In February, 1986, the original five X-Men again teamed up in “X-Factor,” one of the earlier “X-Men” spinoffs and one not handled by regular “X-Men” writer Chris Claremont.
Bob Layton handled the writing for “X-Factor” #1, which was drawn by Jackson “Butch” Guice. Jean Grey had recently returned from the dead, in the pages of “Fantastic Four” and “The Avengers.” She had been Marvel Girl, one of the original five X-Men, along with Angel, Cyclops, Beast and Iceman.
In the classic “Dark Phoenix Saga,” she had given up her life — but, as revealed in this issue, the Phoenix wasn’t actually Jean Grey. A mystical “phoenix force” had replaced Jean, and was the entity that perished. Jean was found, still alive, preserved in a cocoon, only the worse for wear by the diminishing of her telepathic abilities. (Her telekinetic abilities, however, increased.)
That’s a lot to take, but, given that the editorial idea at the time was to reunite the original X-Men, I suppose the way they brought Jean back wasn’t the worst. (I believe writer Kurt Busiek came up with the idea.) Still, it does somewhat undermine the “Dark Phoenix Saga,” and, as I’ll get into later, sets Cyclops up to look like a real jerk.
Jean’s revival happened at a fortuitous time for three of her former teammates — Angel, Beast and Iceman were returning to civilian life after the dissolution of their previous super-hero team, the Defenders. But because of discrimination against mutants, Hank McCoy, aka the Beast, wasn’t having any luck finding a position in the world of academia.
The less-obviously mutated Iceman, Bobby Drake, became an accountant, but missed the adventuring life. And Angel, aka millionaire Warren Worthington III, sought direction.
Jean’s return spurred all of them to again work together, along with Cyclops, Scott Summers, the original leader of the X-Men. Scott and Jean had been in love, and her return affected him the most. His marriage — to Jean’s lookalike Madelyne Pryor — was seemingly on the rocks. Despite the birth of a son, Scott couldn’t shake his feelings for Jean. Now, that she’s again alive, he’s along for the ride, whether or not he agrees with the mission.
The mission, developed by Angel with college roommate Cameron Hodge, now a marketing expert, is to work with the anti-mutant hysteria to help mutants. The five original X-Men will position themselves as “X-Factor,” a mutant-hunting organization that would secretly take in and train the mutants they hunted.
I suppose now is as good a time as any to take a moment and say, what?
It’s kind of a ridiculous premise. And it seems likely to incite even more of the problems the team members want to eliminate. I remember, from reading the book at the time, that this was eventually dealt with — but here, it’s just presented as the new status quo. The X-Factor guys take a job, sneak into X-Men like costumes and subdue the mutants, explain what they’re doing, then switch back into their Ghostbuster-like gear and present a bill.
As mentioned earlier, another problem with this issue is that Cyclops, who I generally like, comes off horribly. He’s mopey, he’s jerky, and he leaves his wife and baby with nary a word. Now, Maddy doesn’t come off well in this story, either, but there’s almost no way to finish reading this issue and root for Cyclops.
Still, the art by Guice is good, and Layton had a good handle on what was expected in the Jim Shooter-era Marvel Comics. Despite the mounds of exposition and backstory needed to get issue 1 off the ground, it’s readable, if wordy. Layton only did a handful of issues of “X-Factor” before handing the title over to Louise Simonson. It seems like there’s probably quite a behind-the-scenes story to be told about the genesis and early years of “X-Factor,” and it could be one more entertaining than the book itself. I still found “X-Factor” #1 to be an interesting time capsule of a highly anticipated launch in the mid-1980s.
– Matt Price
