All New X-Factor #1 (2014)

[Written on 12/26/14]

All New X-Factor #1 By Peter David and art by Carmine-Di-Giandomenico

Peter David is a writer that has been off my radar. I’ve heard his name come up when it comes to his Hulk run, but he also did a run on X-Factor. Before this, X-Factor was established as a mutant detective agency that recently closed down. Now this All-New series starts with a fresh version of the team after the team closed shop earlier before Marvel Now [In November 2013].

In a recent interview on CBR, David said the series would be ending around #20, so I wanted to hurry up and see if it was worth reading the run or not. The only series of X-Factor I read was the first essentials volume [vol.1 #1-16].

Gambit is seen diving through a laser web like the sneaky thief he is. The last time he was seen was in his own 2012 solo series, which I was planning on reading at some point. Wolverine shows up and stops his attempt at robbing an artifact (and this was before Wolverine was about to die too, since that wasn’t until later in the year in out-of-comic time).

Logan scolds him and points out that he’s a teacher at the Jean Grey school now, and that he needs to straighten up and stop working with the Thieves Guild. Gambit goes to a bar to drink off all of Logan’s nagging when he sees Polaris. She was a magnetic mutant featured in X-Factor and Legacy and had a noted relationship with Gambit. They fly on a Serval Industries jet, and Polaris tells him they are a new organization that works with everything from search engines to weapons research.

They enter the very smoothly designed building, and the woman on the top floor tells them that they will be forming a new corporate X-Factor team. Gambit also meets the CEO Harrison Snow, who admits he isn’t very much interested in weapons as much as someone like Tony Stark. However, he says he bought the X-Factor name from Madrox and plans to turn it into the first corporate superhero team. I think this concept has been done in DC comics before, but I don’t think it’s a very good idea. Though, in DC I’m pretty sure I’m thinking of the government owned teams like Suicide Squad, not exactly a corporation. Is this corporation going to be responsible for all the damage these heroes cause? Are the heroes going to be paid? There’s a lot of strange questions that are probably going to be answered...or just brushed aside. Regardless, I’m not sure I like the idea of sponsored superheroes. Government operatives like SHIELD make sense, but for a private corporation it just seems like an unnecessary risk.

Quicksilver is suddenly introduced as another member of the group, but he doesn't exactly make it any easier for everyone to trust this whole idea.  Pietro also mentions that for some reason (not shown within the comics themselves, unless I missed something within Avengers) that he has broken away from the Avengers and wanted to join X-Factor like he had in the past. The CEO then explains that he is tasking them with shutting down a scientist who is doing mutant research for a group related to AIM. The three easily break into the facility, but the mutant who is currently being experimented on is another former X-Factor mutant named Fatale. The last time she was seen, she was reported as missing (since 2007 in out of comic time, so it’s been awhile since she’s been active) after losing her powers (on M-Day) and then gaining them back again (during Terrigenesis...which is strange because based on what I heard the Terrigen Mists are causing mutants to get sick nowadays...rather than giving them powers). For reference, her original powers were light manipulation, but that’s not mentioned or shown in this issue.

Overall, I really liked this issue, and the art was a real joy to look at. The dialogue, especially from 
Gambit, is really well handled and for the most part I thought this book was really good. A 8/10. If I knew more about these characters from the old X-Factor, It probably would be more of a 9/10 for me. Hopefully I’ll be able to learn more about Fatale and Polaris through recaps or throughout the next few issues. I like seeing Quicksilver being able to get in the spotlight more (something he really deserves) and being on a smaller team helps him do that, whereas I don’t remember him being very active in other books like Avengers or X-men (at least recently). The same thing could be said for Gambit. The two of them alone could sell the book for me. This doesn't subtract from the score at all, but the cover doesn't really grab me. It’s not bad art actually, the style just seems kind of awkward to me...in a bad way. There’s nothing wrong with the colorful deco style, it’s just not something I like. A nice touch is that they added the company logo to the cover...is this supposed to represent like an in-universe advertisement? The colors themselves really do pop nicely though and that makes the cover at least a 2.5/5.