Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities All-New X-Factor

Yep, I'm a YJ virgin pretty much. Not sure why, but I picked up the first few issues and didn't continue. No idea why because at the time I bought everything else Peter wrote. I know I wasn't wild about Todd Nauck's art style back then, though, so that may have been a big factor. Ironic, since I've warmed up so much to art styles like his in the years since and know I wouldn't turn it down for that reason again. One day I'll have to revisit YJ.

The thing about YJ is that the first year-plus worth of issues is kinda fluffy and frivolous, and then, suddenly, around #15-16, PAD masterfully pulls out all the stops and the book gets more serious but without losing the sense of fun. I hope you revisit it soon. And I know exactly what you mean about the Todd Nauck style of art. It's grown on me over the years, too.

I'd say for me it's even earlier for the brilliance to start building in YJ-- namely once the girls firmly are established around #6 or so. I've never reread the series, only reading as they came out, but it was right then that it moved up to *must read asap* status in my weekly pull.

And IMO, it stays brilliant all the way to the final issues. Even when the Ray and Slobo were there, it was just as good as ever.

In this stage of his career, most of his output was on a decline but YJ and Spyboy (at Dark Horse ) remained top notch and showed he still could strut his stuff when he was engaged.

Also on Nauck, I can pinpoint the exact panel when I started to love him: the story where YJ is in hell, riffing on Dante's Inferno, and Wonder Girl is speaking...and Nauck depicts here doing the classic disco point as if dancing to disco inferno. I just felt he "got it" and was PAD's perfect accomplice.

I liked Supergirl from beginning to end, but it was simply superb during the long Earth Angel phase. Afterwards, it was merely good to varying extents. That last storyline to close the series with a basically alternate Kara Zor-El story was a great send-off.

I missed most of Fallen Angel and never read anything after the first DC trade, which was really good. I own the first 5 or 6 issues or so of the IDW series but never read them, intending but never getting around to filling in the remainder of the DC series in the interim. It's on my long, long list of things to fill in eventually.

Was Aquaman concurrent to Supergirl? Most of that was really excellent.

As I've said before, his Madrox-then-X-Factor run is pretty impressive up 'til the Messiah Complex. I jumped on for a year or so after Siryn gives birth. I wanted more than anything for that tragic story to finally give me the Madrox storyline I wanted, but PAD only skirted it and jumped into a confusing time travel story instead. Unfortunately, that whole storyline was incredibly 'meh' at best. Then, with the new number one, he failed to grab me when I gave him a handful of issues to turn it around. I never returned after that.

And of course, his run on X-Factor was always cursed with inconsistency on the artistic side.

It's surprising to me that PAD hasn't gotten into the creator-owned boom of the modern era since FA. Maybe it's his health and the security of work-for-hire, but I think that's just the kind of thing that could revitalize his career.

Cobie, I loved the YJ in Hell stuff, too. Only PAD would portray Hell as the place where the 70s never ended, and Nauck did the concept...uh...justice (no pun intended, I just couldn't think of a better word.)

Lardy, YJ started shortly before PAD's Aquaman run ended due to mixed signals from editorial. If you'll forgive the shameless plug, I'd like to remind everyone that after the X-Men re-read is over, I'll be re-reading the first 26 issues of PAD's Aquaman run.

Those issues, as well as Atlantis Chronicles and Time & Tide remain for the high point in Aquaman's 70 year history. I was utterly enthralled with DC's water based characters during this period under PAD's guidance.

Aquaman, Hulk and Supergirl all began to suffer greatly are he same time during his divorce. It was YJ and Spyboy where he started to really regain his sense of fun I think.

I liked his X-Factor revival a lot and collected way past the point I was enjoying it. Sometime around Longshot / Darwin / ugly art by Larry Stroman and others I couldn't even get through and issue and gave up.

I liked the debut more than I thought I would, but quite a bit less than the previous book. None of the characters seem like folks that would be particiularly drawn to a corporate team and all that should imply. (Policy vs. conscience... the evils of overtime, the bottom line and meeting evaluation expectations...)

Yellow as a main costume color doesn't work for Lorna or her brother, Quicksilver. I'd rather they kept their own looks (or reverted to a classic one, in Lorna's case) with the cat symbol. Lorna looks way too much like Abigail Brand, here. Not a fan. Maybe they can earn them.

I wonder if the creators will confound comic book expectation and have the CEO guy be a nice guy. Heroic, even. I'm suspicious of him, of course. What Marvel corporate bigshot other than Tony Stark remains a good guy? Especially since he smiles readily.

I am looking forward to Peter David's take on Cypher and Warlock. I like that he includes members of the New Mutants on his X-teams. I wish he'd get to use the whole team, including those who graduated to the most recent X-Factor.

It'd be funny if Pietro hooked up with Danger, given his reactions to Wanda and Vision way back when.

So...I never bought it. I browsed every issue in the store that's come out, and basically read #1 cover to cover anyway. It just felt really, really flat to me.

The characters are kind of meh, the artwork is a little too crude, the colors are over the top, the plot was pretty run of the mill, the corporate angle is tired and played out, the humor didn't click, the seriousness didn't feel real...and so on, and so on. I don't know what it was really, and if any of those things I just listed are even true. But something was missing. There just wasn't any magic to it.

Oh well. Maybe PAD will be back to form on his next one...

It's been confirmed. This book is cancelled with issue #20.

In hindsight, it really wasn't a good idea to relaunch X-Factor with the same writer (even a writer as talented as PAD) so soon after the end of the last X-Factor.

Did anyone here keep following it even after the underwhelming first couple of issues?

I was pretty underwhelmed by the cast, so it's one I never bothered with.

It was a project pretty much doomed from the start.

In somewhat more pleasant news, PAD's new Spider-Man 2099 series launched recently. The first trade is due in February, and I'll see what I think. My expectations are realistic, as this might turn out to be another case of retreading old ground, but I'm cautiously hopeful.

Gah! I could kick myself!

On a whim, I borrowed the first All New X-Factor trade from the library. Well, it turns out issue 3 was where the book finally gelled. Everything worked -- the jokes, the characters, the story beats. BLAST IT! If only I'd stuck around for one more issue!

It probably wouldn't have saved the book from getting cancelled, but we'll never know.

Also, the EEEEWWW thread from this forum contains a scene from a later issue which was in questionable taste, but I'm now willing to give PAD the benefit of the doubt that it was just a lapse.

And, oh yeah, Spidey 2099 Mark II just got cancelled. Now PAD going to be writing a Secret Wars mini-series starring Avengers 2099.

Avengers 2099 sounds intriguing.

X-Men 2099 was the best X-Men team with the most compelling characters I've seen from Marvel in years. I kind of wish they'd revisit those characters.

As for this last X-Factor run, I'm not a huge fan of most of the characters involved (except for Cypher, who I liked back in the day, but am kind of okay with staying dead). I find that PAD does some great characterization, and has turned characters I cared nothing about (or even actively disliked, like Layla Miller) into favorites, but this run just didn't have enough characters in it from the start that dragged me in.

I am a fan of John Francis Moore, who wrote all 35 issues of X-Men 2099. Your repeated posts about that series have finally inspired me to go hunting for cheap back issues. Thanks, Set.

John Francis Moore is one of those underrated writers whose work I never actively sought out yet always left me satisfied by his work. I wonder what he's up to now?

Probably working in other media would be my guess.

He also wrote the first 25 issues of Doom 2099 (the good ones), and had a short run on X-Factor. During Age of Apocalypse, Steve Epting became the penciller, but a couple issues after regularly scheduled programming resumed, Moore was gone, replaced by...Howard Mackie.

Epting left soon after that, thank God, because as an Epting completest, I had to have those issues, no matter how badly written they were.

Some great Ron Lim art, some good storytelling, some crazy cool future concepts. (One character, Krystalin, is the daughter of two black activists, following a Wakandan inspired political party, but left her families activism behind and is a devoted Thor-worshipper, because, in 2099, decades after Thor regularly walked the Earth and defended it, he's got a pretty mainstream church!)

Just a few weeks ago I picked up All New X-Factor for the first time. It was the EEEEWWW thread here that got me curious--was it just a prurient scene or was there some worthwhile story behind it, and if so, what was it? I've been intrigued by Cypher since I first saw the character, but I know little about him.

So I picked up issue #18 and saw on the first inside page a list of characters I had found interesting at first sight back in the day but don't really know very well--Gambit, Polaris, Quicksilver, Warlock, in addition to Cypher. All on the same team! So I bought #18, then the next week I bought #19 & 20 (to discover that #20 was the last issue, darn it!). This was a good book...well-written, sharp art.

I went back and bought #9-17 which I'm reading now. I wish there were more new stories coming.

I'm looking forward to learning what you think of the other issues, LT.