Will Layla Miller survive? If that is a question you are dying to have answered, then tough, you’ll have to wait until September 12 for the answer. Until then, you can get a taste of X-Factor #23 after the jump.
Yes it’s going to be another huge week for Marvel titles hitting the news stands (something like 22 titles!), so we are once again breaking the weekend sneaks into two parts.
In this installment MARVEL ILLUSTRATED: THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK 2, NEW AVENGERS 33, NEW AVENGERS/TRANSFORMERS 2, NEW EXCALIBUR 22, NOVA 5, OMEGA FLIGHT 5, POWERS 25, PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL 10, ULTIMATE X-MEN 85, WORLD WAR HULK: FRONT LINE 3, X-FACTOR 22
Marvel has sent Major Spoilers sneak peeks for both Uncanny X-Men #489 and X-Factor 22. Both of these issues continue the Endangered Species storylines.
“I’m so glad to see people responding to Endangered Species,” said editor Nick Lowe. “And what they’ve seen is only the beginning. Beast is in for some big things in the rest of Endangered Species and fans will be amazed by some of the people showing up in there. Uncanny X-Men is really picking up steam, thanks to the great work of Ed Brubaker and Salvador Larroca. X-Factor is just getting better and better and bigger and bigger just in time for the big event. Cyclops and Beast show up in this arc, so I hope retailers order enough for the voracious appetites of the X-Fans.”
Or - “How Do You Follow Up A Nigh-Perfect Issue?”
X-Factor. The term can be used to refer to many things… It was an album by Iron Maiden, it’s the name of Simon Cowell’s internation version of ‘American Idol’ (“Dear Supreme Being: Respectfully, please get Sanjaya off my TV set. He makes my brain hurt, and not in a good way. I would never wish him harm, but the boy barely has the talent to have breakfast without injury. Save him from us all. Love, Matthew.”), it was the nom de guerre of an excrable wrestling tag team based mostly on the fact that Pete Polaco looks remarkably like Sean Waltman after a Nair bath, even some sort of Macintosh OpSys (and I know they call them OS’s now, I’m just old-school). Previous versions of this concept at Marvel have always been predicated somehow on the presence of a Summers brother, the X-Men’s equivalent of being a Kennedy, but this book has a diverse cast of characters who have been used as second-bananas their entire history, and the synthesis has that certain something that you can’t really define, not-at-all-coincidentally ALSO called “the x-factor.”
Or - “Multiple Maaan, Multiple Maaan, Doin’ The Things A Multiple Caaan…”
It’s no coincidence that, in addition to titling this particular book, “x-factor” refers to that certain something that raises a particular person, place or thing above the average and mundane. Every time I feel like I’ve gotten the whole story on the characters, they throw me a curve and I have to start all over. From Guido’s sudden murderous turn (he was brainwashed) to the Siryn/M/Madrox triangle (they weren’t) to the strange vibe surrounding “House of M” plot device Layla Miller (she’s more than she seems, but we still don’t know what that is), X-Factor has taken us on a tilt-a-whirl of life in the Marvel Universe, and it’s still the only thing Marvel publishes that even seems to acknowledge that the Decimation ever happened…
Or - “Jamie Madrox, Agent of S.H.E.E.S.H.”
Everybody knows what it’s like to be indecisive, unable to make a decision. I’ve spent the entire year 2007 barely capable of deciding fries vs. onion rings, one of the unpleasant side effects of the year from Aitch Ee Double Hockey Sticks. Imagine how much worse it would be if I could actually separate portions of my personality and let them fight it out among themselves… You really have to feel bad for James Madrox. Not only do his moods get the best of him, sometimes they go walkabout and dig holes that he has to climb out of. Given the sheer number of people I’ve wanted to throttle in the past two years, that sort of autonomy would be very bad… And now, Jamie’s stuck in the hands of Hydra, dragged away by a Girl Scout to parts unknown. How’ll he get out of THIS one?
Or - “You Wish You Had Madrox’s Problems…”
As I look at my hold list these days, I find a bit of bias towards the product being put out by DC Comics over that by Marvel. I have my Marvel mainstays, but the Civil War crossovers are making most of the product that comes out of Da House of Ideas incredibly complicated and difficult to keep up with. But, as with my monthly Nightwing review (another one comin’ soon!), I realize that my tastes aren’t everyone’s tastes, and thus, I’m gonna dip a toe in the Sargasso Sea that is the X-Universe. Thankfully, our tour guide and majordomo is the ever-brilliant Peter David, and he’s back on the book that he made interesting. The only question is: How does he get inside so many different heads at once?
Marvel Comics has sent us a six page preview of X-Factor #13, including two cover variants. Looks like a great jumping on point for those new to the characters, or for those who read the original series and want to catch up.
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