The thing about X-Factor is that it is just a mess of a narrative. I mean that as a good thing and as a bad thing. On the one hand, it's a great concept and there is some fantastic writing. On the other hand, it's a book that could easily be consumed by its own potential. After all, how many timelines and universes are tied together into this one book? How many versions of Madrox are running around out there? These are things that can be worked to its advantage or can become lodestones around its neck.

That's part of why #49 appealed so much to me: it kind of throws a lot of that out the window for a good bit of the middle of the book. As Shatterstar, Rictor and Guido drive to Detroit there are several pages of nothing but Guido and Rictor discussing the revelation of a relationship between Rictor and Shatterstar. I've always liked Peter David's writing and I think he's particularly good at dialogue but this is one of the best coming-out-fallout scenes I've seen or read. It's not melodramatic, it's not overwrought, but neither is it too easy. Guido is surprised, to say the least, and has questions and isn't sure how to ask them. The interplay between them as Rictor presses Guido to be honest about any problems he might have with a relationship between Rictor and Shatterstar feels real. My experience has been that too often a piece that wants to make a point comes off as stiff and moralizing and after-school-special-y. This doesn't. It sounds like the same conversations friends and I were having my freshman year of college when I started coming out and it was taking people by surprise.

There are two things I really admire about that scene, the first of which is the way Guido's obvious discombobulation smooths out into friendly ribbing. I have seen more than one surprised but well-intentioned participant in a coming-out conversation seek refuge in humor as a way to signal that they wanted to maintain the relationship but they weren't quite sure how to react. It's understandable, if not always helpful. In the case of this one scene, it's also pretty funny. I laughed aloud at more than one point in the conversation, something comics don't often make me do.

The other thing I dig is that Rictor doesn't just back Guido into a politically correct "you're OK and I'm OK" corner and leave it there. When it's clear that Guido is uncomfortable but trying to synthesize this new information into his understanding of things, Rictor pushes him to state his objections. When Guido says he doesn't have objections, Rictor keeps at him. I don't think it does anyone any favors when people have to process and reprocess the same emotional data over and over again, but I really appreciated that Peter David didn't just have everyone pretend nothing had happened and didn't let anyone get away with covering up their feelings. Rictor knows this is a shock to Guido and Rictor wants to get it out in the open where it can be dealt with in an honest way. That, kids, is what friends are for. How refreshing to have a media portrayal of a coming out that is neither a dull, politically correct shadow play nor a heavy handed sermon.

The whole bit with the jumper and the random saving of same by Guido as they drive through the night was just icing on the reality cake.

That said, I was left with very mildly mixed feelings regarding that scene. I get that the narrative requirement is to show that everything is smoothed over by having everyone work together against a common enemy. I also don't think that a realistic representation of the ways a friendship has to grow and change when one person comes out to the other can be summarized in a few word balloons. At the same time, as much as I enjoyed the realistic slide of the conversation into humor I didn't come away feeling that it had been instructive, except perhaps to demonstrate that the questions of identity and history can be some sticky wickets indeed and expanding one's concept of another person they thought they already knew is never an easy task or easily resolved.

I guess what I'm hoping is that #50 and future issues don't let it go. I'm not saying Peter David needs to turn X-Factor Investigations into the Coming Out Helpline, but the parts of me that need closure and affirmation are hoping for some sort of resolution to that conversation, even if it's just Guido saying that, yes, OK, he's weirded out, not because he's a great big homophobe but because this alters the ways he thinks of his friends and their futures and that takes time to wrap one's mind around. I used to think of stories and scenes such as this as being meaningful only to the abandoned queer consumer of culture, an aside everyone else just had to tolerate, but these days I realize that there is major value in them for straight readers, too, especially the ones who believe they'll never have to be concerned with such things. My hope is that the story of the integration of Rictor and Shatterstar's relationship into the dynamic of X-Factor won't be about them needing to come to terms with their own sexuality - they seem just fine on that point - but will instead be geared towards demonstrating to het readers that when someone comes out it's OK if they have to do some work to accept it; that in fact a willingness to do that work is part of what makes a friendship such a special relationship in the first place.