Despite the fact that we all knew that Alex was leaving to head the Avengers/X-Men team formed in "Uncanny Avengers" #1, David makes it feel organic here, like the decision to leave came first and the decision to lead came second.
I forget sometimes that David wrote the first era of this team, way back when, since it seems so unbelievable that he's been writing it for so long. But, when you read what he does with Alex and Lorna here, you remember how well he knows the characters and how Alex and Polaris never seem to have as much of personalities as they do when David writes them. I think it's particularly true of Lorna. She's often portrayed as a completely insane harpy, whereas David has always portrayed her as a level-headed woman who occasionally has problems that she finds overwhelming to handle. (I mean, Magneto is her father and she killed her parents by accident when she was a child. You tell me you'd handle those revelations well.) She gives a lovely speech here about how she likes the people in X-Factor because they're not about being mutants all the time. Lorna has always seemed more or less ambivalent about her power, like she'd be willing to give up the whole X-Men business if she felt like she could really manage it (or, at least, convince Alex that he could). As such, it makes sense that she'd be more comfortable on a team that focused on something other than fighting for mutant rights all the time.
In fact, Alex is the one lost in the wake of "Avengers vs. X-Men" and David makes it clear that he's really struggling to understand this brave new world. As I mentioned in my "Uncanny X-Men" review, he is really the only X-Men leader left standing and he seems to be feeling that pressure here, unsure what to do now that no one is telling him what to do. It's actually why I'm so excited to see him lead the Avengers squad, since, as David underlines here, it does give him an opportunity to define himself as something more than an X-Man or Scott Summers' brother. In fact, David is giving both Alex and Lorna the chance to define themselves as something more than what they've been, in particular, something more than just a shadow of the Scott/Jean couple. It's going to be exciting to watch them do just that.
Looking forward, it seems that our new team is going to be Madrox, Layla, Longshot, Lorna, M, Rictor, and Shatterstar. I have to say that I would definitely be happy to run into that crew at a bar somewhere (except M, who I'm resigned as someone that I have to accept to get the others). Although "Breaking Points" hasn't been flawless in its execution, David has done what he wanted to do, paring down the team and starting us on a new road. Exciting stuff, particularly in the hands of someone as talented as Peter David.
I always said that X-Factor were people who were people first, while being a mutants meant that they had powers, enhance versions or extra abilities to go with what human limitations each of them would have, while knowing how they decided to use those abilities was that of a human, instead of a superior being that people like Magneto preaches about and at the same time disproves that preaching with his own actions and choices that only a foolish human would make.
ReplyDeleteX-Factor is a business that became part of the world, instead of living in isolation and visiting that world at times like the X-Men have been doing.
Totally. I was really hoping that "New Mutants" would've survived "Avengers vs. X-Men" because I was really hoping for a New Mutants/X-Factor team-up. Their MOs were so similar that I think ti would've been a good time had by all.
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