X-FACTOR FOREVER #5 - September 2010

Collateral Damage

Credits:  Louise Simonson (writer), Dan Panosian & Eric Nguyen (art), Dave Sharpe (letterer), Jim Charalampidis (colorist)

Summary:  Apocalypse interrupts X-Factor’s battle with Mr. Sinister.  After using Sinister’s technology, he’s convinced Christopher isn’t Sinister’s creation.  He gives the infant to Cyclops and tells him to present Christopher to the Celestials.  X-Factor leaves inside Ship, while Apocalypse and Caliban stay behind to face Sinister’s army.  Sinister’s base explodes, killing everyone inside.  X-Factor arrives in Manhattan and gives Christopher to the Celestials, who judge him favorably.  Unexpectedly, the Celestials teleport away to Genosha.  After reading Apocalypse’s journal, recently unearthed by Ship, X-Factor realizes that the Celestials will destroy Genosha, as they eliminated Lemuria years earlier.  The Celestials eradicate Genosha and then teleport away.  With Ship’s help, X-Factor rescues hundreds of Genoshan citizens.

“Huh?” Moment:  The Celestials’ positive judgment is represented by a literal “thumbs up.”

Review:  I realize that everything is written for the trade these days, but there are two major plot points in the main story that make no sense unless you’ve read every chapter of the miniseries so far.  Just to be clear, the Celestials judge Christopher worthy (he’s a “talisman” according to Apocalypse) because he’s the first viable offspring of mutants created with no outside interference.  Next, the Celestials destroy Genosha due to Sinister’s genetic manipulation of its populace, a practice that offends the Celestials.  (Strongly, it would seem.)  If you’ve read every issue leading up to the finale, you can infer these points, but it’s surprising that Simonson doesn’t spell them out in greater detail.  

Ultimately, Apocalypse gets to play the role of hero, even though Cyclops is quick to point out that he always has an angle and most likely isn’t dead, nor was Apocalypse purely altruistic in the first place.  X-Factor Forever turns to be a fairly interesting Apocalypse story, and even though I’m still apathetic towards the Celestials, I have to say that providing Apocalypse with a more coherent motive is a step in the right direction.  Simply establishing that he’s obsessed with “survival of the fittest” but never really saying why has always done the villain a disservice.  

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I think Simonson’s character subplots were the true highlight of her run, so I’m a bit disappointed that supporting cast members like Opal were shunted offstage so quickly.  I don’t know if there was an alternate way to structure the story, but I wish Simonson could’ve found a better balance between the fight scenes and the character moments.  While I’m also speaking in hypotheticals, I’ll mention again how disappointing it is that Dan Panosian couldn’t pencil the entire issue.  He only shows up for seven pages this issue, which is especially frustrating considering that this is an out-of-continuity miniseries.  Was there no way for Marvel to wait on Panosian to pencil the entire book?  Why not wait until the series is finished before soliciting it?

The Apocalypse Journal V

Credits:  Louise Simonson (writer), Aluir Almancino (penciler), Terry Austin (inker), Dave Sharpe (letterer), Dan Jackson (colorist)

Summary:  Fearing that mutants cannot reproduce, Apocalypse creates his Four Horsemen to give mutantkind an edge.  When the Celestials unexpectedly call upon Ship to leave Earth, Apocalypse fears that their judgment is coming centuries ahead of schedule.  He leaves X-Factor his journal, telling them that the future is in their hands.

Continuity Note:  The Celestials called Ship away from Earth in X-Factor’s “Judgment Day” storyline.

Review:  While the earlier chapters provided an alternate origin for Apocalypse, the final “Apocalypse Journal” consists of recaps of late ‘80s X-continuity.  Not really a story so much as a brief summary of other stories.  Now that we’ve reached the final issue, I’ll mention something that’s bugged since these back-ups began.  As Apocalypse says this issue, he’s “force-grown” the development of mutants and now fears the Celestials’ judgment for creating a non-viable offshoot of humanity.  I’ve yet to read anything in this serial that indicates how Apocalypse is responsible for “fostering” mutantkind.  I haven’t gotten the sense that he knows how to mingle human DNA and breed mutants, only that he’s been taking care of the strong humans.  Maybe this is what Simonson meant by “strong” all along -- humans with the genetic potential for mutantcy within them.  As I’ve read it, however, Apocalypse took a liking to physically strong humans and kept them as his own tribe.  When other mutants appeared centuries later after the dawn of the Nuclear Age, Apocalypse was pleased, but he wasn’t directly responsible.  Now, maybe Simonson also meant that Apocalypse pushed humans towards developing that technology (he does mention breakthroughs in technology as one motivation for fostering war for centuries), but it’s not explicitly said during this serial.  It’s possible I just haven’t been reading in-between the lines and other readers picked up on points I considered too vague.  Regardless, for a serial dedicated to the origin of Apocalypse and an elucidation of his philosophy, I would’ve preferred more concrete answers.

X-FACTOR FOREVER #4 - August 2010

Pawns

Credits:  Louise Simonson (writer), Dan Panosian & Eric Nguyen (art), Dave Sharpe (letterer), Jim Charalampidis (colorist)

Summary:  Caliban speaks to X-Factor, offering some insight into Apocalypse’s motives.  He lures the team to Mr. Sinister’s hideout inside a decommissioned nuclear silo in Nebraska.  While Sinister and his cloned army are distracted by X-Factor, Apocalypse enters with Christopher.  Cyclops briefly burns his powers out fighting Sinister, but Marvel Girl encourages him to keep fighting and reaffirms that she loves him.

Continuity Notes:  

• According to Caliban (who’s received this info from Apocalypse), mutants are unable to create viable offspring.  The few examples of healthy mutant offspring all involve magic or science, such as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.  As for Legion, Caliban dismisses him as insane and now comatose.  Legion was actually quite active at this point in continuity, which is set before “The Muir Island Saga.”
• Caliban cites the way Marvel Girl’s powers repel Christopher’s as evidence that she is his biological mother.  The fact that Cyclops isn’t repelled by Christopher’s forcefield leads Caliban to believe that Christopher was genetically manipulated by Sinister. The idea that the mutant powers of relatives repel each other is news to me; based on Cyclops and Havok, I thought mutant relatives were immune to each other’s powers, which isn’t quite the same thing.
• Sinister’s cloned army includes a brown-haired Cable and a white-haired Wolverine.  Marvel Girl’s powers bounce off Cable; Sinister says this proves that Cable is Nathan (Christopher) all grown up.

Review:  Okay, more fight scenes, and more monologues intended to convince the reader that mutants can’t make babies, even though we’ve seen mutants make some babies before.  (Well, I guess we haven’t actually seen it, outside of a MAX book.)  To be fair to Simonson, it seems as if she’s already anticipated the readers’ counterarguments and is explaining away the exceptions to the rule pretty quickly.  (Claremont waited several issues before acknowledging the exceptions to Burnout, which is one of the reasons I had a difficult time buying into the premise initially.)  Since most of this exposition is delivered by Caliban, I had to pause and remind myself that Simonson’s Caliban wasn’t childlike and was pretty far removed from Jeph Loeb’s reinvention of the character.  His speech pattern does seem to have been toned down in order to deliver this info dump, however, and it’s hard not to notice that two issues in a row have consisted of characters making broad statements about mutantkind in the midst of fight scenes.  The only real emotion in the story is at the very end, when Jean spontaneously declares her love for Cyclops and inspires him to keep fighting.  The sentiment is nice, but the timing is questionable.  This all occurs in the middle of a fight scene, but judging by the staging, it would seem Sinister and his flunkies are just big softies since they stop the fight in order to give the lovebirds their space.  Ideally, this miniseries could’ve been structured in a way that enabled Scott and Jean to resolve their relationship issues over the course of more than one page.

Regarding the addition of Mr. Sinister, I confess that I had a bit of a fanboy moment this issue.  Sinister’s motivation for wiping out the Morlocks and other random mutants was never properly explained during the ‘80s.  While rereading the original “Mutant Massacre” issues a few weeks ago, I noticed that the only motive given in the actual storyline comes from the X-Men speculating that the Marauders want to “rule the world” and are eliminating mutants who might be in their way.  That’s rather lame, and I imagine it was only thrown in because Claremont just wanted to kill off the Morlocks and was going to come up with a story justification for it later.  This issue, Simonson has Sinister declare that his work will leave Earth “in human hands…where it belongs.”  Was this an idea Claremont and Simonson kicked around in the ‘80s?  Sinister is an anti-mutant human, one who uses mutant clones to wipe out the mutant population?  It might sound ridiculous now, but it does read as consistent with the way the Marauders were originally portrayed.  Whenever the Forever books come across as honest continuations of the old stories, that’s when they’re the most entertaining.

The Apocalypse Journal IV

Credits:  Louise Simonson (writer), Aluir Almancino (penciler), Terry Austin (inker), Dave Sharpe (letterer), Dan Jackson (colorist)

Summary:  Sinister grows impatient with Apocalypse’s slow, furtive attempts to advance evolution.  While Apocalypse is distracted, Sinister advances his own studies.  On the island of Genosha, he breeds more mutants and develops a way to enslave them.  Apocalypse realizes that Sinister resents his power and views mutants as a threat to humanity.  He imagines a future where Sinister’s actions threaten mutantkind.  

Review:  Apparently, Simonson introduced Sinister to use him as a foil for Apocalypse, the one who inspires him to ensure that mutants will rise above humans.  I don’t have a real problem with this, since I have to accept within the main story that Sinister is an anti-mutant bigot in the timeline Simonson’s created.  Ideally, Simonson’s Sinister would overlap more neatly with Claremont’s original plans for the character, but I recognize that’s a trivial thing to care about.  Simonson has also worked in an explanation for why Genosha had so many mutants, and it’s a rather painless one as far as continuity implants go.  (Plus, it’s a plot problem that I don’t recall anyone addressing in the past.)  Is any of this alternate continuity better than what we received in the mainstream universe?  Probably not, but there are moments that make you feel as if you’re getting the “real” origin of Apocalypse.  

X-FACTOR FOREVER #3 - July 2010

Unexpected Host

Credits:  Louise Simonson (writer), Dan Panosian & Eric Nguyen (art), Dave Sharpe (letterer), Jim Charalampidis (colorist)

Summary:  Various heroes appear in Manhattan and rescue civilians from the flood created by Arishem the Judge’s arrival.  X-Factor returns to Ship and discovers Caliban and Apocalypse inside.  Apocalypse reveals that Ship has sent a census of mutantkind to the Celestials and that their judgment is at hand.  He grabs Christopher away from Cyclops and flies away.

Continuity Notes:  

• The various heroes that appear in the opening don’t exactly match their 1991 counterparts.  Iron Man and Thor have the wrong looks, for example, and Hulk is in his childlike “Hulk smash!” persona.  Medusa is also in Manhattan, for some reason.
• During his battle with X-Factor, Apocalypse explains that he’s encouraged the growth of mutants for centuries, in the hopes that all humanity will be deemed worthy by the Celestials.  (“Humanity” defined as neither Eternal nor Deviant.)
• Apocalypse is now claiming that no mutant has ever reproduced.  (Last issue, his theory was that no two mutants have created children together.)  Apocalypse fears that mutants' inability to procreate will cause the Celestials to judge against them.

Review:  It’s an all-action chapter, with a lengthy monologue by Apocalypse covering much of the fight scene.  This kind of economical storytelling was common during Simonson’s days at Marvel, and it suits this particular chapter pretty well.  The story doesn’t stop to dwell on the implications, but Simonson gives the reader enough information to begin to perceive Apocalypse’s previous actions in a different light.  He’s megalomaniacal, yes, but if his ultimate goal all along was to spare humanity the Celestials’ judgment, then he’s not such a one-note villain after all.  It’s hard to reconcile this idea with how the audience perceives Apocalypse today, but it’s worth remembering that Simonson’s Apocalypse didn’t have such a grandiose speech pattern (dramatized so well in the ‘90s animated series), and that she never portrayed him as the genocidal warlord seen in the “Age of Apocalypse.”  Her Apocalypse was more cryptic, and arguably, more human than the later interpretations.

The action this issue is mainly handled by Eric Nguyen, who seems to have improved since the previous chapter.  His art is reminiscent of Whilce Portacio’s more recent work, and while it’s occasionally stiff, there’s some personality here.  (Colorist Jim Charalampidis also deserves a lot of credit for the moody atmosphere he creates during the team’s fight in the dark against Caliban and Apocalypse.)  Most of Dan Panosian’s pages are in the opening, which gives him an opportunity to draw a variety of Marvel superheroes.  It’s like browsing through a really nice DeviantArt gallery for a few pages, which is fine by me.

The Apocalypse Journal III

Credits:  Louise Simonson (writer), Aluir Almancino (penciler), Terry Austin (inker), Dave Sharpe (letterer), Dan Jackson (colorist)

Summary:  Apocalypse continues to foster war, hoping that it will force humanity to grow stronger.  Growing lonely, he takes in the surviving ancestor of a family he admired in Atlantis.  Apocalypse experiments on the young man, Nathaniel Essex, slowing his aging and giving him the ability to change his form.

Review:  For reasons I don’t quite understand, the origin of Apocalypse is interrupted so that Mr. Sinister can waltz onstage.  Why exactly Simonson felt the need to incorporate Sinister into the story is a mystery to me.  The centuries-long connection between Apocalypse and Sinister is an invention of the Bob Harras-driven '90s, isn’t it?  I’ve never imagined her original plans for Apocalypse involved Sinister at all.  Regardless, Sinister is here to receive his third published origin in a Marvel comic.  And that’s only counting the ones I’m aware of.  Didn’t Earth X establish that Sinister was actually Colossus?  

Simonson’s origin leans a bit closer to the “official” origin revealed by Peter Milligan in the Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix miniseries.  Sinister is Nathaniel Essex, a human from Victorian England taken in by Apocalypse, as opposed to Claremont’s interpretation of a (presumably American) mutant scientist who cannot age.  Simonson tries to leave room for the hints dropped during “Inferno” to work, regarding Nathan as Cyclops’ childhood friend/bully, but the art botches the job.  Aluir Almancino’s interpretation of Nathan looks around twenty when we meet him in Victorian England, so it’s hard to imagine him passing for an eleven-year-old in an American orphanage decades later.  (In my ideal fanboy world, Almancino would’ve been given reference on Nathan’s appearance in those Classic X-Men back-ups before penciling the story.) Ultimately, it’s hard to justify this diversion, unless you happen to think Sinister is essential to Apocalypse’s backstory.

X-FACTOR FOREVER #2 - June 2010

Diversion

Credits:  Louise Simonson (writer), Dan Panosian & Eric Nguyen (art), Dave Sharpe (letterer), Jim Charalampidis (colorist)

Summary:  Apocalypse implants Cameron Hodge’s head into Master Mold’s remains to create Master Meld.  He teleports it into Manhattan, where X-Factor attends the birthday party for Charlotte’s son, Tim.  X-Factor defends the city from Master Meld while Apocalypse and Caliban break into Ship and search his database.  Master Meld is finally defeated when Iceman freezes Hodge’s head, but the team is in for another shock when a Celestial appears in the sky.

Continuity Notes:  

• Cyclops ignites Tim’s birthday candles with his optic blasts, which is something he shouldn’t be able to do since his powers don’t generate heat.  (This mistake appears sporadically. Cyclops once melted a SHIELD agent's gun on a Captain America cover.)  Simonson does have someone point out that these are trick candles, but that doesn’t exactly cover for the mistake.
• Apocalypse asks Caliban if any of the Morlocks gave birth to a mutant child.  He says it never happened, which supports Apocalypse’s theory that two mutants can’t create another mutant.  What about Nathan Christopher?  Apocalypse says that since his mother was a clone of a mutant, her genes could’ve been manipulated.
• Baby Nathan (or Christopher, or Nathan Christopher) uses his long-forgotten ability to create a forcefield bubble when Master Meld attacks.  Marvel Girl’s telekinetic powers always repel his forcefield, for reasons no one quite understands.

Review:  The biggest disappointment this issue is discovering that Dan Panosian is missing for much of the page count.  Even though the inking style is fairly consistent, Eric Nguyen’s art is clearly not compatible with Panosian’s cartooning.  Nguyen’s work is in the vaguely realistic, modern day Photoshop style, while Panosian is obviously going for something else.  (Looking at Nguyen's DeviantArt page, he's certainly capable of going in a cartoony direction, so I'm not sure why this style was chosen.) I have no idea how many pages Panosian can finish a month, or what his deadline was, but it’s a shame that even with a back-up, he still isn’t penciling the entirety of the main story.

Speaking of which, Simonson uses the fight scene as a diversion (it’s right there in the title) while Apocalypse searches Ship’s database and provides some hints for the future.  Much like Claremont’s work in X-Men Forever, Simonson is using her series to make rather sweeping statements about the overall status of mutantkind.  Her premise is that mutants can’t reproduce, which is of some concern to Apocalypse, for reasons we’ll discover later.  I tend to dislike this kind of over-generalization; it’s like the writer is just begging the reader to punch as many holes as possible in the premise.  I will say that Simonson is easing into the premise and not overselling it, so I’m willing to see where this goes.  So far, the miniseries really does feel like a continuation of the original X-Factor run; there’s enough goodwill generated to give her the benefit of the doubt.

The Apocalypse Journal II

Credits:  Louise Simonson (writer), Aluir Almancino (penciler), Terry Austin (inker), Dave Sharpe (letterer), Dan Jackson (colorist)

Summary:  Apocalypse gains some control over Ship and travels around the Earth.  He gathers a group of humans he deems fit and takes them to the island of Atlantis, which is eventually invaded by the Deviants.  Apocalypse pits the Deviants against each other in retaliation, and begins to understand the value of evolution.

Review:  I’ve never read the original Eternals series, but I’m assuming this is Louise Simonson’s attempt to retcon Apocalypse “behind the scenes” of Kirby’s origin stories.  On a certain level, this is a defensible choice, since Ship always had a connection to the Celestials and Simonson exploited this fact in previous X-Factor stories.  So I have to acknowledge the decision to tie Apocalypse in with Eternals continuity isn’t totally arbitrary.  My personal bias as a reader hasn’t changed, however.  I’m not invested in the Eternals and Deviants, and when I discover facts like Apocalypse was the founder of Atlantis, I have no real response outside of “Uh, surrre….”  At least these info dumps are left as backup stories, and they are mercifully short.