X-Factor 39 - Inferno

Cyclops's eyes are fully opened.

X-Factor #39

Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciler: Walter Simonson
Inker: Allen Milgrom
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colorist: Gregory Wright
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

At the ruins of the mansion the newly arrived Beast and Longshot fight against Mr Sinister and Malice/Polaris whilst the rest of X-Factor and the X-Men recover. Cyclops finds Mr Sinister is blocking his eye power and starts to remember him from his youth, including how he arrived in the hospital where Scott was taken after a plane crash and intervened when the young mutant's force blast blew a hole in the roof, knocking him out for a year. Sinister explains how he discovered Scott when the latter used his powers to reduce the impact of falling from a plane then had him transferred to an orphanage he ran and arranged for his brother Alex to be adopted to keep them apart. However before he could act Scott ended up with Professor Xavier and so Sinister prepared a trap by cloning Jean Grey then using Madelyne to secure a baby with potential. When the real Jean Grey reappeared Sinister set about cutting his losses now he had the child. Havok attacks but Sinister is unaffected and has no interest in the second Summers brother, ordering Malice/Polaris to kill him. Sinister continues to explain how he put blocks on Scott's power and buried his presence so no telepath could detect it but ultimately couldn't control the blasts with mental powers and had to resort to ruby quartz glasses. The others recover and through a telepathic conference they co-ordinate an attack, first knocking out Malice/Polaris then Wolverine disposes of Sabretooth. They release Havok who taunts his brother and fires plasma blasts at him which only have the effect of powering him up. Sinister breaks free and grabs Jean to kiss her. This riles Cyclops who overcomes Sinister's block and blasts him to fragments. Cyclops congratulates Havok on his tactics in powering him up as the X-Men head for home. Cyclops reflects on how he been vaguely aware of what he now knows was Sinister's influence and it drove him to try to be perfect but failed over the years.

And so we get to the final main chapter of Inferno (though there are several epilogue issues to come) with a showdown with Mr Sinister and more retcons to establish him as a longstanding presence in Cyclops's life. Why he has been so interested in one Summers brother but doesn't want the other is not explained beyond a "I could have if I chose" boast. I'm not sure just how much of Scott's childhood from the plane accident to the orphanage had been covered before the run-up to Inferno or just what if any contradictions there were in different accounts of those days that this telling sorts out but the insertion of Mr Sinister as a presence throughout his life is clearly intended to explain some of the awkward characterisation over the years, most obviously his desertion of Madelyne. The script doesn't quite go so far as to have Mr Sinister say that the desertion was directly because of him - indeed he instead blames it on Jean luring Scott to X-Factor - but Archangel voices it. It is as if the villain is intended to be a stand-in for the higher hand of editors over the years who have forced so much upon the titles that has had to be adapted to. But whilst it's possible for readers in the know to blame editors not writers for some of the messes, and there's also the reasonable defence that this development took place before Louise Simonson started writing the title, within the narrative it is still a weakness to resort to a supervillain manipulating everything as an excuse for past terrible characterisation.

There are many alternative ways the situation could have been handled but most of them required doing things differently when the series was created. Perhaps Jean could have been left for dead after all and the fifth female member of X-Factor could have been someone else - perhaps Polaris (a Silver Age member of the X-Men) or Dazzler (as seems to have been the original plan) or even a new character. Maybe Scott could have convinced Madelyne he had to return to his days in the costume and even taken her with him rather than just leaving her the moment the news of Jean's resurrection came. Having both one's wife and ex girlfriend around could have made for some interesting dynamics especially with the complication that Madelyne looked just like Jean. But all this required doing the start of the series differently. Instead first Scott walked out, then a large amount of time passed before he even tried to contact Madelyne and then a big crossover event (the Mutant Massacre) took up multiple issues so by the time a new writer was able to get him to travel back to Alaska it was not credible for his absence to have been a sufficiently short time for an easy reconciliation. The solution of just simply making Madelyne disappear as though she had never been there was tried, with the additional question of whether she had somehow been an amnesiac Jean all along to continue the long running tease, but it was insufficient especially once another writer brought her back. And so ultimately we get a tale of long-term manipulation with this issue adding elements to make Scott look better. It may convince Archangel but it's easy to see why many fans never truly accepted the explanation and Cyclops never fully recovered as a character.

It's also surprising just how major a factor Mr Sinister has been given how few issues he's been in. This is only the seventh comic he's appeared in and six of them have been chapters of Inferno. Although built up as a series unseen force there's something awkward about one-off villains being used to explain major story developments over multiple years. Also of surprise is that Sinister's relationship with Scott at the orphanage is not explained further. The hints all point to this "father" of Madelyne being Nathan (hence the son is named after all three of his "grandfathers"), the boy who tormented Scott and this has since been revealed as the planned origin of the character. However he gets killed off pretty quickly and doesn't return from the dead until later writers were on the title who infused their own ideas. "Mr Sinister" is actually quite a silly name for a villain, the sort of thing a child would come up with and the idea that one actually did is worth exploring more. Over the whole crossover there's been a lot of potential shown for the character and it's easy to see why he went on to become one of the leading X-Men villains not just in the comics themselves but also being an early presence in the toys and 1990s cartoon but he could have used at least one more story with his creator to be refined further. Also killed off surprisingly easy is Sabretooth as Wolverine casually deploys his claws though Sinister's use of cloning technology and the surprise resurrection of other Marauders provides a clear way to revive the character.

This is a surprisingly low key resolution to such a big crossover with just the two teams and three villains on a pile of rubble at the end and only one other character shown in a flashback. But Mr Sinister has not been directly part of the story of demons from Limbo invading Earth and instead has been the driving force behind the creation of Madelyne who got out of everyone's control. This is more of an epilogue to the main event and this probably explains why this issue and Uncanny X-Men #243 were not included on the advert for Inferno back in the summer of 1988. But it's still essential to the overall story as it resolves the role of Mr Sinister and brings closure for both X-Factor and the X-Men.

As an action showdown this is a strong piece. But as a retcon trying to fix one of the biggest problems caused by the creation of the series it's not the best approach, resorting to long-term manipulation by a basically new supervillain. However at this stage, and to be honest probably for the preceding couple of years, there isn't really a way to absolve Cyclops in a fully convincing way. At best one can parody the external influence that created the situation and it's not Simonson's fault that the problem was created. So this issue does as best as it can.

X-Factor 38 - Inferno

The many versions of Jean Grey come together.

X-Factor #38

Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciler: Walter Simonson
Inker: Al Milgrom
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colorist: Tom Vincent
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

Madelyne Pryor prepares to sacrifice her baby son Nathan Christopher Charles and tells the combined X-Factor and X-Men how she will gain power and have revenge upon them all. There are still demons around that are loyal to her and she sets them upon the two teams whilst also influencing them. The X-Men become more demonic and attack X-Factor, calling them "mutant hunters" which Cyclops explains was a now abandoned cover but Storm says they have seen no news of any change. She then remembers Madelyne is the one who collected the news for them and realises the teams have been manipulated to keep them apart. Madelyne tells Jean how she subconsciously used her powers to make Cyclops lose a previous fight with Storm that gave her the leadership and led to him quitting the team. She then offers Death/Angel power for revenge on all who have hurt him and he starts to succumb. The fight is complicated further when Dazzler and Longshot, both now incredibly vain and seeking the spotlight, start turning on other X-Men who they see upstaging them. Death/Angel frees Jean from her bonds but then Madelyne creates a forcefield around her, Jean and the baby. Madelyne tells how she was a clone created by Mr Sinister and Jean realises that just as with Phoenix she has again been duplicated with her duplicate unleashing dark power. Madelyne continues with how she has some of Jean's memories and the two realise that when Phoenix died and tried to return the portion of Jean to the original but in suspended animation she rejected the images of destruction and so the force found the genetically identical Madelyne instead making her everything that Jean rejected. With Madelyne's influence on the X-Men now fading they start coming back to normal and along with X-Factor they try to find a way to break through the forcefield. Wolverine convinces Havok to help who agrees but tells Cyclops he still doesn't approve of his actions and his brother admits he isn't proud either. Madelyne continues with how Mr Sinister arranged for her and Cyclops to get together and then once the baby was born and Jean returned he took steps to erase all trace of her ever having existed but the X-Men prevented the Marauders from killing her. Psylocke works on Longshot and gets him to find the weak spot in the forcefield which the others all blast. Madelyne explains how she censored news to manipulate the X-Men to stay apart from X-Factor. Then came S'ym and N'astirh driving her over to the darkness. She now prepares to destroy herself despite Jean's pleas. The forcefield is breached and Cyclops rescues his son so Madelyne unleashes an explosion of energy but fails to kill the boy. Mind locked with Jean she dies and tries to take Jean with her but the piece of the Phoenix force within her emerges and returns everything to Jean who now accepts it and absorbs them all. The demons vanish and the Empire State Building is restored. Death/Angel reflects and takes the name Archangel. Both teams reflect on what they've been through - and the need to confront Mr Sinister.

And so we have the final showdown with Madelyne Pryor amidst a major infodump issue that seeks to retcon a lot of the events of the last few years. Many readers were not happy with the way Cyclops was written through them whether it was losing a duel and thus the leadership of the X-Men to a depowered Storm or leaving Madelyne the moment he heard Jean had returned from the dead or failing to search for her afterwards until she had completely disappeared. In addition the length of time it took for the two teams to meet had become far too long. Although Louise Simonson's script has Scott admitting he is not proud of his actions, much of the blame is removed from him through the destruction of Madelyne as a character. Instead of having simply been corrupted by the influence of demons it's now revealed that through her creation and the intervention of the Phoenix force she was using her power to undermine Scott much earlier and then using her position to keep the two teams apart whilst Mr Sinister intervened to keep her apart from Scott. It's written in such a way to make it seem as though it was all planned and does its best to redeem Scott without going the whole hog and just having him mentally manipulated for years. It also makes a lot more sense of some of the more problematic elements caused by the creation of X-Factor. But in doing so it's making Madelyne a far worse character than a woman corrupted by outside influences.

With the Phoenix revelation Inferno effectively becomes an explicit sequel to the Dark Phoenix Saga as now seen through the lens of other retcons. Both stories involved a duplicate of Jean Grey being manipulated by others, ultimately succumbing to the power within her and turning dark (even down to the similar names and costumes for the Black Queen and the Goblin Queen), bringing down great destruction and finally committing suicide. Given the anniversary nature of the event it's perhaps unsurprising that the X-Men titles would return to their most famous story. And it's also clear that editorial demands wanted Madelyne removed completely with earlier attempts not succeeding. Having a little seen sinister force manipulating events doubtless reflects the editorial interference in the titles over the previous few years. But it can't take away from the fact that Madelyne had been built up as a character in her own right beyond someone who happened to be the spitting image of Jean and had shown herself to be a strong independent female character. Now she's been turned into literally a manipulative witch, used and sacrificed to satisfy the demands of others. It's hard to see how one spouse could have been so heavily absolved without such character assassination of the other but it doesn't sit easily. The reactions of others such as Havok's outrage at how his brother treated his sister-in-law or Jean's reaction to a duplicate of her becoming destructive again do feel credible.

But there's also redemption in these issues with Warren finally coming to terms with his own corruption at the hands of Apocalypse and resisting Madelyne's attempts to bring it out. In adopting the name "Archangel" he makes a clear rejection of all that others have done to him and can now fly tall. However it's surprising that he takes so many years to get rid of the costume Apocalypse gave him - had someone in Marvel signed a licensing agreement that locked him into that look? (He was in the first line of Toy Biz figures in 1991 but that agreement wasn't signed until 1990.) It's a final step up in empowering the character beyond the rich guy who could fly that he had been for so many years.

As a retcon heavy issue much of the action is limited with the further fight between the two teams largely serving to delay them from going after Madelyne but it does also allow for X-Factor to explain once more about how their initial set-up cover got out of control due to the manipulation of another and for the X-Men to realise how they too have been manipulated. The uneasiness between the two teams remains and shows you can't just remove a single point of disagreement and have everyone happy with each other. But all this is the sideshow to a very dramatic ending for Madelyne as she and the writers bring destruction down upon her. It's a well written issue and it solves the problem of Madelyne in the narrative once and for all but as was often the case with X-Factor a lot of heavy lifting was required to get the team to where editorial wanted it to be and this is perhaps the biggest lifting of all through destroying her character completely.

X-Factor 37 - Inferno

The team find themselves caught up in a rather messy divorce.

X-Factor #37

Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciler: Walter Simonson
Inker: Bob Wiacek
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colorist: Petra Scotese
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

Fighting through the demons X-Factor are confronted first by N'astirh, reformed through the transmode virus and now far more powerful, carrying Nathan Christopher Charles Summers. Then appears Madelyne Pryor to confront her husband for the first time since he left her and her rival. The confrontation is explosive with the baby (called Christopher by his father and Nathan by his mother) distressed and threatened for sacrifice whilst N'astirh finds that Madelyne has gotten out of his control and can now only manipulate her through suggestions. The rest of X-Factor advise Cyclops that they must take tougher measures and he reluctantly agrees but Madelyne is extremely powerful.

Looking back it's astonishing that it took a whole three years for this encounter to happen. As discussed in previous posts the whole Scott and Madelyne situation came about because of a clash of visions with Scott having been given a retirement happy ending when suddenly an editorial order came down to reunite the original X-Men causing Madelyne and their child to be casually abandoned both by Scott and the creative team. Madelyne then became an awkward element to tidy away and demonstrated how difficult it can be to undo a superhero marriage when external demands change. Worse still came when one writer had her disappear with all records as though she had never existed but another brought her back into the frame. And in all that time there was no direct confrontation between her and either Scott or Jean.

This issue gives us that confrontation and it's brutal. The ex-couple cannot even agree on what their child is called. Scott seeks to justify his recent behaviour by his belief that Madelyne was dead. Madelyne blames the demons for distorting her through their influence but N'astirh thinks about how the manipulation of Madelyne has gone wrong, as though there's something deeper to her. Although both spouses' sins are touched on and given depth there's a sense that there's something deeper in Madelyne that has made her so willing, as though she bears more guilt for her actions than just the influence of others. There's even a hint that when Scott lost a dual for the leadership of the X-Men to a depowered Storm and opted to leave the team it was because of Madelyne somehow influencing it. Her encounter with Jean is less direct, reacting in anger at her rival trying to comfort her son and siccing demons on her, including her own distorted parents, then declaring her hatred. Madelyne's power is intense and there's something more to it than a mere tool of demons.

There are some other good moments in the issue with one of the more subtle fixes as the Beast literally shreds his uniform and restores his more traditional bare chested look whilst the re-emergence of N'astirh with enhanced powers is handled well to make the demon more credible as the stakes increase. But overall this is very much the eventual meeting of Scott, Madelyne and Jean that we've been long awaiting and it does so in brutal form.

Avengers 300 - Inferno

Kang manipulates the Avengers into reforming.

Avengers #300

First story: Inferno²
Writing: Walter Simonson
Layouting: John Buscema
Finishing: Tom Palmer
Lettering: Bill Oakley
Coloring: Becton & Siry
Editing: Mark Gruenwald
Editing in Chief: Tom DeFalco

Kang of Earth 123488.23497 is caught on a time bubble and sees the demonic invasion which he realises will alter the timelines and cause him to cease to exist. Thus he sees the importance of bringing the Avengers together again to deal with the demons and then in the future enter the time bubble as is their destiny. He timejumps into New York in the present day and starts fading out of existence. Meanwhile Mr Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, Captain America and the Forgotten One manage to free Franklin from the hold of Nanny by threatening her other helper, Orphan Maker. Nanny escapes and the Forgotten One adopts the name "Gilgamesh" that he was known by during one of his many long adventures wandering the Earth. Franklin is still trapped in the armour Nanny put him in when one of N'astirh's demons identifies him as a source of power and his master realises the boy could be useful. N'astirh captures the boy and takes him to his lair. The four heroes pursue but cannot easily trace him so as Kang finally fades away he activates the Growing Man to bring the heroes together to reform the Avengers. The heroes discover Thor returning to New York and then a disguised Growing Man gets them to pursue him to N'astirh's lair at the World Trade Center. There they fight off the demons and rescue Franklin when the portal closes up. They then see off the Growing Man, with Reed managing to reverse his power so he shrinks every time he is hit. With the demons gone the five heroes take Franklin home to the Richards' house where they agree to reform the Avengers.

And there came a day unlike any other, when Earth's mightiest heroes found themselves united against a common threat. On that day, they became The Avengers!

So runs the traditional introduction to the series. For a 25th anniversary 300th issue spectacular in the midst of Marvel's biggest crossover event to that time what could be more appropriate than the re-formation of the team to battle the menace? The arrangement is so obvious and all the pieces are in place but there's a flaw. Inferno is ultimately an X-Men event. It originated in that family of titles and will ultimately be resolved there. Other series tackle events on the periphery and the impact of the changes on their own world of characters but they aren't able to take on and defeat the main demons. At most they can deal with a back-up plan if that. So there's a clear limit here and awkward ways to resolve it.

Adding to the complications is the amount of time the events of Inferno take. When read all together the impression given is that this issue takes place over an inordinate amount of time from before N'astirh absorbed the techno organic transmode virus through to the end of the demonic invasion. That suggests the new Avengers took forever in rescuing Franklin and by the time they did so the wider threat had been averted. This was a way of explaining why they didn't make it to the main action but it also makes their rescue efforts looking exceedingly slow.

As a result it's a very small scale affair that brings them together - the kidnapping of a single child. Even more astoundingly the protection of Franklin is not the reason why Reed and Sue agree to join the team even though spending more time with their son was the reason they left the Fantastic Four. Thus rather than coming together to deal with some great emergency the Avengers are re-formed from such a small affair.

To add to the disappointment there had already been a great world-threatening emergency that a team of Avengers had formed to defeat. Avengers Annual #17 had featured a team of reservists and associates pulled together to save the world. Might that not have worked better as the story of the Avengers' re-formation? It also has a more interesting line-up. Although it's clear that the Hulk and the Beast would not have been available for the long term because of other series, the other five Avengers provide a wide mix of powers, skills and history with the team that would have made for a good ongoing line-up. Here the new team presents its own problems.

Captain America is fine. He's the quintessential Avenger and with Steve about to formally reclaim the role having him at the forefront of the team would only enhance the character. But the rest all pose problems, not least because of duplication. There are two traditional leaders. There are two mythological strong men. Duplication and conflict is built in without obvious resolution. To be blunt it feels ridiculous that half the traditional line-up of the Fantastic Four would become regular members of another superhero team. It undermines their reasons for leaving their own team and Mr Fantastic especially is just not an easily transferable hero or someone who can easily take orders from another. It's also awkward to have two strong men from mythology on the team at the same time. In general Hercules's regular membership of the team has been in periods when Thor is absent so there isn't the precedent that one might expect. It also brings up the complication that whereas Thor is presented as the character from mythology straight, the Eternals are presented as different beings who inspired the stories told about them (a point that it's not too clear the script understands when the Forgotten One recalls his friendship with Enkidu or knowing the flying horse Pegasus) which is part of the wider problem of the Eternals never really being meant to be part of the mainstream Marvel continuity. Overall this is a team that cannot really work for the long-term.

Or indeed the short-term. The letters page announces Simonson's departure from the title which he since said was in part because of editorial orders to return Mr Fantastic and the Invisible Woman to Fantastic Four. So we get an awkward team put together by a writer who won't be around the direct it. Looking back it's now clear that Avengers was now into a rut that lasted for nearly sixty issues between the departure of Roger Stern and the full-time arrival of Bob Harras with a lot of writer turnover and fill-ins combined with a massively unstable membership as new writers and/or editors kept inheriting a line-up they weren't happy with and making more changes. Simonson's whole run has been one massive deconstruction and reassembling of the team so it's a pity it all came to very little.

As a result this is a disappointing main story. It's trying to do something spectacular but constrained by the circumstances of the wider crossover and ultimately presents a small scale adventure that brings together an unworkable version of the team. The Avengers really needed their own crossover to star in but that would come another time.

(P.S. The appearance by Kang here is its own source of confusion so here's an attempt to sort it all out. Back in Avengers #267-269 Kang had encountered a small council of his counterparts from across alternate timelines and also his future incarnation Immortus. At the end of the story he appeared to be the sole surviving Kang. Issue #291 onwards featured what appeared to be the same Kang who was stated as being from the timeline designated "Earth 123488.23497" which it transpired was the regular Marvel Universe - this was before all that "Earth 616" stuff had taken off. This Kang, who took the unique name "Fred", joined the Council of Cross-Time Kangs made up of far more counterparts and others who had bested them and taken on their identity and discovered a plot by a female Kang called Nebula who was portrayed very differently from the existing Avengers villain Nebula. "Fred" Kang and two other Kangs set off to prevent Nebula's plans which tore the Avengers to pieces but in the process the three Kangs fell onto a time bubble.

The implication in the Fall of the Avengers is that "Fred" Kang is the regular Kang and there's nothing here to contradict this. However over in Fantastic Four #323 the Kang there explicitly declares that the one in Avengers is not him and it seems the real Kang has stood apart from the Council. And to add to the complications an earlier Fantastic Four story had established Kang as coming from a parallel universe that had been visited by a dimension hopping Nathaniel Richards (Reed's father) who became Kang's ancestor which makes it hard for there to be a Kang from the regular Marvel timeline. The result is a confusing mess with two different Kangs who both have a claim to be the "real" one. I lose track of just how many times Handbooks, history sagas and flashback issues have tried to untangle this one, often with different answers. But it doesn't actually affect Avengers #300 itself.)


Second story: The Coming of the Accursed Avengers!
Storytellers: Ralph Macchio and Walt Simonson
Letters: John E. Workman Jr
Colors: Gregory Wright
Editor: Mark Gruenwald
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco

Loki makes his annual pilgrimage to the Isle of Silence and recounts how he inadvertently created the Avengers as part of a plan to get revenge on Thor by framing the Hulk and arranging for the thunder god to receive a call for help, only for other heroes to receive it as well. Thor came to the island and subdued his brother then took him to Earth where Iron Man, the Wasp and Ant Man had found the Hulk. Loki was defeated and the five formed the Avengers. Ever since this has horrified Loki.

This is a retelling of the team's origin with the unusual perspective of the villain who caused it all to happen. It's fast paced and by focusing on Loki it manages to avoid some of the odder moments such as the Hulk disguising himself as a robotic clown in a circus. But it can't disguise the sheer awkwardness of his original plan to lure Thor to the Isle. Why did he need to go through an elaborate charade to frame the Hulk when he could have simply sent an illusion to pester Thor in his Donald Blake form and lure him in that way?

As is now known Avengers was a rush commission when the first issue of Daredevil was delayed and part of the way to get a replacement book together in a hurry was to use existing characters including the villain who would not need to be designed anew. Unfortunately the plot was also rushed and it showed. But was there anything that could be done after the event? Marvel has gone through phases of different attitudes to its continuity. There have been times when they've done major revamps with retellings of the early years that change a lot (and cause fans to scratch their heads about subsequent stories that are effectively negated with nobody seeming to notice). At other times they've held firm with the original material adhered to and relied on convoluted retcons navigating around some of the early oddness. In 1988 the existing continuity was a clear selling point at a time when DC had recently pressed a big reset switch and a back-up story in a double anniversary issue (especially one edited by Mark Gruenwald) was not the place to tell a new version of the origin that made more sense.

So this stands as a straightforward revisiting the origin for the benefit of (primarily) newer readers with the twist of viewing it through the perspective of one of the characters involved. It's an interesting perspective to take and it helps confirm Loki continues to harbour anger about the team's existence but ultimately it isn't able to sort out the mess. But that was a mess made in 1963 not 1988.

Bonus material includes some Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe style entries. There's a two page entry on Edwin Jarvis that doesn't hide his unfortunate moments though it makes him seem far weaker than he appeared in issue #298.

There's a listing of all the members of the Avengers over time and the issues they appear in but it's a bit confused. The first problem comes with the long-standing argument about whether the Avengers are a single whole divided into East Coast and West Coast teams or if the West Coast is a franchise spin-off of an operation based on the East Coast. Whilst the various members who've only joined in West Coast Avengers are shown on the chart of faces, the accompanying text list ignores all issues of the series. It also can't make up its mind if it's listing appearances as team members or almost any appearance in the title and notably ignores listing any appearances by anyone who was a member of the West Coast team at the time. In addition there are some other mistakes such as mixing up appearances by the original Iron Man and his mid 1980s replacement or skipping a substantial chunk of appearances by the Wasp when she was the team's leader. There are some characters whose precise membership status has always been a bit unclear and much debated amongst fans and this shows on the chart with Hellcat listed as "Applied Avengers #144", Jocasta has no issue number shown at all and others are displayed as "Active" whilst the list skips around. Notably Nebula is not listed at all, doubtless because of the nature of how she joined through mind control and was lost only a few pages later.

Also included is a chart of support staff with a paragraph noting Captain America is expanding the team's administration. Not everyone shown here would necessarily make it into an Avengers issue but all are pre-existing characters with their first appearances noted. There's also a page devoted to Avengers Park, the site of the original mansion with a map of the open space replacing it and the statue of the early Avengers at the centre. The Avengers annual that year was notably short on features so it's good to see the anniversary issue providing some that feel stronger as information pieces rather than humorous side tales that can be very hit or miss.

Overall this issue is trying to present a strong anniversary package with a landmark story but ultimately a crossover centred on another family of titles is not the best place to relaunch the team. It would have been better for Avengers to have left the crossover an issue earlier and done its reassembling in its own story.

Avengers 299 - Inferno

Captain America seeks help from Reed Richards but instead finds Franklin has been kidnapped.

Avengers #299

Writing: Walter Simonson
Layouting: John Buscema
Finishing: Tom Palmer
Lettering: Bill Oakley
Coloring: Max Scheele
Editing: Mark Gruenwald
Editing in Chief: Tom DeFalco

The real Captain America returns to New York as demons come through the portal and finds the New Mutants dealing with them so he sets off to find more help. Elsewhere in Olympia the Eternal known as "the Forgotten One" is told of the demons and sent to New York to deal with the threat. In Connecticut Nanny has detected a powerful mutant and sends the Orphan Maker to kidnap the child and kill the parents; however the child is Franklin Richards and his parents survive because of a force shield around their bed. Captain America arrives and joins them in pursuing the ship to New York. Nanny's ship is brought down in the park where all four heroes converge but Nanny has a second helper in armour - Franklin.

There is still no team of Avengers put back together and only a few steps towards one. There's a strong hint that the Eternal called "the Forgotten One" will be joining (and also taking a name that will make my prose easier) but otherwise this issue feels more like it should be billed as "Captain America Team-Up" as he briefly works with the New Mutants and then two retired members of the Fantastic Four rather than seeking out new members.

The sequence in Times Square serves to bring Cap and the reader up to speed on the basics of the Inferno crossover as well as showing just how pointless it is to pretend to be anything but Captain America with Cannonball easily working out who he is. More surprising is the sudden use of Nanny from the pages of X-Factor even though Walter Simonson was drawing that book.

Nanny continues to have an unclear motivation but also there's some strange lapses in logic. Franklin is sleeping with his parents when he's kidnapped but for some reason the Orphan Maker is able to spread a sleep dust and lift Franklin out of the bed yet when he fires a gun there's a forcefield in the way. There's nothing indicating Sue Richards has heard Franklin's cries or that it's somehow automatically triggered and the result is the Orphan Maker has done a kidnapping but failed to live up to his codename. All the problems with Nanny continue here and make for some rather uninteresting scenes. However it does result in one of my all time favourite lines in comics as the Forgotten One shouts out:

He is not my son, egg with a voice. But if he tries to slay his own parents, he is a monster! And slaying monsters is why I am here!

Nanny is not too pleased.

Overall this issue feels stunted. Nanny just isn't that interesting a villain and with both the Avengers lacking a team and New York facing a demonic invasion this whole plot feels like a needless sideshow.

X-Factor 36 - Inferno

The team is finally reunited.

X-Factor #36

Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciler: Walter Simonson
Inker: Bob Wiacek
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colorist: Petra Scotese
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Beast is working with Iceman to deal with more inanimate objects coming to life and attacking people including a whole subway train and also trying to rebuild his relations with Trish Tilby who is struggling to come to terms with the recent changes in Hank but eventually realises he is the same man inside. Meanwhile N'astirh continues to scheme, thinking he has fooled Madelyne Pryor, and communicating with Death/Angel about his deal with Cameron Hodge. Warren determines to track down the demon and his schemes. Marvel Girl is finding her telepathic powers slowly returning as she tries to locate the baby Christopher whilst she and Scott's plane returns to New York. Suddenly a giant portal opens and demons enter Manhattan. All five members of X-Factor reunite in battle and set off to save Christopher from the demons.

This is an issue of coming to terms with recent changes. Warren has spent recent issues on a mission of vengeance and now that's completed he turns to Hodge's allies and protecting his friends. The end of the issue sees all five founding members together in action for the first time since the Mutant Massacre and the final panel is a delight although images of whole teams running forwards are at risk of getting a bit repetitive throughout Inferno. But the bigger acceptance comes from Trish Tilby as she struggles to accept the "strong, cocky genius with fur and fangs and a glib rap" is still the same person as "the Hank I knew... well, he was special. Handsome, gentle, and vulnerable... if not too bright." It's a reminder of just how long it's been since the Beast's mind started deteriorating and how people react to the big changes that often get made to characters. Also highlighted is how Hank uses a glib tongue to downplay the seriousness of a situation for those around him and reduce panic even as he's thinking how to deal with it.

Marvel Girl's development continues as her telepathic link to Christopher seems to be restoring her powers but she's also struggling with why the connection is so strong when he is not her son. N'astirh has also notice how similar she is to Madelyne but also of no use as there is far less darkness to play on. Across both this series and Uncanny X-Men the Jean-Scott-Madelyne triangle has been building up steadily and it's good to see the differing perspectives hinting at the build-up.

Again we get an issue that doesn't advance the overall Inferno plot too much but instead develops the characters and ties up one of the lesser loose ends with the Hank and Trish relationship. The overall crossover has had a massive build-up over many issues but at the Earth end of things the main titles have been dancing around the edges of the build-up. The opening of the portal to bring the demons through should step things up a gear but it's hard to shake the feeling that a relationship between one of the team and a supporting cast member is not the best use of the first issue of a core title in a big event.

Avengers Annual 17 - The Evolutionary War

The High Evolutionary's genetic bomb is ready to detonate - and the Avengers have disbanded.

(Once again we have an annual with a lot of creators so some of the labels are in a separate post.)

Avengers Annual #17

1st story: Prometheus Mutans!
Writing: Walter Simonson
Penciling: Mark Bright
Inking: Mike & Valerie Gustovich
Lettering Oakley, Heisler, Parker
Coloring: Evelyn Stein
Editing: Mark Gruenwald
Editing in Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Avengers' Hydrobase receives an emergency call from the resurrected Jocasta about the imminent detonation of the High Evolutionary's genetic bomb. But the team has disbanded so the computers summon as many reserve Avengers as it can contact. Thus Captain America, the Falcon, Hercules, the Beast, the Hulk and the second Yellowjacket come to the island to deal with the emergency. First they travel to a base on Long Island where they rescue Jocasta and discover the detail of the Evolutionary's plans. They then head to the Pacific where they find a war breaking out between the undersea kingdoms of Lemuria and Atlantis due to false information supplied by the Evolutionary who sends in a weapon to sterilise the two opposing forces. Finally the three pursue the Evolutionary's submarine base to Krakatoa where the bomb will be detonated in the volcano to spread all over the world. The Avengers battle both the Evolutionary's forces and themselves but the cost is high.

As discussed when looking at Avengers #298 this was a period when the Avengers had disbanded and it would take a little time for a permanent new team to be put together. In the meantime that allowed Walter Simonson to have some fun and bring together a one-off team. Some have wished that this line-up could have become the new Avengers permanently but it's hard to see it working in the long run. For one thing no less than three of the characters were regularly appearing in other series (Captain America and the Incredible Hulk had their own titles whilst the Beast was a part of X-Factor) and if it was difficult enough to co-ordinate the appearances of traditional Avengers such as Captain America it would have been a nightmare to fit in with the continuity of the other books even if one of them was written by the Avengers' writer's spouse. But there's also a strong element of dysfunctionality built into the team. The Hulk is in his "Joe Fixit" era of an amoral mob enforcer who shows reluctance to get involved with saving the world, is no team player and also tries to steal power for himself. Yellowjacket is a criminal drawn in purely because the helmet she stole from the original picked up the summons; she was one of the Masters of Evil who occupied the Avengers Mansion beating up Hercules to an inch of his life and also torturing Captain America (although she herself was not one of the ones who directly did either of those) and both still have strong memories of that. Captain America is on the outs with the US government in this era (with a replacement using the name and costume) which would make it difficult for him to assume a role heading a formally accredited superhero team. Jocasta is highly vulnerable. Only the Falcon could easily stay around in such a line-up at this time.

There's also a question of superhero ethics. The traditions of heroes not killing were under strain by this time and some of the team have no qualms about leaving foes to go to their death or even sending them there. Others less so. But oddly this isn't dwelt on here even though the Hulk charges into the Long Island base and kills all but one of the Gatherers present (though the bodies are not shown on panel). Later the Beast and Captain America willingly implement an idea by the Falcon to set the Gatherers and New Men against each other by playing on the former's prejudices and the result is a lot of killing. Then Hercules battles the High Evolutionary until he is "discorportating". Finally the surviving Avengers flee the submarine as the self-destruct is activated but make no effort to take the surviving Gatherers and New Men with them. Superhero comics were getting ever more darker and just a few years later the regular Avengers series would see the heroes facing the question of whether or not to kill so some of these developments aren't too surprising. But it's odd that there's little acknowledgement here of what the Avengers have been forced to do.

The plot does meander a little and it's hard to escape the feeling that the scenes involving Lemuria and Atlantis were added simply to pad this story out to fill the entire annual (bar six pages for the saga chapter at the end). But it gives lots of good character moments with the Beast especially benefitting as he combines strength, science and humour. Yellowjacket has found herself dragged into all this against her will and is completely scared by the whole situation but comes to the fore first in finding the bomb and then in attacking the Evolutionary long enough to buy time for Hercules. Though unspoken it also gives her a moment of redemption for her past.

There's some dodgy science afoot. The Evolutionary's powers seem incredible here including being able to teleport the Hulk all the way out of the base to the Nevada desert and twice making special cages appear out of nowhere to hold one or more Avengers. The Avengers decide the only way to counter him is to come up with their own super being and so subject Hercules to the genetic accelerator to create their own superbeing. The two fight to destruction with the High Evolutionary blasted into particles and Hercules mutating beyond godhood and out of the plane of existence. For a story rooted around a scientist's grand vision the conclusion has at times felt almost too magical to work. There's also the continued misuse of the term "evolution" when the mutations are done to intelligent design - or intelligent accident as the case may be. Fortunately the ending feels more scientific as a dying Jocasta plugs herself into the submarine's systems and activates the self-destruct mechanism to destroy the genetic bomb before it can be detonated.

This is a harsh brutal showdown to a big event and it feels appropriate that it's a much smaller team who escape at the end compared to the one that arrived. The High Evolutionary's plans may have meandered all over the set of annuals but here the focus is all too clear and the stakes couldn't be higher. The Avengers line-up here is not one that could have lasted but makes for a good team with its own internal problems facing down a major threat to the whole world in the Marvel tradition. Although the story is overlong and could have done with the Lemuria and Atlantis element it nevertheless makes for a strong climax to what has been a rather disappointing crossover.


2nd story: The High Evolutionary: Beyond Life
Story: Mark Gruenwald
Breakdowns: Ron Lim
Finishes: Tony DeZuniga
Letters: M. Yee & J. Rosen
Colors: Gregory Wright
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Chief: Tom DeFalco

The final chapter recounts the High Evolutionary's last appearances before this event. It's a straightforward summary of how Counter-Earth was moved across space by a race of alien beings call the Beyonders and placed in a museum with the whole encounter convincing the Evolutionary that despite being the most evolutionary advanced human in existence he was not a god but merely insignificant. This led to despair as he sought to commit suicide but found himself trapped in his armour that prevented him from using his powers on himself. So he manipulated the Hulk into attacking him to rip open the armour then he devolved himself all the way down to a single celled organism. The final page shows how the armour restored both itself and its occupant, who now regained his confidence and concluded that humanity on its own would never evolve to the level of the aliens he had seen and instead the race as a whole needed a guiding hand which he would give.

This final chapter shows how the character had come back to life after what seemed to be a pretty conclusive death and uses the last stories to provide a convincing explanation as to how the character has expanded the scope of his vision to the scheme seen in the event. It also restores an element of dignity that was lacking in the final Hulk story. As a later chapter recounting ongoing comics rather than stitching together multiple backstories the result is invariably straightforward but it serves to bring readers up to date with the character and provide a springboard for the main event.


Because of the length of the main story there are no other back-ups or features in this annual. Instead the whole thing is devoted to the resolution of the big crossover. Space could have easily been found for features by trimming off the unnecessary part of the main tale but that raises the question of just what would have been contained in the features since there was no regular Avengers team at the time. Also with issue #300 on the horizon it was perhaps better to leave the features for that and instead here have an extended climax to ensure the whole event goes out with a bang.

Avengers 298 - Inferno

When all the Avengers are gone one man still stands - Edwin Jarvis!

Avengers #298

Writing: Walter Simonson
Layouting: John Buscema
Finishing: Tom Palmer
Lettering: Oakley Lopez
Coloring: Eliot R. Brown
Editing: Mark Gruenwald
Editing in Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Avengers have disbanded and their butler Edwin Jarvis has moved back in with his mother, living off his pension. Jarvis soon notices many strange things going on in New York and realises they are connected. He rescues a young woman, Glory Garsen, from falling out of a subway train when the doors suddenly open on the move and realises he must call in help. In a darkened computer room a mysterious man finds himself under attack from his own machines and realises they are linked. Later Jarvis saves Glory from being crushed by two cars but one car then becomes a giant metallic figure to attack when a round shield is thrown.

Inferno came along at a very unusual time in the Avengers' history. Over the course of the previous seven issues the team had been ripped apart first by Marrina turning into a giant sea monster and then by a women calling herself Nebula (let's not get into that continuity minefield here) seducing Dr Druid and using him to use his mental powers to manipulate the team into travelling into a time bubble with a falling out when several members of the Council of Cross-Time Kangs intervened and released the other Avengers from the mental control. By the end the Avengers were either dead, lost in the time vortex, resigned or departed for a struggle in Asgard whilst there were no reserve members available so Thor formally dissolved the team with Jarvis locking up the base. It was quite a brutal exercise in disassembling the team though there have been some even darker ones since.

This leaves the title with no team and just one supporting cast member. And instead of rushing to put together a new team we get a nice little tale of Jarvis doing his bit in the early stages of the strange happenings in New York. Time and again the butler shows himself to be a canny observer with a strong cunning streak in finding ways to deal with the various objects that have come to life, whether threatening a payphone with bolt cutters or realising that the way to drive off to cars is not through brute strength but by smashing a headlight "eye". But he's also realistic enough to realise greater help is needed and so turns to the natural source - Captain America.

(Well strictly speaking he was going by the name "the Captain" at this stage. This was in the period when Steve Rogers had resigned from the role rather than becoming an agent of the American government, arguing that he was actually a symbol of the American people. A replacement was appointed whilst Rogers had adopted a new identity as "the Captain" with a very similar costume albeit in black. In practice a lot of his friends and allies would call him "Captain America" anyway. As his own title was showing, Cap is not a costume but an ideal rooted in one man. And so these reviews will call him "Captain America" throughout.)

This is a strong issue that makes good use of the unusual situation to bring to the forefront a character so often on the margins of the series. It also doesn't rush the recreation of the Avengers, instead merely there's just a hint that Captain America could use some friends to help him deal with the situation. And Jarvis gets the girl despite his shyness and belief that there's no comparison to Cap - but Glory wants a man of courage and gentleness and thinks she's found him.

(It's just a pity that the car that becomes a humanoid looks nothing a Transformer. Perhaps Hasbro had had a word after an earlier issue had featured robotic dinosaurs and a red tank that brought to mind the Dinobots and Warpath.)

X-Factor 34 - Inferno

Death/Angel has his showdown with Cameron Hodge.

X-Factor #34

Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciler: Walt Simonson
Inker: Bob Wiacek
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colorist: Petra Scotese
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco

Death/Angel breaks into the Right's base in Chicago and smashes his way through both the Right's troopers and demons supplied by N'astirh. It transpires that Cameron Hodge has made a deal with the demon from Limbo to supply a list of mutant children. However the list is intercepted by Nanny, the strange egg creature, who goes to rescue the children first (and kill their parents in the process). This causes N'astirh to withdraw his demons to focus on the collection leaving Hodge to the mercy of Death/Angel. Hodge has captured Candy Southern and is slowly killing her when Warren smashes through and the two have their final showdown. Elsewhere Cyclops has deduced that his son may be held in the orphanage he grew up in in Nebraska so heads off there with Marvel Girl.

This is another issue the pointedly tears down part of the legacy of the beginning of this series. It's doubtful that Cameron Hodge was ever originally conceived as anything more than Angel's school contemporary turned publicity director but over the course of successive issues Louise Simonson built him up into a manipulating villain whose schemes could explain away a lot of the awkwardness about the whole mutant busters cover set-up. Hodge has also driven the destruction of Angel in so many ways, with Apocalypse providing the rebirth.

The issue gives us a strong insight into Hodge's motivation and some of it's tricky. The prep/public school educated snob who thinks himself superior by virtue of wealth and education is a recognisable character trope and his horror at the idea of actual "homo superior" is easy to understand. But his attitude to Warren is complex with hints of homosexual feelings for his school friend that turned to hatred of everything else that made Warren happy - the wings, the team and Candy - and a determination to bring them all down. There are also hints that his bigotry is also driven by an element of religious zeal. The problem is that this all adds up to some rather ugly stereotypes of the villain driven by a spurned gay crush combined with the bigoted religious zealot conservative homosexual. It's a relief when Warren loses control of his wings and they decapitate Hodge. However the effect is reduced by this not being Hodge's first seeming death.

Also conforming to an unfortunate stereotype is the fate of Candy Southern. She hasn't actually been seen on panel for a couple of years and here she is unconscious throughout with her mind already destroyed. It's one of the most casual dismissals of a female supporting character going. Worse still she's not some recent creation but someone who's been around since the Silver Age and was actually the leader of the New Defenders. She deserved so much better than die on the slab.

This is very much Warren's issue though both subplots of Nanny's child collection and Cyclops's search for his son seem to be advancing towards resolution soon. But otherwise we have a mostly action and philosophical issue that resolves his quest and prepares the character for redemption in truly spectacular fashion.

X-Factor 33 - Inferno

X-Factor face the twin threats of the Alliance of Evil and jumpers.

X-Factor #33

Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciler: Walt Simonson
Inker: Bob Wiacek
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colorist: Petra Scotese
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

Marvel Girl and Iceman take the younger mutants shopping for items for boarding school but something strange in New York amidst a heatwave with inanimate objects coming to life and attacking people. This includes some of the clothes in the shop. It also transpires that jails have been releasing inmates including the Alliance of Evil who go on an attack spry that brings them to the shop. Meanwhile the Beast's body is fighting off all the outside influences that have been in it over the course of the series and his external form keeps changing between flesh and blue fur, eventually emerging in his fury form with both his strength and intellect restored. Elsewhere the mysterious egg creature arranges a kidnapping of two young mutant children with its henchman living up to the description "Orphan Maker" as it kills their parents. Amidst all this is the looming threat of the Mutant Registration Act with mutants divided over whether to register their identities and powers. Elsewhere Death/Angel is closing in on the Right and Cameron Hodge takes steps to prepare.

Although this is often presented as the first issue of Inferno the crossover name won't appear on the series cover for several more issues and at present the changes to New York are primarily only a backdrop to current events. Instead this issue concentrates on several over developments. The children will soon be going off to school in their own series but also Rusty Collins is still wanted by the naval police for an incident with his powers. This issues brings that to a head as he is finally publicly identified despite his best efforts and decides to turn himself in. The Mutant Registration Act is also a looming shadow with the Alliance of Evil telling the media and the world that they are motivated by opposition to it whilst most of the adult X-Factor members opt to sign but only under their public names. As the Beast's identity is public he has no problems signing completely but still expresses a rebellious streak by making a paper aeroplane out of his form and throwing it at Freedom Force who turn up at the end. Notably though Rusty, the only one of the younger mutants old enough to be legally required to sign, refuses to do so and makes a statement about freedom and human rights. The two ongoing subplots about the children kidnapping and Death/Angel's search for Candy Southern continue apiece. The former is stepping up the action with a very graphic shooting of the parents whilst the latter has surprisingly revealed the organisation he's targeting revealed to be the Right with Cameron Hodge suddenly shown to be alive again despite seemingly dying over in New Mutants #60.

But the big moment of this issue is the restoration of the Beast's blue furry form. Exactly which is the "normal" look for the Beast is a matter of debate. Throughout the original 1960s run of X-Men he was in fleshy form and it was only in the wilderness years of the early 1970s that he got the furry form. But it was as his blue furred form that he gained greater prominence in first Avengers and then Defenders/New Defenders. However when X-Factor began he was soon reverted to the fleshy form as yet another step taken in order to restore even the look of the original five X-Men. Much has been written about the way that big changes and retcons were wreaked on both Cyclops and Marvel Girl in order to get them into place for the launch of the series but it's easy to forget that the other three founding members also underwent changes even though in the case of Beast he didn't lose the fur until the third issue of the series and so was still furry on the cover of issue #1. The next issue caption at the end of issue #32 had proclaimed "...and the change you've all been waiting for!" suggesting that the letters bag at least was not happy with this change.

Much of Louise Simonson's run on the series so far has been the steady dismantling of many of the worst elements from the first five issues of the series that had required a lot of heavy building to get the characters in place for a rather bizarre set-up. To her credit she didn't retcon everything away in the space of a couple of issues but instead slowly used successive storylines to tackle awkward elements like the mutant busters cover or the way Scott had simply walked out on his marriage and child. Not all the changes were complete by this stage but bringing back the Beast's Bronze Age look was another step away. As someone who only discovered the character in his furry form it's natural to see the furry form as the default even though there was a case to retaining the fleshy Silver Age look but Walter Simonson does some striking artwork on the restored Beast both on the cover and in the interior to really make the most of the restored look. However once in action his continuing to wear the full jump suit (though not the cowl) does create a slightly odd look and it's easy to see why this didn't last.

This issue almost hurls the Beast back into action but it doesn't just stop there with the other storylines continuing to develop. But it's the restoration that it's most prominent for as the series continues to determinedly get away from the odd mix of wallowing in Silver Age nostalgia and operating under a cover set-up that bogged down the early days. This is another sign of a title with a strong mojo.

X-Factor 31 - Inferno Prologue

Infectia tries her hardest to get a kiss with Iceman.

X-Factor #31

Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciler: Walter Simonson
Inker: Bob Wiacek
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colorist: Greg Wright
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Infectia storyline reaches its conclusion in this issue. Much of the early part is taken up with Iceman and Infectia's attempts to be alone and intimate on Ship as all the kids and the vessel itself do everything they can to prevent a kiss having been warned by Beast that there's something about Infectia only he can't remember what it is. There's a lot of humour to an operation with a quite serious undertone but Bobby doesn't realise this is anything more than the equivalent of younger siblings being pests. Eventually Infectia tries her power on Ship and manages to persuade it to supply a plane to fly her and Iceman to her home. The other subplots continue steadily. The strange egg creature prepares a being in armour who invades a house and shoots the parents of an infant. A group of hooded people discuss Death/Angel's recent transformation and his search for Candy Southern, noting it will bring him to them. And Cyclops and Marvel Girl face down Freedom Force then learn from Destiny that Cyclops's son is alive and they must return to New York. But the main action comes at Infectia's home as she restrains Iceman then gloats by transforming another man into a monstrous antibody to show him what he has planned for her. However the Beast has realised the danger and arrives in time to take the kiss himself.

This is a storyline that has run on for a few too many issues so it's good to see it finally resolved even though the ending is shocking and also confused as the Beast is depicted in both flesh and furry forms. There's also a decent logic to it as nobody knows for certain just why it's dangerous for Infectia to kiss Iceman so nobody tries talking to him and he later admits he wasn't listening anyway. Instead they go for the less subtle approach of interruption. Infectia is written in a mixed form. She shows cunning when she tries her power on Ship and manages to coerce it into briefly helping her but she also shows foolishness in gloating rather than getting the long awaited kiss over and done with. And it's still never explained just why she is so desperate to get hold of Ship.

The other subplots are continuing but risk overstaying their welcome. Both the egg and Death/Angel get a single page each. The egg storyline continues to be highly mysterious without much sign of just where it's going. Death/Angel's search looks like it will soon reach a climax. But for readers of only X-Factor the conclusion of the encounter with Freedom Force must be something of a disappointment. Although Uncanny X-Men readers would already know that Madelyne didn't know where her son was, those readers that lacked this knowledge would be disappointed to find no great clues come out of the whole encounter. Instead it ultimately boils down to a quick fight and then Destiny muttering some obscure comments about threads of the future being tangled in the past and a displacement of place and time. The whole trip to Dallas has been necessary but this is ultimately not very revealing in the overall search.

Overall this is a mixed issue. There's some good comedy and tragedy in it but it also shows just how long one story strand has been running for and doesn't do too much to advance the big quest. The shocking climax does make it highly memorable and provides for a strong cliffhanger.

X-Factor 30 - Inferno Prologue

Infectia sets out to seduce Iceman...

X-Factor #30

Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciler: Walter Simonson
Inker: Bob Wiacek
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colorist: Petra Scotese
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco

This is an issue with quite a lot going on over several different strands. Death/Angel continues his search for Candy Southern. A strange egg shaped creature is stalking the suburbs of Omaha. The kids are continuing to practice their powers through playing with Iceman in ways that Cyclops does not approve. Cyclops and Marvel Girl fly off to Dallas to confront Freedom Force about the last moments of the X-Men and Madelyne Pryor. But the main thread comes as Iceman and the Beast go out on the town to enjoy X-Factor's popularity only to encounter a monster pursuing Infectia.

The underlying concept of X-Factor may be that the original X-Men have grown up and are taking their mentor's vision to the next level but it's clear some have grown up rather more than others. Iceman is still very carefree, playing around with the younger mutants like an elder brother rather than acting like a teacher to sensibly develop their powers. Although he's been on several teams over the years (including the X-Men, the Champions and the New Defenders) it's only now that he's found true fame and popularity and willingly accepts the invitation to the Hard Rock Cafe to enjoy his adoring fans. Meanwhile the Beast's intellect continues to deteriorate to the point that he flees when a woman approaches him and later struggles to articulate what he sees in an alley and so Iceman won't listen to his warnings. Instead when Infectia runs in pursued by a monster Bobby rushes to defend her and accepts her word that the monster pursuing her is lying, rapidly succumbing to her charms though they don't yet kiss in this issue.

There are some fun moments in this issue and the best is when Bobby and Hank are about to leave Ship and are reassured by the living vessel that the kids will be looked after sensibly with "a nutritious dinner and then we shall view a film explicating the political situation in Central America..." Once they have taken off Ship suggests "Chiliburgers with French Fries. And Apple Pie for dessert?" plus a Rambo film. It's delightful to see how Ship is not a mere processor but has a real personality and cheekiness to it.

Unfortunately it's still not clear just why Infectia wants to get control of Ship and so this story is starting to drag out even though it offers many good individual moments. The multiple subplots are building steadily but it can be tricky to have too many on the go at once. Tension is building but there is only so long it can build for.

X-Factor 29 - Inferno Prologue

New villainess Infectia tries to steal Ship from X-Factor...

X-Factor #29

Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciler: Walter Simonson
Inker: Bob Wiacek
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colorist: Petra Scotese
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

This issue sees the introduction of a new villain, one whom it's hard to imagine would be created today. But this era of comics often still saw new seductresses created, frequently with Walter Simonson involved. Infectia is shown picking up a succession of men in bars and taking them home to kiss - only to transform them into monstrous forms to become her slaves in her initial assault on ship.

It's hard to imagine Infectia being created today. But the 1980s was another era and for now she takes on the role of a femme fatale as she lures multiple men into becoming her slaves for her unsuccessful first attempt to seize Ship. This raises the curiosity that the established rule that only mutants can enter Ship's forcefields doesn't apply to Infectia's slaves as they attack. The resulting battle is fierce and only resolved when Marvel Girl unleashes her full power and causes them to burn out and crumble to dust. It's a pretty dark moment as Jean comes to terms with what she's done.

The main focus of the issue is on character as Jean comes to terms with the believed to be dead Madelyne Pryor and the situation Scott is in. Meanwhile the Beast tries to discuss his situation with Trishy Tilby but is interrupted by Death/Angel searching for information about where Candy Southern has gone. And Iceman is coming into his own role as the team's spokesperson when he finds himself taking command of a press conference about the team's plans to move Ship out into the Atlantic Ocean so it will no longer disrupt New York's shipping lanes. There's a lot of threads continuing to build in this issue but a curse of starting where we have is that no big moments have come just yet.

X-Factor 28 - Inferno Prologue

The team battle Apocalypse's ship as both Cyclops and Death/Angel search for their closest ones...

X-Factor #28

Plot/Scripter: Louise Simonson
Plot/Penciler: Walter Simonson
Inker: Bob Wiacek
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colorist: Petra Scotese
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

This issue is a further step in establishing the new status quo for the series as the team comes into full control of Apocalypse's ship, discovering its artificial intelligence in the process. There's something almost goofy and retro about "Ship" being a fully sentient character but then the core concept of the series is a throwback to the Silver Age. However the execution of the idea isn't so great as it merely results in the team and the younger mutants battling against a series of mechanical traps as they seek to overpower the system's defences then getting a bomb away before it explodes.

The issue continues the Beast's problems as he struggles with his intellect disintegrating every time he uses his strength ever since Pestilence touched him some issues back. Hank's determination to save his friends and their determination to save him often clash and here we have the spectacle of Iceman freezing the Beast to the floor to prevent him from getting involved in the action; however ice is not shatterproof. Meanwhile both Cyclops and Death/Angel are seeking to reconnect with their closest ones. The latter discovers that his girlfriend Candy Southern has been kidnapped setting things up for later issues. Scott is heading to Dallas to see if he find any clues about the whereabouts of his son but only gets as far as the airport before seeing the news about the ship attacking X-Factor and hurries back. Although he's chosen the hot action over the cold trail, once again we see how readily Scott will drop everything to be by the others' sides, especially Jean's. By contrast Death/Angel's reaction is to leave X-Factor to it, still feeling abandoned by them.

There are some good ideas in this issue but the execution of the core concept is poor resulting in a rather stilted battle that marks the final triumph over Apocalypse. However the long term searches are building up as the key themes going forwards.