Chapter 25: X-Factor – Endgame (1991)

We now come to the end of the X-Factor era. By this point, the main X-books were becoming more heavily influenced by the pencilers, who were getting writing credits and supplanting the longstanding writers. This era was just about the commercial peak of the line as the dynamic early 90s grim-n-gritty style and tone of artists like Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and While Portacio brought even more attention to the books. That, of course, led to the expansion of the X-Men line with the new X-Men book, and the decision to return the X-Factor cast to the core X-Men books (after all, no one could quite figure out what the point of X-Factor was after nearly six years in print). But in these last few issues, we get to wrap up some key stories.

Uncanny X-Men #308 (January 1994)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: John Romita Jr.

We’ll come back to this later, but this issue has a generic flashback to X-Factor with baby Nathan, which the chronologies are placing here.

Ghost Rider Vol 2 #9 (January 1991)
Writer: Howard Mackie
Artist: Javier Saltares

While attempting to save a homeless man from being murdered by his archenemy Blackout, Ghost Rider rescues some children that were kidnapped by Morlocks in order to protect them from Masque. X-Factor (minus Archangel) wander through the plot contributing absolutely nothing.

Despite the cover date and placement in the official chronology, this really feels out of place here. It reads like it belongs between the pages of X-Factor #56, when Jean returns to the team but Archangel is still missing. Or even earlier, given multiple references to “Inferno” as if it were a very recent story.

The most notable thing in this issue for our purposes is this panel, where Beast asks Iceman to do his “ice thing” so he can “enter the nether regions.” Hmmmmm.

Howard Mackie’s 1990s Ghost Rider was a huge, zeitgeist-capturing hit, epitomizing the grim-n-gritty anti-heroes of the era and spawning a whole line of spin-off books, but in retrospect, it’s hard to see the book’s specific appeal. Mackie’s, shall we say, stream-of-consciousness storytelling is on full display in this story, in which Ghost Rider stumbles into the plot by sheer coincidence, and no thought is given to curing Masque’s victims or to stopping Masque’s attacks. What’s more, Masque doesn’t even appear! It’s unclear what X-Factor are doing in this story at all (was Marvel trying to goose X-Factor’s sales months before the title was effectively cancelled? Or are they here to give Ghost Rider a bump?) but Mackie doesn’t even try to find something for them to do. They show up to the fight and disappear for several pages until the resolution. It’s garbage. Unfortunately for us, X-Men make several guest appearances in Ghost Rider over the next several years.

It’s possible Mackie was planning to return to this Masque plot down the road, but in the event, his story was resolved over in X-Force, where he joined the reformed Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and was killed by Cable (he got better somehow).

X-Factor #63-64 (February-March 1991)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Plot/Artist: Whilce Portacio

When five cyborgs kidnap Opal, Bobby and Jean go to Japan to rescue her with the help of Mariko Yoshida.

We learn that Opal has just found out she was adopted. Her birth father was the son of a gang lord in Japan and her mother had her sent to America with her cousins to protect her. When her father died and left her grandfather without an heir, he kidnapped her to force her to wed one of his cyborg ninja in order to produce one. In the course of it, Opal appears to get some serious Stockholm syndrome for one of her kidnappers, Hiro.

In the end, four of the cyborgs die, leaving the slightly nicer one to fight Bobby in a no-powers duel for Opal. But Hiro realizes that he can’t actually turn his cyborg enhancements off, so he throws the fight rather than win without honor. Opal goes back with Bobby, but she sure doesn’t seem all that keen anymore.

This is just about the only true Iceman story that appears in X-Factor and even this is mostly about Opal. We don’t get a lot of thought bubbles in the story, but Bobby’s actions seem to be mostly motivated by his sense of duty to protect Opal. The story plays like a (not particularly good) girl-in-peril ninja movie or western, and Bobby’s actions and dialogue seem a bit like he’s intentionally playing the part of the big heterosexual hero. There’s actually very little love or sexual attraction between Bobby and Opal on display in this story (or any story, for that matter).

And this is Louise Simonson’s last contribution to the X-books for decades as she was pushed out by Rob Liefeld on New Mutants two months previously and is being pushed out by Whilce Portacio here. But then there’s….

X-Factor Forever #1-5 (May-September 2010)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Dan Panosian

This five-issue miniseries was part of a mini line of books Marvel put out in 2009-2011 in which Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson wrote stories that continued on from where they left when the artists took over the line in 1991 (the others were Claremont’s X-Men Forever, X-Men Forever 2, and New Mutants Forever). Marvel has returned to the general idea with the in-continuity X-Men: Legends, and Simonson wrote a story for that which we covered last month.

These are considered alternate universe stories — they’re not even consistent with each other. And while I’m not going to go down every alternate universe story this brief one at least fits in thematically and features a major creator.

Simonson’s big idea here is to take Apocalypse to the logical conclusion of the original concept of the character — someone who thinks war and destruction are good for the advancement of society, not as a nihilistic goal in and of itself. Unfortunately, he discovers that the Celestials have come to judge life on Earth earlier than expected, and he fears that they will punish the Earth for the meddling he and his former lackey Mr. Sinister have done with mutant genetics.

What’s worse, he suspects that mutants have actually become a genetic dead-end, because so few mutants have been able to procreate. As evidence, he points out that X-Factor’s base used to be full to the brim with horny teenagers and not one pregnancy resulted (this may have been a lot to expect of Marvel Girl, Skids, and the 13-year-old Boom Boom…). That does give us this hilarious scene where Bobby protests that it’s because he always uses protection and a skeptical Beast gives him side-eye.

Apocalypse has to fudge around the point a bit — he says the only mutants who’ve reproduced by this time in continuity have done so by mating with humans (like Professor X, who fathered Legion) or with the aid of sorcery (like Magneto, taking the line that Magda was some kind of witch, which I’m not sure has a basis in continuity). That leaves out Banshee who fathered Syrin and Colossus who fathered a child in the Savage Land with no other help. X-Factor make the obvious point that baby Chris/Nathan exists, but Apocalypse suspects that Sinister had a hand (and, ew, possibly more) in his creation. Apocalypse presents Chris/Nathan to the Celestials for their judgement, and they seem to accept him as evidence that mutants are viable inheritors of the Earth. They leave, but just for good measure decide to go and destroy Genosha, and everyone lived happily every after.

Uncanny X-Men #273 (February 1991)
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artists: Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, et al.

Following the “X-Tinction Agenda,” the combined New Mutants, X-Factor, and reunited X-Men are having difficulty fitting in the remains of the X-Mansion (destroyed in “Inferno”) or agreeing on their next tactical moves. Before the X-Men can decide whether to disband, go on, join X-Factor, or join Cable, Lila Cheney arrives to teleport them away to save Professor X.

Bobby takes the opportunity to resume his petty rivalry with Boom Boom from the early issues of X-Factor. The comic relief bit ends with Bobby storming his way into the women’s shower room, where he’s embarrassed in front of Jean and Psylocke. But nothing in the art suggests he has any lascivious motive or enjoyment from the situation. Given the next page is just Psylocke watching Jean shower, if the creators wanted this bit to be about cheesecake, they could have easily gone there.

The end of the issue plants the seed of X-Factor rejoining the X-Men and rebuilding the mansion, so even though Claremont disliked that editorially mandated direction, he was clearly already setting it in place before he left.

X-Factor don’t appear in the next few issues, but they resolve a few outstanding plots before Claremont’s departure. The X-Men put an end to Deathbird’s rule and restore Lilandra to the throne, ending a subplot that had continued from all the way back in Uncanny X-Men #161. Professor X returns to Earth to deal with the Shadow King, having left all the way back in Uncanny X-Men #200. Magneto defeats and kills Zaladane in the Savage Land, freeing Ka-Zar’s people (who had been enslaved since the Uncanny X-Men #249-250), restoring him to full power and completing his heel turn. Rogue also gets her powers back and loses the Ms. Marvel split-personality.

Web of Spider-Man #75 (April 1991)
Writer: Tony Isabella
Artist: Alex Saviuk

When evil mutant performance artists (uh, sure) unleash a terrible blizzard in New York City, Spidey encounters a bunch of local heroes working to rescue people caught in the storm.

Iceman appears in a two-page sequence where he rescues the Avenger’s butler Jarvis from a falling sign, and is then blamed for the storm by a bunch of anti-mutant passers-by. Iceman flees with Jarvis rather than deal with the bigots.

The issue ends on a cliffhanger, but I couldn’t be bothered to dig up the next issue to find out how Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four stop the, sigh, evil performance artists.

Spider-Man Family: Amazing Friends (August 2006)
Writer: Sean McKeever
Artists: Patrick Oliffe, Casey Jones, Kano, Nick Dragotta

When Mary Jane gets jealous that Spider-Man is spending time with Firestar, he tries to set her and Iceman up as a couple to prove his loyalty.

This is a bit of a continuity train wreck. I’m placing it here even though it says it takes place before Web of Spider-Man #75, because that’s the issue where Spidey meets Firestar and in this issue they appear to already know each other. I’m assuming they meant to write it takes place after that issue. But Iceman is also talking about having rejoined the X-Men and being on a break with Opal, which would suggest it goes sometime after their break-up around Uncanny X-Men #290. Let’s take it as given that Bobby and Opal are already fighting since she’s clearly caught feelings for that cyborg from the last X-Factor story.

Spider-Man and Bobby are hanging out and fighting crime like they occasionally did back in the 60s and 70s. Bobby gets to show off his misogyny once again for Spidey when Firestar first asks to team-up with the duo. Oddly, he later agrees to be set up with Firestar when Spidey pitches it to him. They do start to briefly date, which is shown in a series of fights, hand holding, and no romantic physical affection at all.

X-Factor Annual #6 (1991)
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Terry Shoemaker

This is the final part of the “Kings of Pain” crossover running through New Mutants Annual #7, New Warriors Annual #1, and X-Men Annual #15. In the earlier chapters, the New Mutants (now calling themselves X-Force, though not in their title, so as not to spoil the upcoming X-Force #1) and New Warriors uncovered a plot by AIM to reconstitute Proteus by using an energy-absorbing teenage mutant named Piecemeal and his mother, Harness. They went to Muir Island to get Moira McTaggart’s help dealing with them, but are too late – Piecemeal merges with Proteus and they attack Edinburgh. (The story explicitly has Shadow King temporarily release his control on the Muir Islanders to let them deal with the plot.)

Cable’s dialogue in New Warriors Annual #1 is something to behold. This was a bizarre era where the most manly put down a big shirtless muscle man could shout at another male character was to call him “pretty boy” or “handsome.”

For some reason, Moira calls in X-Factor for help, rather than the local heroes Excalibur. The plot justification is that Cyclops was in the original Proteus story and might know how to deal with him. We also learn in this issue that the whole caper was a bet between Gideon, who was being positioned as a major baddie around this era and planned to use Proteus to control the world economy, and Toad, who was trying to rebrand himself as a major threat and wanted to recruit Proteus into his new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

In the end, Cyclops’ plan is to convince Proteus/Piecemeal to commit suicide, given that Proteus was so much happier when he was simply energy flowing around the world than he ever was as a living person (this doesn’t really do much for poor Piecemeal, though, who’s essentially just booted from the story). The various heroes squabble over whether this is the right or moral thing to do, with the most surprising stance coming from Cable – he sharply rejects Cyclops’ plan and argues that Proteus should be saved somehow. When Proteus is convinced to kill himself, Cable lashes out at Cyclops. It seems out of character, but it also seems to fit with a pattern of hints and references in Nicieza’s Cable stories around this time that suggest that he knows he’s Cyclops’ son and he’s keeping that secret. In which case, it’s understandable why Cable would be upset to see Cyclops giving up on a child, given the story that’s coming up next in X-Factor. (“X-Cutioner’s Song” strongly suggests that Cable is surprised to learn of his connection to Cyclops, while later, in Cable #20, Cable says he strongly suspected who his parents really were the whole time.)

Iceman doesn’t have much to do in this story, other than be yet another hero whose powers prove useless against Proteus.

The backup strips are a bit more interesting to the X-Men’s queer history. First is the final part of “The Killing Stroke” (the previous parts were in the New Mutants Annual and X-Men Annual, but for some reason the X-Men chapter isn’t on Marvel Unlimited), in which Freedom Force fight their final mission in Iraq-occupied Kuwait. When the mission goes south, the queer-coded Silver Sabre is killed and Crimson Commando is mortally wounded. Avalanche abandons his friend/long-coded-as-lover Pyro to get the last chopper out of the mission. Pyro and Blob are captured by the debuted Iraqi super team, Desert Sword. The end of Freedom Force sets up the new X-Factor, about which more shortly. Pyro and Blob are eventually freed by the Toad to join the new Brotherhood, and Avalanche and Commando eventually turn up in X-Factor #102, still working for the government. As far as we know, Sabre and Stonewall have not yet been resurrected on Krakoa.

And finally, Peter David gets ten lovely pages to spend with Mystique mourning the death of her lover, Destiny. Destiny was one of those characters who were so thoroughly dead that despite everything in comics history, she was never coming back. And yet, in 2021, she finally made her return in Inferno #2, and she and Mystique are now referring to each other as their wives.

X-Factor #65-68 (April-July 1991)
Plotters: Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio
Script: Chris Claremont
Art: Whilce Portacio

Apocalypse makes his final move on X-Factor and Ship, along with his new henchmen, the Riders of the Storm (later the Dark Riders), who are drawn from the kidnapped Inhumans. Apocalypse wants to drain the life forces and powers of baby Nathan and X-Factor in order to achieve power to place him in the celestial pantheon with other Marvel cosmic characters. In the end, the Inhumans are freed, Apocalypse is defeated, Ship is destroyed, but baby Nathan is left with an incurable virus that X-Factor are told will kill him, unless Cyclops agrees to send him away with a mysterious woman named Askani who claims he is the chosen one. She says Cyclops will never see him again.

Once again Iceman doesn’t really have a lot to do other than be present to indicate that this is an X-Factor story. And to be fair, Claremont does a lot of work to give the story the feeling of a grand operatic climax to the series, with lots of references to other stories including the Dark Phoenix Saga, Jean’s origin story, the long-running Twelve subplot, and Apocalypse’s regular role behind the scenes for much of this series. He even has the Watcher show up at the end to hammer home the point.

If there’s a major weakness in the story, it’s the way Cyclops’ decision to sacrifice/save Nathan is presented so casually, and with barely any follow up in subsequent issues. Later stories will try to fill in this gap with a bigger reaction from him. Oddly, Jean is also basically silent in the decision-making process, when he’s basically her son too.

This blog couldn’t talk about this story without bringing up the “Apocalypse Manifesto” backup feature that appears in issues #65-66. These are basically Apocalypse’s diary entries on each of the members of X-Factor, and boy are they something else. His entry on Archangel is even gayer than his usual rantings about his beauty.

When he gets to Iceman, he has a lot of opinions about Iceman’s future siring children with Opal, but specifically calls out Iceman for living a fake life and a secret desire to be “normal.” Apocalypse is pretty perceptive when he’s not looking inward.

And we should also mention that issue #67 features the debut of Shinobi Shaw, the bisexual member of the Upstarts who makes his debut by supposedly killing his supposed father, Sebastian Shaw (Sebastian returns in X-Force #48 and later confirms Shinobi’s suspicion from this issue that his real father was Harry Leland in Marauders #26). More on him next time.

As we know by now, this wouldn’t be the last time we see Nathan. He grew up to be Cable, who made his debut in New Mutants #87. The baby was actually taken to the far future, where a time-travelling Scott and Jean from slightly later in their lives raised him to adolescence in The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix miniseries, he grew into his leadership role in the Askani’son miniseries, and he returns to the present time in Cable #-1. Askani turns out not to be the woman’s name, but the name of the far-future religion that was created by a time-travelling Rachel Summers, who was sucked into the timestream in Excalibur #75 and formed her new society as a challenge to Apocalypse in the X-Men: Phoenix miniseries. Hence all the times Askani refers to Nathan as “little brother” and X-Factor as “kinsmen.” Baby Nathan is also cloned as a decoy to throw off Apocalypse – that decoy grows up to be Stryfe. Much of this gets explained in the 1992 crossover ”X-Cutioner’s Song,” which we’ll get to next entry.

X-Factor #69, Uncanny X-Men #280 (August 1991)
Writer: Fabian Nicieza “(with lots of help)”
Artists: While Portacio, Andy Kubert, Steven Butler

At the end of the Claremont era, he sets about to wrap up his last major outstanding plot – The Shadow King’s takeover of Muir Island – but Claremont quits halfway through the story and hands it over to Fabian Nicieza to write the final two chapters.

So, for the last couple of years, the Shadow King had been simmering in the background, having slowly begun taking over the residents of Muir Isle when Polaris (who had suddenly developed the power to amplify negative emotions) and Legion accidentally gave him access to the physical world by using Cerebro untrained. The Shadow King used the Muir Isle mutants as a base of power from which to extend his psychic influence across the globe, stirring up people to act in irrationally hateful ways, which increased his own power due to his connection to Polaris. Meanwhile, he was using a dead FBI agent as his physical host in order to hunt down the X-Men, as part of his revenge on Xavier for banishing him to the astral plane in their origin story. In the first two parts of the story, the X-Men and Professor X returned from the Shi’ar Empire in order to deal with the Shadow King. The X-Men were almost immediately captured and mind-controlled by the Shadow King, except for Forge, who uses tech to block out the King’s influence. And Professor X was attacked by a Shadow King-controlled Colossus, but managed to stop him and finally reassert his normal personality in the process (Colossus had been an amnesiac since going through the Siege Perilous with the other X-Men). *phew*

Ok, so as the story picks up, the US Government and Professor X have called in X-Factor for help dealing with the Shadow King, as his influence is causing violent hateful mobs to spring up across the globe (Uncanny X-Men #278 illustrates this with an anti-gay mob celebrating “AIDS is God’s Punishment”). X-Factor lead an attack on Muir Island to free the X-Men and destroy the Shadow King’s “nexus” Polaris. But when Xavier destroys the Shadow King’s host before the X-Men can figure out how to free Polaris, the King takes over Legion instead, and blows up the island. Remarkably, no one dies in the explosion. Finally, Xavier takes the Shadow King on alone in the astral plane, but the King’s psychic assault physically cripples Xavier again. Ultimately, Forge manages to use Psylocke’s psychic blade on Polaris to disrupt Shadow King’s nexus, in the process killing the Shadow King, leaving Legion brain dead, and reverting Polaris’ powers to normal (hey, it was never explained why they changed in the first place, so…)

Woof. For all the background chaos and the density of the story, it’s remarkably coherent even if there are a few moments that read like glitches (um, where do all the Muir Island mutants disappear to halfway through the story?). And there’s a real feeling that this is the grand operatic end of a long-term story with links going back all the way to the X-Men’s origin. Still, I’ve never liked the Shadow King as a villain, given that he’s just a personification of evil for evil’s sake. He’s not even that imaginative with what he does with his mind-controlled minions (gladiatorial combat? Sure, this is only the third or fourth time Claremont has had his villains do that…).

Given the cast of over a dozen, Iceman doesn’t get a whole lot to do, but he does have a nice moment in X-Factor #69 where he finds his ex-beard Lorna prisoner of the Shadow King, and is faced with the decision of killing her to stop the Shadow King, or risking the Shadow King taking over the world. Shall we say it’s interesting how swiftly Bobby lands on “Let’s get this over with.”

X-Factor #70 (September 1991)
Writer: Peter David
Artist: Kirk Jarvinen

An epilogue to the Muir Island/Shadow King saga. X-Factor rejoin the X-Men, and Val Cooper recruits some of the Muir Island mutants to be the new Freedom Force, who will debut in the next issue as the all-new, all-different X-Factor. Iceman’s still there, but he doesn’t do anything.

Avengers #336 (August 1991)
Writer: Bob Harras
Artist: Steven Epting

Iceman doesn’t appear in this story, but Beast returns to the Avengers in “The Collection Obsession” (Avengers #334-339), when he’s needed to do some science stuff. I’m mentioning this only so that I can share this panel of Hank McCoy flirting with Hank Pym.

Infinity Gauntlet #1-6 (June-December 1991)
Writer: Jim Starlin
Artist: George Perez

When Thanos collects the six Infinity Gems, he uses the power to erase half the sentient beings in the universe, and Iceman is among the disappeared. He is restored when Nebula steals the Infinity Gauntlet and undoes Thanos’ project. Iceman doesn’t actually appear in the story.

And that ends Bobby’s time with X-Factor! Next time, we kick off the new adjectiveless X-Men/Uncanny X-Men era with Chris Claremont’s actual swan song, and Bobby’s love life in ruins again.

Where to find these issues: All of the regular X-Factor and Uncanny X-Men issues are in the X-Men by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee Omnibus Vol. 2. All that plus the main story from X-Factor Annual #6 are in X-Men Epic Collection: Mutant Genesis; while the Mystique back-up strip from that annual appear in X-Factor by Peter David Omnibus Vol. 1. I’m not sure if the Freedom Force story is collected anywhere — bizarrely, the first and third chapters are on Marvel Unlimited, but not the second. I don’t think either of the Spider-Man stories have been reprinted anywhere — only Amazing Friends is on Marvel Unlimited. The Avengers, Ghost Rider, and Infinity Gauntlet stories are all on Marvel Unlimited.

ROB SALERNO

Chapter 25: X-Factor – Endgame (1991)

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