Review: X-Factor #207
The last few weeks have seen a bunch of issues of normally great or new but promising comics drop - Return of Bruce Wayne, Time Masters: Vanishing Point and Batman Beyond. Of all the comics in my neglected-due-to-work-obligations bag, however, the best by far is X-Factor #207.
I am something of a Peter David fanboy, and I love the cast of this book, but this issue is a step up from their usual excellent quality, with some really top-notch writing and a serious art upgrade - and most welcome hottie-on-hottie makeouts.
Read on for more thoughts on a fantastic issue of a fantastic book!
First off, the art. Whoah. The art in this - by Sebastian Fiumara, who does both the pencils and the inks - is a serious step up from before on this comic. Faces are rich and expressive, body language is emotive and settings look like real places. I was blown away right out of the gate by the art in this issue and it's a welcome change. A glance at Marvel.com reveals that Fiumara will be continuing to work on the title for an issue or two so I am looking forward to the art in this book for the next couple of months.
Second, fantastic writing. Hard-boiled mutant detectives are why I came to this show and #207 delivers from the first page and maintains a high standard. It isn't all tongue-in-cheek Chandler-alike sarcasm, either. The scene of Shatterstar and Rictor hashing out their relationship is realistic and moving and human in a way very few other comics are capable of ever doing with their same-sex characters. Peter David's X-Factor gives the queer communities the kind of serious, dignified treatment we rarely see, and when we do it's almost always from David, the incredible Gail Simone or the much-lauded Greg Rucka. David has a particular gift for writing characters who very sympathetically refuse to be confined by their labels and I love it. That the writing in this issue is also also incredibly smart and witty and clever is what puts the icing on the cake. This book made me laugh aloud at least half a dozen times, it surprised me with a twist ending and it features another close-up kiss by Shatterstar and Rictor that probably has Rob Liefeld's knickers in a sailor knot. These are all very good things.
Most of all, what I appreciate about this issue is that it's a solid issue about detectives being detectives. This is sometimes a book about superheroes for whom their detective agency is a kind of go-anywhere pass to get their feet in the door vs. villains, yes, but issues like this show that they can be actual detectives, too. I love a story about tricking people way more than I love one about punching them and this issue made me very happy by that metric, too.
Issue #208 comes out in a week and a half and if it's as good as this then X-Factor will officially be the very best X-book on the market at the moment, bar none.
Klarion
Posted to Review on 17 August 2010
· Comments (6)
Other stuff like this: Peter David, X-Factor
This was a greaaat issue!
I've only just started reading X-Factor (from #200), and it's been hard for me to penetrate and get into these characters. This issue was the real turning point though, I loved it!
Hela's costume was absolutely amaaazing, too!
It really is just an absurdly good issue of X-Factor and the significant art upgrade really does help sell the rest of it.
I feel you on the huge cast and I encourage the use of Wikipedia and other web resources. In the back of issue #200 - or was it #50? - there's a great big spread on each cast member. Highly recommended. You might have to go back to that issue and keep flipping past the cereal ads to get to them if you didn't see them the first time.
what's a good (relatively) recent jumping in point for the series? preferably in graphic novel format.
@tomato: I started reading it last summer at issue... 46? Something like that? With the Internet to help me I had no problem leaping in with both feet. On that basis, I would recommend starting at X-Factor Volume 8: Overtime, which is issues 46 through 50 (December 2009).
January of this year is when they renumbered it back up to #200, so the X-Factor: Invisible Woman Has Vanished hardcover, which has #200 through #203, would catch you up through April 2010 (the TPB is due out in November) and a comics shop would probably have individual back-issues available from May until now (at least, mine does).
Honestly, if you haven't read the series at all I would recommend you pick up this issue and see if you like it. This issue is definitely one of the peaks for the last year so if it appeals, make the investment on the trades and if it doesn't then you can save yourself the dough. Unfortunately, current pricing of the X-Factor collections (not counting Amazon or brick-and-mortar frequent buyer discount cards or the like) doesn't make them any more economical than individual issues, which is damnable behavior by the publisher in my book.
thanks I will look into that (probably see if my library has it before I start buying them). I have read some isolated issues and liked them (part of storyline where madrox ended up in the future that bishop was from I think...)
I know what you mean about pricing, I refused to buy Justice, despite it being awesome, because they split it into three books and it should have been one (though I think they are releasing it all under one book soon...) I have been collecting some of the Vertigo published stuff because it is pretty cheap and usually pretty good (Fables, Northlanders, DMZ, etc.).
Also, I would like to slap myself on the wrist for leaving Jim McCann and Allan Heinberg off the list of writers to whom we can look for reliably great representations.