X-Factor #40-50
“Timely Events”
Writer: Peter David
Pencillers: Valentine DeLandro and Marco Santucci
Inkers: Pat Davidson, Valentine DeLandro, Marco Santucci, Patrick Piazzalunga, and Craig Yeung
Letterer: Cory Petit
Colourists: Jeromy Cox, Nathan Fairbairn and Andy Troy
Editors: John Barber and Jody Leheup
It’s been a long while since I reviewed an X-Factor storyline… but then, it’s been a long while since one finished. I think. For some odd reason, three of these issues have titles (#40, #41 and #43). The rest don’t. Nor do the latter two issues make sense as break points. It seems to be more or less random. So, I’m going to take #40-50 as one big storyline – which is certainly how they read – and pick the last of the three titles, simply because it seems the most appropriate.
Peter David has said before that he wants to boost X-Factor‘s sales, which is always a tough job for any title. Part of his strategy, around the time this storyline started, was a series of shock cliffhangers, such as the pay-off to Siryn’s pregnancy, and the return of Layla as an adult. As an attention-grabbing scheme, this kind of made sense. But for most of the last year, the book has been tied up in a highly involved (and highly convolved) time-travel storyline which was making some of us increasingly impatient.
Please note, it’s not the length of the storyline as such. Long-term planning is a great thing, at least in a book that can be confident enough of its long-term existence to generate the pay-off. Stretching out a story over a number of years is great, if it’s strong enough to justify it. The difficulty with this story is that it takes an awfully long time to get anywhere – not so much because of a slow pace or “decompressed” storytelling, but because the plot has so many threads and goes in such circuitous directions that it fills a whole load of pages without really getting to the point.
You’ll notice from the credits list above that this book got through a ton of artists. But it does manage to keep a fairly consistent look, perhaps because there are no outright fill-in artists – Valentine De Landro and Pat Davidson are there for at least part of every issue. And the art is pretty successful. The future Dr Doom is suitably delapidated, and most of the big dramatic moments come off well. While the art never seems quite comfortable with the giant robots, it’s good with the people.
Cutting through assorted mysteries, the plot goes something like this. Madrox is taken into the future by Layla Miller, who we left in one of those dystopian Sentinel-controlled futures at the end of “Messiah Complex.” Now she’s an adult, and hooked up with the Summers Rebellion. She seems to have brought Madrox there simply to ensure that things turn out as planned. Meanwhile, the authorities are trying to stop the Rebellion by sending a brainwashed Madrox duplicate, Cortex, back in time to the present with a “Doomlock” device that lets him alter history, so that he can try and kill off the Rebellion’s ancestors. This he does by possessing a bunch of people and sending them to assassinate, among other people, one of X-Factor’s clients. Oh, and one of the people he possesses is Shatterstar, who thereby joins the cast. Meanwhile, in the future, the Rebellion have noticed that people are blinking out of existence, and Madrox is investigating. He meets up with Dr Doom, who’s already expecting them thanks to yet another time-travelling visit from an even-further-future Layla, and finds out about the Doomlock stuff. There’s also a subplot in here about the guy in charge of the Sentinels nearly getting kicked out by the government, but again, that’s not really important. So in the future, the Sentinels make their last big attack on the Rebellion, while in the present, X-Factor fight Cortex. Finally Cortex is yanked back to the future where Dr Doom tries to use him as a weapon to kill the Rebellion, but he’s beaten there too. The big Sentinel is defeated, and Madrox is sent back to the present. Layla goes even further into the past where she relates all of her memories to her own younger self, thus explaining how she “knows stuff”; her real power, it turns out, is actually to bring people back from the dead.
Complicated, isn’t it? And the way it’s told, the book ends up juggling a multitude of plot threads: Siryn sulking in the office, M and Darwin protecting Cortex’s target, Rictor and Guido being reunited with Shatterstar, Layla and Madrox in the future, and the guy in charge of the Sentinels politicking with other baddies. It seems to be the challenge of juggling so many threads in a 23-page comic that leads the story to grind to a halt. Issues #43-46 end up alternating the present-day subplots, so that cliffhangers aren’t picked up until two issues later. In the future, Madrox and Layla arrive for their first conversation with Doom in issue #43, and don’t conclude it until issue #47. This is slow by any standards.
It also means that to follow Peter David’s elaborate design, you have to be keeping track of plot elements that haven’t been mentioned for a couple of months. This is where readers start getting confused – and when the recap page tells them that Cortex was trying to kill the ancestor of a minor character, they wonder what they were missing. (Nothing, really. His target is actually explained in passing in the story itself, but it doesn’t actually matter; the point is simply that Cortex is trying to alter history by killing the rebels’ ancestors.)
Naturally, it’s vastly improved by reading it in a single sitting, where the length isn’t a problem, and the overall scheme becomes clearer. But that still leaves the big question: what was all this about? At first glance, it seems to be an extremely clever story full of time loops and such like, but one which isn’t actually saying anything in particular.
Reading more closely, the point seems to be that what at first appears to be a web of unrelated stories resolves over the course of a year into something intricately constructed. And all this seems to be calculated to support Layla’s worldview: that everything is pre-ordained, and that free will is just an illusion. The plot includes some seemingly random coincidences to strengthen that point. Doom’s suite is in the same hotel where Lenore is holed up in the present day; and on both occasions when Trevor Fitzroy opens a random time portal, it dumps a Sentinel to precisely the place where it needs to be to complete the plot. Layla has given up trying to change history and simply goes with the flow, intervening here and there to ensure that things turn out as she remembered it. Her reward, if you can call it that, is to complete her memory loop and finally move on to events that she doesn’t know about in advance. Cortex is trying to change history, but he’s the bad guy, and events seem to conspire against him to prevent it.
By pairing Layla with Madrox, Peter David seems to be writing about free will versus determinism. Layla’s world is entirely deterministic – it’s on rails, and so it’s meant to be. (Whether this fits with the traditional Marvel Universe take on divergent timelines is beside the point.) Madrox, on the other hand, is a one-man embodiment of alternate realities, since his duplicates allow him to explore both options whenever he’s faced with a choice. As we’ve seen throughout this series, though, that’s no better: a world where every choice is taken ends up being a world where no choices are really taken at all. There’s no free will on that model either.
Since David clearly isn’t finished yet, I assume this is ultimately heading towards some sort of synthesis of Madrox and Layla’s worldviews. One way of doing that is to pursue Madrox’s problem to its logical conclusion and argue that a single timeline doesn’t contradict free will, but rather reflects the fact that choices were actually made. The other is to legitimate the grand design as something reassuring in itself – in other words, to wheel on God. And it may be no coincidence that the only well-adjusted Madrox duplicate we’ve seen is a priest.
All very interesting, then, but that still leaves us with the niggling problem that we’ve just had a year-long time travel story to reach the intermediate stage of a multi-year exploration of free will. And while there are plenty of interesting ideas in here, it’s not altogether satisfying as a piece of drama, because it drags on a bit, and because it’s so keen to stress the idea that everything is on rails. As a result, it feels at times like an overelaborate exercise in clever plotting, and one whose strengths were always likely to be lost on a monthly schedule. That said, it works much better when you read it as a whole – and the more I think about it, the more it’s growing on me.
The term, “woah” came to mind when reading your analysis of X-Factor. I got into X-Factor around the start of this story, and was fairly confused by it. I’ll agree it was well written, but your comments about needing to follow plot elements from months back, is completely true. I enjoyed the story-line, despite the level of relative confusion, for some of the sillier or cooler moments (Monet fighting in the nude, or Ruby Summers actually becoming an interesting character.
I did enjoy your breakdown of the determinism vs. free will argument. I suppose it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out now that adult Layla is seemingly with Dr. Doom (having supposedly kidnapped Sue Storm).
I might argue however, that a good chunk of X-Force was marginalized in the storyline. That’s just my own feelings however.
Also, and this may be due to not following the story with a magnifying glass, but I was unclear about how “Cortex” was created in the first place. I know he’s the other duplicate, but I meant more about how he was created (power-wise), and if he had any actual goals.
But, you did a thorough, and intelligent analysis on something that is fairly confusing, so good work.
Oh boy! Now I’m excited for the TPB. Can’t wait to read this.
I admit to dropping X-Factor at #38, on account of it going away from the noir-aspect, and everything that has happened since then and #200 (the shocks, Peter David and Scans Daily and his fit about spoilers) I’m just politely ignoring.
X-Factor #200 is what I wanted to read about, and I’m glad the book is back to where version started at.
This is a brilliant analysis of a year or so of storyline. I’ll confess that the finer points of David’s themes here flew right over my head (I’m blaming the protracted plot), so I’m glad you’ve been generous enough to supply your interpretation. I think you’re right on the money, too, as the “Free will vs determinism” theme is one David keeps expanding on, in his Star Trek books (Q-Squared), his fantasy books (the prophecies in Sir Atropos of Nothing) and even his Hulk comics (Future Imperfect). This sort of analysis makes me think more kindly of David as a writer too–does anyone really think “Seige” will be attempting anything quite so philosophical?
Oh, and I agree with Marc that certain team members do come off as marginalized. Everyone gets their role, but in X-Factor, it sometimes seems like they’re shoehorned in between Layla and Madrox scenes. It’s still not as bad as Cyclops and the regular X-Men, but it does seem to stand out on occasion.
one of the best titles i pick up. i barely consider it an X book anymore – maybe thats the point. really got the feeling i had to have every issue in this run, even considering all the way – that it was gonna read better in a trade too. so i think its a good example of making the most of both mediums(maybe). there werent any discernible arcs though. i normally hate that. props to PAD for making it work. reminded me alot of Y The Last Man’s first few trades.
Nice synopsis. I agree, it does read so much better as a whole than per issue. I also got the impression that David had more he wanted to do, as issue 50 is rushed, to say the least.
But, per issue, I *loved* each cliffhanger. They were great and really reminded me of comics in the dim and distant past which had that “woah!” moment at the end of an issue. Had to see what happened next.
It’s kind of true that the cast is getting a bit too large and unwieldy – I can’t exactly say I wanted Darwin, Longshot and Shatterstar in a comic, but David is good at giving them all character moments. Also, I never considered really wanting M, Siryn, Rictor and Strong Guy together, so I will give him a chance. The good thing about having a cast of (in the X-books) minor characters is that there is more room to play with, rather than with Rogue or Cyclops, for example.
I’m interested as to what happens with Layla now. She doesn’t really “know stuff” after all! I have to admit, that final panel, where she walks away from her younger self, was very sad for me. It was a nice culmination of many years of story, and that’s so rare in the x-books these days, that seem to have sacrificed character and long term plot for big action scenes. Seriously, when was the last time something actually *happened* with characters such as Nightcrawler, Iceman, Colossus…?
Minor note – I also liked the way that Layla is responsible for Fitzroy. It was a lot of effort for David to use that bit of history, but I think it ties in really well. That’s what’s lacking from Uncanny X-Men especially. The sense of previous events and history.
Layla’s powers are to reanmimate the dead. I’m surprised the editors didn’t try to make PAD include this in Necrosha
Of course that doesn’t explain how she gave Rhane a vision of her killing Jaime and Layla. Or why it was a big deal that she could tell anything about that robot girl. He’s acting like he has everything planned out but he’s either making things up as he goes along or he’s intentionally inserting untrue things to “fool” the fans.
And really if you want to increase readership, then you shouldn’t go around annoying fans like he did the past year.
Tryp the Even Older gave Rahne the vision, not Layla.
Huh?
At least with the renumbering, X-Factor finally has a point again, even if that point was the point it established with its first issue (er, the relaunched one) and stopped following after the book started to get caught up in too many crossovers. New Mutants aside, the only way X-Factor had managed to distinguish itself up to this point was as “the X-team book without Wolverine in it.”
To clarify Mammalian Versimilitude’s statement, it was Tryp, the villain from the first 12 issues, who gave Rahne the vision you describe, not Layla. More specifically, the oldest of Tryp’s multiple selves did so.
I wish that I felt the same way as Paul about this storyline. I have loved X-Factor since the Madrox miniseries, and I’ve been regulary buying it since then. No I admit that time travel stories give me a headache to begin with (and yet I happily watch Lost, go figure) but this story has me so turne doff to X-Factor that I still havent bought #200. I feel like this story just fiddled around with twists, reveals, and false finishes for months, and nothing really happened or came to fruition. If Peter David wanted to raise sales, why would he write this twisting and meandering and needlessly complicated storyline? I think it was a creative misfire. I wish I could view this story as a meditation about free will v. determinism like Paul did. I just found it a slog to read with no payoff.
To be honest, Peter David lost me right as his sales strategy kicked into overdrive. I jumped ship as the Secret Invasion crossover started, simply because it seemed to blur what could have been an intriguing new premise (detectives in Detroit!) so much with standard Skrull sci-fi skulduggery and nonsense that I grew frustrated and left: this wasn’t what I was buying the book for. And once I tried to jump back in a few issues later I decided it wasn’t worth my while untangling the increasingly convoluted plot, which had sped on without me.
I enjoyed #200 quite a bit, though; it feels very different from the early issues and from Madrox, but then again it seems to feel a bit more…Peter David. (Based on my admittedly limited experience from the New Frontier novels.) Still, you made this arc sound very intriguing, so I think I’ll check it out in trade.
[QUOTE]standard Skrull sci-fi skulduggery[/QUOTE]
Shouldn’t that be “Skrullduggery”?
I think the point was to leave the dupes new abilities vague for the purpose of exploring them in an arc involving Tryp the elder at a later date, but I could be wrong.
I must confess, that on first reading, I didn’t quite *get* this arc, but after reading your review, I went back and read it all in one shot, and it *did* make a LOT more sense. You’re right…splitting the stories up into so many smaller parts so that each one advanced soooo slowly, really accomplished the exact opposite of what one might expect, and made the story very difficult to follow.
I’ll still be buying this title, though, as, along with Incredible Hercules, it’s one of my favorite books Marvel is currently publishing.
I was annoyed and bored by the whole future-trip storyline until in the later issues when (SPOILER) Tryp appeared. At that moment it all snapped into place and even though it didn’t seem to make sense, I at least had a feeling Peter David knew exactly what he was doing, as opposed to throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck. That moment made me commit to X-factor for at least another 50 issues and eliminated most doubts I was carrying. So either I am trusting Peter David way too much and am going to be horribly disappointed, or I am in store for a great time that answers all my questions (for example: what’s up with Clay from the Madrox mini-series? He appeared briefly in X-factor and then was gone again, I know something is cooking with him). Let’s hope it is the latter.
Peter David needs to stop trying to do Irish accents. It offends every sense.
Worse than Clarmont doing Rogue and Gambit?
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