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X-Factor Epic Collection
X-Factor Epic Collection, Vol. 4: Judgement War
Collects X-Factor (1986) #37-50, X-Factor Annual (1986) #4, Uncanny X-Men (1981) #242-243.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire! As the Inferno rages, Madelyne Pryor - now the Goblin Queen - targets her and Cyclops' infant son, Nathan! Can X-Factor survive an onslaught of demons and keep Nathan safe? What happens when the crisis reunites them with the X-Men, whom they thought were dead? And will any of them be ready when Mister Sinister strikes? In the aftermath, X-Factor must deal with the threat of Nanny and the Orphan-Maker, and rescue the boy called Alchemy! But when a Celestial kidnaps the team and their sentient Ship, they'll find themselves on an alien world - right in the middle of the devastating Judgement War! As X-Factor is separated on different sides of the conflict, another deadly struggle begins - inside Jean's own mind!
Out of the frying pan, into the fire! As the Inferno rages, Madelyne Pryor - now the Goblin Queen - targets her and Cyclops' infant son, Nathan! Can X-Factor survive an onslaught of demons and keep Nathan safe? What happens when the crisis reunites them with the X-Men, whom they thought were dead? And will any of them be ready when Mister Sinister strikes? In the aftermath, X-Factor must deal with the threat of Nanny and the Orphan-Maker, and rescue the boy called Alchemy! But when a Celestial kidnaps the team and their sentient Ship, they'll find themselves on an alien world - right in the middle of the devastating Judgement War! As X-Factor is separated on different sides of the conflict, another deadly struggle begins - inside Jean's own mind!
489 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 15, 2023
6 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Louise Simonson
964 books101 followersLouise Simonson (born Mary Louise Alexander and formerly credited as Louise Jones, when married to artist Jeff Jones) is an American comic book writer and editor. She is best known for her work on comic book titles such as Power Pack, X-Factor, New Mutants, Superman, and Steel. She is sometimes referred to by the nickname "Weezie".
Since 1980 she is married to comic book writer and artist Walter Simonson
Since 1980 she is married to comic book writer and artist Walter Simonson
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 27, 2024
The first time I read the non-Inferno issues collected here, I was pleasantly surprised. I don’t know what the hell I was smoking. Reading them again now, I’m disappointed.
All the xbooks fell apart after Inferno. While Chris Claremont disassembled the X-Men and sent Excalibur dimension hopping, Louise Simonson sent The New Mutants to Asgard and X-Factor to space. All so the greater mutant story could spin its wheels. Unfortunately, the wheels came off with all the spinning. Claremont and Simonson never found their footing again and both were soon gone from their pair of books.
Conventional wisdom will tell you to blame editor Bob Harras for choosing superstar artists Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld over his tried and true writers, but the truth is he probably wouldn’t have been able to do that if the stories they were telling were any good. They weren’t. And the art was the only thing exciting fans. New Mutants in Asgard sucked, Excalibur in the Cross Time Caper sucked, both of those stories went on far too long, and teamless X-Men sucked. It was just a collection of subplots without main characters for 20 issues.
X-Factor in space definitely didn’t work. Simonson is a bit more mature with her writing here—that is, there are periods now too instead of exclamation marks! But the majority of the story is spent on lame new characters. Iceman has amnesia. Jean Grey is sidelined the whole time. Archangel barely speaks. Cyclops and Beast separately work with aliens to… oh, who cares. It’s a very stale Star Trek story about warring factions on some dumb planet with the Celestials lurking in the background.
Part of the appeal of this book, even in the crappy issues, has been seeing the Original 5 work together. Here, you don’t see that till the final issue. I won’t even mention the return of artist Paul Smith. Honestly. It’s too sad, because there are glimmered of greatness but the inkers he was paired with suck and anyway the story he’s drawing is stupid and ugly.
Post-Inferno was just a massive fail and Bob Harras was correct to get rid of Claremont and Simonson when he did. It’s taken me many, many years to admit that. But now that enough time has passed I can say, Claremont was already losing it. He had become a parody of himself and his stories, frankly, were going nowhere without a good artist and editor. Just look at his ideas for the build up to Uncanny 300. Not good. Hell, look at X-Men Forever. Not good, oh at all. But the man gave us so much awesomeness, for so long, it’s easier just to hate Bob Harras.
All the xbooks fell apart after Inferno. While Chris Claremont disassembled the X-Men and sent Excalibur dimension hopping, Louise Simonson sent The New Mutants to Asgard and X-Factor to space. All so the greater mutant story could spin its wheels. Unfortunately, the wheels came off with all the spinning. Claremont and Simonson never found their footing again and both were soon gone from their pair of books.
Conventional wisdom will tell you to blame editor Bob Harras for choosing superstar artists Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld over his tried and true writers, but the truth is he probably wouldn’t have been able to do that if the stories they were telling were any good. They weren’t. And the art was the only thing exciting fans. New Mutants in Asgard sucked, Excalibur in the Cross Time Caper sucked, both of those stories went on far too long, and teamless X-Men sucked. It was just a collection of subplots without main characters for 20 issues.
X-Factor in space definitely didn’t work. Simonson is a bit more mature with her writing here—that is, there are periods now too instead of exclamation marks! But the majority of the story is spent on lame new characters. Iceman has amnesia. Jean Grey is sidelined the whole time. Archangel barely speaks. Cyclops and Beast separately work with aliens to… oh, who cares. It’s a very stale Star Trek story about warring factions on some dumb planet with the Celestials lurking in the background.
Part of the appeal of this book, even in the crappy issues, has been seeing the Original 5 work together. Here, you don’t see that till the final issue. I won’t even mention the return of artist Paul Smith. Honestly. It’s too sad, because there are glimmered of greatness but the inkers he was paired with suck and anyway the story he’s drawing is stupid and ugly.
Post-Inferno was just a massive fail and Bob Harras was correct to get rid of Claremont and Simonson when he did. It’s taken me many, many years to admit that. But now that enough time has passed I can say, Claremont was already losing it. He had become a parody of himself and his stories, frankly, were going nowhere without a good artist and editor. Just look at his ideas for the build up to Uncanny 300. Not good. Hell, look at X-Men Forever. Not good, oh at all. But the man gave us so much awesomeness, for so long, it’s easier just to hate Bob Harras.
March 17, 2024
Louise Simonson has her moments. She is able to write stories that play on the metaphors that make mutant superhero stories great (i.e. how we might celebrate difference rather than oppress it; how some choose to wield power to control and manipulate others vs. supporting those without power.) These are the themes that I love in the best X-Men books along with the personal struggles of individuals to define themselves in relation to their power metaphorically and directly.
Unfortunately this collection doesn’t completely live up to its potential. First, after the excellent run of Infernk issues it uses one of my least favorite tropes in comic book story telling, it has the heroes wished off to an alien planet to have a morality tale told across warring factions on an alien world. I can’t stand this because it is an attempt to throw in a traditional not well developed science fiction story into a super hero comic. Neither the science fiction which doesn’t have the space to develop even over 10 or so issues or the super hero story benefits from this. It is clunky, silly in parts, and insulting to the readers who could use something with a little more sophistication. Chris Claremont mastered this in his best work on the main X-Men title and in the Demon Bear Saga in New Mutants.
Second the art here is hit or miss at best and really horrible in parts. Part of this is that a number of the issues had two artists with one doing the layouts and the other finishing. It is shoddy and doesn’t hold up well.
All of that said, I think Simonson has some great passages. I personally love when comic writers get philosophical as they contemplate the absurd situations they have created to highlight themes. So it was OK
Unfortunately this collection doesn’t completely live up to its potential. First, after the excellent run of Infernk issues it uses one of my least favorite tropes in comic book story telling, it has the heroes wished off to an alien planet to have a morality tale told across warring factions on an alien world. I can’t stand this because it is an attempt to throw in a traditional not well developed science fiction story into a super hero comic. Neither the science fiction which doesn’t have the space to develop even over 10 or so issues or the super hero story benefits from this. It is clunky, silly in parts, and insulting to the readers who could use something with a little more sophistication. Chris Claremont mastered this in his best work on the main X-Men title and in the Demon Bear Saga in New Mutants.
Second the art here is hit or miss at best and really horrible in parts. Part of this is that a number of the issues had two artists with one doing the layouts and the other finishing. It is shoddy and doesn’t hold up well.
All of that said, I think Simonson has some great passages. I personally love when comic writers get philosophical as they contemplate the absurd situations they have created to highlight themes. So it was OK
July 12, 2024
The end of the Claremont Era, which was also the end of Louise Simonson's era in the X-titles, was sad to experience.
The X-books went from a longform tale about overcoming prejudice with a subcurrent of soap opera relationships to a weird take on magic and alternate dimensions that just wasn't fun to read. After the dull but not terrible X-Men: Inferno, Vol. 1 crossover the X-Factor team is shunted off into space by their Ship for reasons neither it, nor the writers can explain. They just wanted a space story and couldn't figure out how to move from New York Is Overrun By Demons to Let's Go To Space And Have Conan The Barbarian Story logically, so they just tossed in a random plot device.
In theory, I was happy we were moving on from the Jean/Madelyne/Phoenix storyline, as well as getting out of Magic New York. But this wasn't the direction I was hoping it would go. I was incredibly bored by the entire space saga. When I finished reading the last issue, I tried to think back to what I liked and didn't like, and my mind was blank. It was as though I'd sleepread this.
This runs parallel to Excalibur hopping around the multiverse with Widget, and the X-Men each doing their own things while presumed dead in Australia. None of it was fun to read, and none of it has really been revisited in any other popular or fun storylines. I can't really recommend this to anyone but completists.
The X-books went from a longform tale about overcoming prejudice with a subcurrent of soap opera relationships to a weird take on magic and alternate dimensions that just wasn't fun to read. After the dull but not terrible X-Men: Inferno, Vol. 1 crossover the X-Factor team is shunted off into space by their Ship for reasons neither it, nor the writers can explain. They just wanted a space story and couldn't figure out how to move from New York Is Overrun By Demons to Let's Go To Space And Have Conan The Barbarian Story logically, so they just tossed in a random plot device.
In theory, I was happy we were moving on from the Jean/Madelyne/Phoenix storyline, as well as getting out of Magic New York. But this wasn't the direction I was hoping it would go. I was incredibly bored by the entire space saga. When I finished reading the last issue, I tried to think back to what I liked and didn't like, and my mind was blank. It was as though I'd sleepread this.
This runs parallel to Excalibur hopping around the multiverse with Widget, and the X-Men each doing their own things while presumed dead in Australia. None of it was fun to read, and none of it has really been revisited in any other popular or fun storylines. I can't really recommend this to anyone but completists.
February 7, 2024
I was unfamiliar with the Judgement War storyline.
This collection starts off with Inferno, which is an epic story, and really is better when you read all of it, not just the books collected here. Those stories, though, are amazing, and the artwork is top-notch.
We get a few other issues here and there (the Annual is all over the place, and one piece of a larger storyline, and although interesting, doesn't do much for you unless you know what is going on.)
Then comes the Judgement War storyline. This spanned several issues, and the artwork was amazing, between Art Adams and Paul Smith! It was a slow read, as there are so...many...words, and the characters are not that interesting. However, over time, it grew on me, and by the end of this epic, I was invested. All in all, it was an interesting story, but could have been half the length, and just as interesting. It's not surprising that this isn't as "known" of a storyline in the X-titles, but it is still an interesting read.
Onto the next... which is set up at the end (the Acts of Vengeance).
This collection starts off with Inferno, which is an epic story, and really is better when you read all of it, not just the books collected here. Those stories, though, are amazing, and the artwork is top-notch.
We get a few other issues here and there (the Annual is all over the place, and one piece of a larger storyline, and although interesting, doesn't do much for you unless you know what is going on.)
Then comes the Judgement War storyline. This spanned several issues, and the artwork was amazing, between Art Adams and Paul Smith! It was a slow read, as there are so...many...words, and the characters are not that interesting. However, over time, it grew on me, and by the end of this epic, I was invested. All in all, it was an interesting story, but could have been half the length, and just as interesting. It's not surprising that this isn't as "known" of a storyline in the X-titles, but it is still an interesting read.
Onto the next... which is set up at the end (the Acts of Vengeance).
November 23, 2024
This one took a lot longer to get through than I thought. It's not necessary a bad thing, its just the story tackles a lot of story and is filled with a down moment in the middle between epic storylines. Those storylines are Inferno (which X-Factor is right in the middle of) and Judgement War, a multiple issue story where X-Factor is broken apart and must fight to survive. The Inferno and Judement war stories are the highlights of the book and the stories in-between just aren't as powerful. Still, a great read for fans of these characters and a great way to experience some intense dramatic moments.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews