Peter David delivers, as always, some great dialogue. I again found myself laughing aloud at Cortex's observation that another character "has got some sugar in her smacks" after getting knocked halfway across Dark Future Atlantic City. I also have to admire David's portrayal of Dark Future Von Doom, who's so crazy with the oldness that he's just sitting around reflexively betraying people and justifying it, a super-villain on auto-pilot in his old age. The resolution of the major villain's personal storyline as a recursive narrative is also extremely satisfying and not something I had expected. It's the little twists that make a story like this fun for me and I am always up for time travel plots that arc back on themselves. It's also very interesting to be treated to Fitzroy's origin story as a villain almost as an aside.

There's also some pretty good art. The art in this book is not mind-blowing the way it can be in, say, Detective Comics at the moment, but it's pretty good. Cortex's weird circuit face - which is completely different from one's face the morning after a circuit party - is interestingly creepy and facial expressions in general in this book are quite good. Sometimes the action sequences seem a little confusingly drawn, or perspective seems odd, but in general the bigger shots look great. There's a lovely panel of one of the major villain's attacks that stretches across most of two pages and is quite nicely done.

Mostly I enjoy that Peter David keeps the wit and the banter going at all times, something I strongly associate with the X-Men. Aside from the "sugar in her smacks" line mentioned above there's a great scene in which Ruby advocates for saving another character by making a surprise claim about their relationship in the classic melodramatic style of soap opera comic books. When another character reacts with surprise, Ruby quickly admits that, no, it's not true, but she figured hey, it was worth a shot, right? Another favorite moment: when we see Sentinels put to a new, originally unoriginal use, Jamie gets to deliver a mocking line that probably also occurs to half the readers at that moment. The art for that scene is great and the color commentary by the mutants is spot-on, switching nimbly between amusing and inspiring. Those moments are little nuggets of parodical praise, Peter David stepping out from behind the book to favor us with a wink and a smile, and I love them. After all, what's an X-book without melodrama and humor? Why not revel in that alchemy when we have the chance?

Still, I did have a couple of problems with it. Namely, it kind of felt like all the major questions asked by the way events unfolded in the future were left entirely unanswered and yet the book tries to give off an air of closure. I get that the future being dealt with in X-Factor is not just the future of that book, or of Peter David's making, but is the future that produces some long-standing members of the Marvel universe who get tossed around in time and that it will undoubtedly be revisited in this and/or other X-Men titles over time (no pun intended) and so it has to be left as an incomplete setting and story . Heck, for all I know that's all setting up back story for events in that setting that have long-since been written and published. Regardless, I was a little surprised that everyone comes home and has their big reunion (well, nearly everyone - I love Layla's side route because, as I say, I am a sucker for the recursive narratives) and then the story pretty much immediately starts into their next case, having returned to NYC. Is that a preview of where the story is headed, or is that the next storyline's launch, or some sort of B-side? Either way, the cognitive dissonance was a little large for my tastes. Also, this issue was disappointingly low on Shatterstar/Rictor content, though the preview/add-on/b-side/whatever story at the end did include an amusing cameo.

Finally, a confession: a part of why I like this book is because Jamie Madrox is hot. I had never heard of Multiple Man until I saw him portrayed as a villain in the X-Men series of movies and I admit, my first comment when the credits rolled and a friend asked what I thought was to say, "A bad-boy hottie who produces duplicates of himself for fun? The fantasy possibilities are a little overwhelming."