art work still isn’t doing it for me and calling it a review.
All New X-Factor #1-2 Review
Okay, I feel that I need to expand my horizons beyond the big names of Cyclops, Emma Frost, and Wolverine (not a fan of the guy lately). So I’ve decided, after reading the first two chapters of the fourth iteration of X-Factor going under the “Original” name of All-New X-Factor, to start reviewing this series. This review in particular will encompass Issues# 1 -2, which features Gambit, Polaris, and Quicksilver undergoing their first outing as part of the new X-Factor, which is now a corporate superhero team.
So let’s get to it with Issue #1, which opens with two scientists, the one named Hoffman being the important one, giving themselves pats on the back for a good and hard day’s work of torturing some mutant in the name of science. This is the Marvel Universe so that’s expected, but Hoffman seems even more douche-baggish with the sincere way he smiles as he says it’s for the greater good and then goes to get an espresso from Starbucks. That tells you two things, the first of which is that this is normal behavior that he does daily and the second is that he honestly believes what he says. But more on him later as the scene changes to Gambit.
Being one of the premiere thieves of the Marvel Universe, he’s taking to his role to liberate a statue locked into place with a mystic spell after navigating a bunch of laser alarms while hanging from the ceiling. It’s once he gets it that he finds that Wolverine is there and that the owner knew he had tried robbing him since he tripped an alarm made by Tony Stark, which must’ve hurt his ego as much as Logan talking down to him like a child and revealing he knows Gambit is running the Thieves’ Guild. Now, despite his condescending tone Wolverine has a point in that it poses no immediate threat and he is stealing…which is wrong I suppose.
But, if you’ve read Cable and the X-Force, Colossus and Domino successfully did the same with a Hell-hole device that was inside of a secure bank lock-box after releasing demonic hordes. Why these apocalyptic things are even left in one piece escapes me, but I’m with Gambit in that it would be better if the thing disappeared. After all, if some ancient sorcerer comes from three thousand years in the past and knows the spell to activate it, they’re screwed. And since this is the Marvel Universe that will probably happen in a later arc.
After getting dressed down by Wolverine, Gambit goes to a bar to unwind. Said unwinding involves beating the hell out of a bunch of guys saying New Orleans had Hurricane Katrina coming a few years back. We don’t blame him for the ass-kicking in that case, but before he can get another drink Polaris comes up to him and tells him to get a coffee to sober up so they can talk business. When he explains that Wolverine told him to go straight and narrow if he wants to stay at the school and remain a member of the X-Men (which I will point out has nothing to do with one another given the sheer amount of crap they get into illegal or otherwise) she asks him to take a trip with her to Virginia.
While on the private jet she explains she’s working with Serval Industries, a rising company that specializes in electronics and such. There’s a minor incident when someone launches a missile at the jet, but Polaris is the Mistress of Magnetism for a reason and it goes boom with a snap of her fingers. She then explains that Serval is basically Marvel’s version of Google and they have enemies, but since they help people she’s working for them as a member of their new corporate team, X-Factor, the name for which was bought from the previous owner Jamie Madrox (Multiple Man) by Harrison Snow, the CEO of Serval, at Linda Kwan’s insistence as their PR person.
Now, this guy is smooth as silk but gives you that greasy feeling that Gambit picks up on and asks flat out if he’s evil. He laughs, not really denying it, but he wants Gambit on the team because Polaris recommended him. He then reveals Quicksilver, Polaris’ half-brother, wanted to join to look after her upon learning they got Polaris out of jail after she tried to shoot him and trashed a bar while drunk. Yeah, that doesn’t go over well.
We can clearly see that Quicksilver isn’t the most wanted person around by Polaris or Gambit, with one claiming he’s spying on them for the Avengers, which he denies (although the preview for issue #3 says otherwise) and the other thinking he’s evil, which he denies again. But ultimately Polaris decides to give him a chance. And it’s just in time as Harrison sends them on their first mission to deal with Hoffman, who it turns out is a biologist who has been employed by some A.I.M looking dudes and he wants them to go and do what they do best when it comes to heroes and shady organizations.
So they put on some snazzy outfits and go in destroying stuff to rescue the kidnapped victims. Gambit doesn’t really buy the timing and the excuse Harrison gave him for having them do this, but he’s done worse for less and gives it a go. The team arrives just as Hoffman is about to vivisect Fatale and he is ecstatic at more mutants arriving since they would be more test subjects.
So ends Issue #1.
Going straight into Issue #2, it picks up with Hoffman going to field test his research against the intruding mutants and unlocks a doorway to two mutants who are locked up in giant pods and clearly dislike the man, what with the torture and all. It then skips to our heroes being split apart and Polaris deciding to just trash the place in a fit of rage until she ends up where Fatale is. Gambit somehow escapes the standard Fall-into-Furnace trap with a well-placed charged card only to find himself at gun point. Quicksilver shows up about then and takes their guns away, but the chumps prove to be smarter than the average mooks as they have wrist mounted spares built into their bracelets. It doesn’t help as Quicksilver dodges the bullets and Gambit puts them down with another charged card.
On the subject of Polaris, she’s with Fatale who reveals Quicksilver gave her and the other two who were captured their powers back after M-Day but turned them into living bombs. The only reason they didn’t blow up was because they were frozen in time in another dimension and then pulled out of it by Hoffman, who siphoned off the excess energy. We then cut to Hoffman following up on that and getting ready to use that energy for himself to turn into an energy monster.
Cue the boss fight where Hoffman claims the mutants didn’t know the potential of their abilities or how to manipulate them and then claims that it was because of this that they let the world treat them like dirt and he can do it so much better than they can. Yet, for all that bragging, Gambit and Quicksilver put him down with an charged card inside his ear in less than five pages without a scratch. Pathetic.
Naturally the mutants he tortured want to finish him after he goes night-night, but they turn their hatred towards Quicksilver and make it clear they will get even for what he did to him one day. But that’s a story for another day as the comic ends.
Okay, review time.
Now art-wise I’ve seen better and it’s just not my style how the artist has drawn the series, but it’s still good enough for me to understand what’s going on. Plot-wise, it’s a good opening and doesn’t take forever like some other series that will remain nameless. On the minor characters, Hoffman is an affably evil douche who you find charming and want to throttle at the same time, Harrison is clearly shady but he’s big business so that comes with the territory, and it’s pretty clear Fatale, Abyss, and Reaper have a bone to pick with Quicksilver and will show up later as antagonists. The major characters interact with one another in an interesting manner, with Gambit and Polaris being rather close while no one really likes Quicksilver, but they do work well enough for a first mission with no real hiccups.
So I give both issues a 4 out of 5, as it is interesting but the artwork leaves a lot to be desired.
Twilit Dreams Circle 