X-Factor Epic Collection, Vol. 1: Genesis & Apocalypse

X-Factor Epic Collection

by John Byrne, Roger Stern, Bob Layton

One triumphant return, one diabolical debut! When Jean Grey is found alive - with a little help from the Avengers and Fantastic Four - she reunites with the rest of Xavier's original class to form X-Factor! But as Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Angel and Iceman face new enemies Tower and Frenzy, little do they realize the villains are part of an Alliance of Evil led by...Apocalypse! They'll fight Iron Man and Spider-Man, encounter uncanny foes such as Bulk and Glow Worm, and take on old sparring partners in Freedom Force - but there's no question who will rise to the role of X-Factor's arch-nemesis. The story of En Sabah Nur begins here!

Vol. 1: Avengers (1963) 263; Fantastic Four (1961) 286; X-Factor (1986) 1-9; X-Factor Annual (1986) 1; Iron Man Annual 8; Amazing Spider-Man (1963) 282; material from Classic X-Men 8, 43

Genres: Comics, X Men, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction

456 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2017

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero.

Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics' X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He also wrote the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.

Reviews

[Judah Radd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Skip it.

So... there are two important things that happen here. Jean Grey returns, and Apocalypse is first seen. Those things sound exciting and fascinating, right? Wrong.

This is the original five X-Men, brought back together as a team, but under really stupid and illogical circumstances. The appeal to nostalgia is tangible.

Here is a story with no focus. No heart. The character drama is lifted off of “Love Boat” or “As the World Turns.”

“I can’t tell my wife that Jean is back, but I can’t tell Jean I’m married... and every time I try to tell her, we get interrupted. This happens over and over again, and by the way, Angel wants to fuck Jean.”

That’s not an exaggeration. These are cheap plot devices, unbecoming of The X Men.

The art sucks. It’s sloppy, lacks detail, is boringly colored... it’s just gross. It hurts my eyes.

This was a struggle. The only reason it gets two stars is because it introduces Apocalypse (in a really lame and boring way) and it brings Jean back (in another stupid way that retcons a lot of the drama out of the Dark Phoenix Saga.)

Completionists, here you go. Everyone else, go read something better.

[Tiag⊗ the Mutant · Rating 2 out of 5]

I always loved the original five, they have so much chemistry together, but ultimately, X-Factor is just a bad team concept, to me at least, and I never liked Pryor's storyline, so I've lost interest half way through it, but art's decent, and there's some cool small stories that saves the book for me. I also know the series gets better later on, with a new direction, with Havok's team, so I'm more interested in that, and also the origins of the Angel of Death.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars. Pretty solid stuff. The Avengers #263 and the Fantastic Four # 286 show how Jean Grey comes back and how she is still alive. Then we role into the main X-Factor title. Now back in Uncanny X-Men omnibus vol 5, Scott was treating his new wife Madelyne like crap. Leaving her alone with their newborn son and not really talking to her. He only went back home because he lost his chance to regain the leadership of the X-Men to Storm. Damn Scott. C’mon man. Smh. Anyhoo, that continues here. He finds out Jean is back but doesn’t tell his new wife and doesn’t tell Jean about Madelyne or that he has a kid. Dammit man. But the idea/concept for X-Factor was pretty cool. They advertise as a company that will get rid of your mutant problem. But in reality, they show up to rescue the mutants they were called to eliminate. Pretty nice little scam they have running. It was cool watching them operate while trying not to blow their cover. They get into to pretty harry situations too. Plus we get the first appearance of Apocalypse. I skipped issue # 9 as that is in the X-Men Mutant Massacre omnibus that I’m reading next.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got to say the book doesn’t really pick up until Louise Simonson takes over on writing, and just when the book was getting really good it was over. Has me excited to read the next volume at least.
The premise of the book is pretty weak as they constantly justify why the original 5 x-men would pose as “mutant hunters” as a way to save mutants. Also Cyclops does not come off looking good in this book as he just abandons his wife and child but maybe that will pay off later.
One thing I have to admit is that this team is fun together. They’re one of the original teams of Marvel comics and it’s neat seeing them together again a little bit older but maybe not much wiser.
Not a must read X-book except for the Simonson issues. The art was enjoyable from Guice especially that Angel costume. One of the best costume designs.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic material finally collected in a handsome color edition. Must-reading for all X-Men fans.

[Jeff · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a load of steaming garbage?! The premise of this book is to put together the original X-Men. To do so in 1986, they had to:

1. have Cyclops leave a wife and child;
2. Bring Jean Grey back from the dead and ret-con a major plot thread of Chris Claremont’s at that point classic Dark Phoenix Saga;
3. De-mutate the furry blue beast back to a more human looking form; and
4. Create a convoluted story about becoming mutant hunters to save mutants. As if stoking fear of mutants and posing as mercenary mutant hunters makes any kind of sense.

It all adds up to melodramatic mush with false tension and rather stupid plot elements. I read these when they first came out and I honestly didn’t remember much. But that is not surprising because there isn’t a lot here worth remembering.

My main take away is that this book made me hate Cyclops as a character. He is the most unheroic of husbands and father figures, and ultimately just a weak sad white guy wallowing in self pity. How anyone expects us to believe that he has any redeeming quality and would make even an OK team leader is beyond me.

This really is thin stuff… and it’s too bad because the new X-Factor costumes (when they are posing as mutants and not mutant hunters) look kind of cool.

[Dubzor · Rating 2 out of 5]

The original X-FACTOR can be summed up thusly...Scott Summers is an asshole.

Aside from aforementioned former x-man's dickishness, the whole concept is terribly flawed and it's really not until a change in the creative team that the book gets any good.

Then there's Jean Grey's first ressurection. Ugh...it's dumb.

Not for the casual fan, more for hardcore X-historians.

[Shawn Ingle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't read these issues since they originally came out. I'd say the reintroction of Jean holds up pretty well but after that there is a lot of repetition in these stories.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve read most the stories collected in this volume several times. Most, but not all. And I have a wealth of conflicting opinions on them. Probably as many opinions as there are issues. To start with, I was initially very intrigued with the notion of reuniting the original X-Men. Initially. I loved the mystery of unfolding the new “origin” of this new spinoff X-Men title in the pages of Avengers and Fantastic Four. I was enthralled with how the various creators figured out a way to bring Marvel Girl, aka Jean Grey, back from the dead without belittling her sacrifice. Except, in the end, that’s not what happened. But what really bothered me and STILL bothers me to this day, is what was created with X-Factor. A corporation that uses the mutant hysteria to hunt down mutants and remove them as threats. Okay, yes, sure, they’re actually recruiting the mutants, not hunting them down. But could no one involved with the concept see the problem with this concept? Fill any other minority instead of mutant and maybe you’ll begin to see how utterly offensive this concept is. Whether or not the members of X-Factor agreed with the mutant hysteria in their world isn’t the point. The point is that they were actively encouraging and fueling said hysteria. They were openly encouraging prejudiced people to act on their prejudice. This is like Donald tRump encouraging people to “fight like hell” to stop a completely valid election. Whether he actually wanted them to physically storm the capital building isn’t really the point, he encouraged them to do the very thing they did. If you appear on TV or in front a crowd and tell them that (fill in minority of choice) needs to be hunted down, whether you mean it or not, you are culpable and you are given tacit agreement with what they do. So the actions of the members of X-Factor, in these early issues, was treasonous to the teaching of their “beloved” Professor X. Yes, they did start confronting this problem fairly quickly, once Bob Layton got replaced as writer, and Louise Simonson had an enormously challenging task of fixing this chaos and garbage messaging that had been sent out already. But the damage was done, and it would take literally dozens of issues to even begin to mitigate the disaster of of those early issues. So this volume starts out promising, spirals into a miasma of mixed messages and frighteningly misguided intent, before it struggles to start pulling itself out of the early grave it had been heading toward. Actually I had been so disgusted with the title after 4 or 5 issues that I stoped buying it as it was coming out, but then I heard Simonson had turned it around and I gave it another shot, eventually filling in the couple of issues I’d missed from the back issue bins at my local comic shop. So, even though there’s some really good aspects of what’s going on here, I can’t give this volume a very high rating.
And I just realized I typed all that and never even got to another problem with this volume: retroactive continuity. Maybe I’ll add more to this at a later date.
Addendum: I just went back and looked at what I wrote for these issues about 7 years ago when I read them in Essential X-Factor, Vol. 1, and yep, can’t say my opinion has changed. “Difficult to comment on because of the uneven nature of the issues included. The first half dozen issues of X-Factor are terrible. Layton's approach to the characters and the concept is misguide at best and offensive at worst. Imagine an organization that publicly advertises it's mission of hunting down Jews to remove "that menace from society" while secretly trying to provide a safe haven for Jewish people. I'm sure you can see the problem by publicly fueling the mistrust, at best, and the open hatred and condemnation, at worst, of any minority, you only give credibility to bigotry. This is the way Layton approaches the issue of mutants in the Marvel Universe, and it is as much of a fiasco as it seems. Louise Simonson takes over the writing after the first 6 issues or so and refocuses the characters and ends the ill-conceived disaster that X-Factor started out as. Giving those early issues 3-stars is beyond being generous, but the latter issues are able to pull this collected volume together.” But the Essential volume actually has more issues that help salvage the disaster from those early issues even more than this Epic Collection volume does.

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

X-Factor came to be because Marvel's editors decided they wanted to publish a comic starring the original 5 X-Men: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Angel, and Iceman. However, this was easier said than done because Jean had been dead for 6 years, Cyclops had gotten married, had a kid, and retired from the X-Men, and the remaining three had moved on and joined the New Defenders.

Their solution was firstly to kill every member of the New Defenders except for Angel, Iceman, and Beast. Next they reveal that Jean Grey had never died. The Jean Grey who featured in X-Men #101-137 was actually the cosmic Phoenix Force masquerading as Jean, while the real Jean was trapped in a cocoon in Jamaica Bay. The Avengers and the Fantastic Four accidentally locate the cocoon and free Jean notifying Angel. Finally, Angel tells Cyclops, who immediately decides to go see Jean, without telling his wife Madelyn where he's going. She tells him that if he walks out that door he should never come back. So he leaves and doesn't come back.

Not wanting to rejoin the X-Men because they're being led by the former villain Magneto, the newly reunited original 5 X-Men decide to form their own superhero team. And their idea on how to do this is.... absolutely terrible. As mutant hatred is at an all-time high, they decide to take advantage of this by forming an organization known as X-Factor that will "deal with mutant problems" but in reality makes sure the mutants are safe and taken care of. To maintain this cover, they also impersonate a mutant terrorist organization, known as the X-Terminators. So basically, to fight discrimination, they're strongly encouraging it, because... they're idiots I guess.

So, yeah. That's the premise. It's a disaster.

The comic itself is better than you'd expect. It starts pretty terrible but then in issue #6 Bob Layton is replaced by Louise Simonson, who is much more competent and immediately tries to salvage Layton's terrible ideas, first off by being willing to acknowledge how dysfunctional the main characters are. She is mostly successful and it's actually a surprisingly fun read.

[Marcelo Soares · Rating 3 out of 5]

É a volta da Jean Grey.
É a primeira aparição do Apocalipse, ainda um super criminoso qualquer e não o sacerdote da magia druida mutante krakoana.
Também tem um monte de personagens - Rusty Collins, Skids, Artie - que nunca vão fazer nada de interessante. Na verdade, eu nem lembro o que aconteceu com esses caras; mais alguns vilões da Aliança do Mal, além do Quarteto, dos Vingadores, do Homem de Ferro, do Homem Aranha e da Força Federal.
Mas é meio sem graça.
O mais chato é o plot da Jean, a fiadaputice do Scott e o Anjo esquecendo que deixou namorada na casa dos Defensores.
Aqui o Scott é um baita filha da puta, na primeira notícia que a Jean voltou, ele larga a esposa e o filho no Alaska e só tenta falar com ela uma vez. Muito picareta, e, além disso, não conta a verdade pra Jean, fica naquele empata-foda pra cima e pra baixo. Já o Anjo, que sabe da esposa do Scott, resolve furar o olho do caolho e dá em cima da Jean descaradamente, esquecendo que deixou a Candy qualquer coisa no Colorado.
Charlie Brown também tinha problemas com garotinhas ruivas, lembram?
Se conseguir superar o drama mexicano típico dos gibis mutantes, é divertido, tem algumas partes legais e uma ou outra ideia jogada ao vento sobre a coerência de mutantes caçando mutantes; tipo aquele teu amigo esquerdochato que não tem espelho em casa, sabe?

[ShamNoop · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess it has one or two redeeming qualities

[Jameson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t wait to finally get 05 X-Factor in the oversized format but I love my Epic copy. It’s a few years old and the edges have gained a wonderfully yellow sheen. I love that. Also, much more so than with an omnibus, the Epics feel like I’m reading comics because of the size and weight of the paper. Enough about the format. Let’s talk about those early issues of the original X-Factor.

The more I revisit these early issues of X-Factor, the more I appreciate them. I’m naturally contradictory so I have a soft spot for comics that The Internet Comic Police have deemed unworthy. Early X-Factor’s no Watchman, or Claremont at his very best, but it’s a pretty good bunch of comics featuring the adventures of the original X-Men. And they genuinely both feel like old friends and a very effective combat team. It’s a good read.

These issues undeservedly get way too much flak. However! Every single objection to X-Factor is grounded in the real world: it was stupid to bring Jean back, Scott’s acting like an ass, the X-Factor setup makes no sense.

1.) Jean was brought back. End of story. Argue about the merits of it all you want, it’s unfair to blame these comics for that decision. I was born in the 80s so when I read X-Men it was a given that Jean was always Phoenix and Phoenixes always die and come back.

2.) Scott’s confused, understandably. He finds out here that not only is his dead girlfriend alive and well, no time has passed for her while he’s married with a kid. On top of that, he realizes the woman he lost his virginity to was actually a space demon in Jean Grey drag! Then there’s his wife, who he probably had subconsciously assumed was some kind of miraculous reincarnation of Jean (remember her plane crash), a gift from God. But now Jean’s back so Maddie’s definitely not a gift from God. (Well, then who?) Plus, we all know that Maddie isn’t who we thought she was. She’s just a construct. A goblin queen. Yeah, Scott should have called her ASAP but he didn’t. Even normal marriage is complicated. He did call her in the second issue, and she was already gone. All of this would be terrifying and confusing to anyone, but Maddie fans hilariously act like in Scott’s shoes they would have flown to Alaksa on a white horse. (Brightwind?)

3. In issue 3 during the team’s second mission, writer Bob Layton sets up a subplot about the “mutant hunting” X-Factor plan not being a good idea and doing more harm than good. Know what would have completely solved this problem? Context. Plop in X-Factor Investigations shortly before the Days of Future Past era and it makes sense. I wonder if this was the intent originally but was handicapped by the sliding timescale and illusion of change. Regardless, it seems to me that the premise was always meant to develop from “well intentioned idea” to “mistake.”

I like what happens to X-Factor, but I wish we had more years of Bob Layton and Butch Guice on the title. Louise Simonson can’t not write every character as 13 years old, and she can’t end a sentence without an exclamation point. Sorry, that’s an exaggeration. Sometimes she uses an ellipsis… Which makes her work very! hard! to! read!

The book under Layton and Guice also has a sense of humor. Not belly laughs, but it’s not all Simonson middle school melodrama. Issue #3: Jean stops Bobby from icing over a fence and instead lifts the fence out of the ground so they can walk underneath it. Later at another fence she levitates them over it and Bobby asks why she didn’t do that for the other fence.

Jean: I was showing off.
Bobby: Oh.

Silly but fun. Making the most out of a lapse in judgement from the artist, possibly.

In issue 4 when Frenzy grabs Rusty he asks just what in the hell she thinks she’s doing. “Why, I’m kidnapping you! I thought that would be depressingly obvious.” (To be fair, Frenzy misspeaks. She actually tells Rusty she’s kidnaping him. Which sounds scarier to me. But she’s in good company because Cyclops pronounces it the same way, oddly enough. Maybe it’s a mutant thing.)

Especially compared to Claremont’s contemporary issues of X-Men, the first few issues of X-Factor are pretty damn good. Claremont was spinning his wheels over on Uncanny. Maybe in part because of Jean’s resurrection, but I doubt it. I know that’s the accepted reason—along with Secret Wars II and Alan Moore being prickly—but Uncanny was unfocused almost as soon as JRJR took over the art. (Tho I actually like JRJR’s work on Uncanny a lot, except for his ghastly costume designs of course.)

The biggest hinderance to the X-Factor scheme has to be Angel. By a long shot. He’s already famously eschewed any presence of secret identity. Now he’s both funding X-Factor and appearing with the X-Terminators (as they’ll eventually be called, but I’ll use it now because it’s confusing otherwise.) This is just silly, my friends. Steelman: maybe Warren is funding X-Factor in such a way that it can’t be traced back to Worthington Inc, or maybe the people in the Marvel universe think he’s just another blond, gorgeous, winged angel. I mean, for a variety of reasons the average Joe and Jane in the Marvel Universe must be a little dimmer than the real world. Still, Angel is the biggest wrinkle to the premise, whether it was intended to be highly flawed idea for in-story purposes or otherwise. At least the other famous mutant on the team, Beast, quickly loses his furry blue Avengers/Defenders look.

It’s not until Issue 4 when the premise really spins out of control. We open with our heroes—in costume but not as X-Factor—battling with Tower in an airport. They seem to be ignoring the human innocent bystanders, at best, and openly not giving a fuck about them, at worst. Then a few pages later when the Beast tells Rusty it’s important to learn to control his powers so humans won’t fear him, his response is “Y-yeah, I—I guess so.” And Beast thinks “Poor kid—he’s not adjusting well.” Um. Maybe Rusty just watched his five teachers on the news causing all kinds of mayhem and making mutants look bad. No wonder he’s confused. No wonder he’s not adjusting well. Although in the same issue Jean realizes the mutant hunter schtick is doing more harm than good. So maybe they were all so happy to be reunited they couldn’t see the obvious.

Layton must be given credit for not recycling Silver Age X-Men villains. And I also like, as far as teaching styles go, Jean surprisingly is the hard ass and Scott is the soft touch. It makes sense for where the characters are now, as opposed to where their default would be. Jean’s been out of action for awhile, not only is she ready to prove herself but the world is a lot scarier for mutants now. Cyclops knows things are dire but that’s nothing new.

The Iron Man Annual does the kind of story that couldn’t or wouldn’t be done in the Xbooks at the time: it poses a serious question about the danger of mutants. Remember the little kid from Twilight Zone played by Billy Mumy? What if he was a mutant. And crazy. The whole minority allegory disappears in these kinds of stories. It’s a tragic story and rightfully ends in shades of gray. (The only false note is when Marvel Girl hectors Iron Man because he can always take his suit off and blend in with normal folk but mutants can’t. She should have said SOME mutants can’t. Because Jean Gray’s not exactly Callisto.) Considering this issue was written by the editor of X-Factor, Bob Harras, and it’s the first appearance of the team outside their own title, it seems obvious that doubting the mutant-hunter premise was always itself part of the premise.

While Claremont on Uncanny was often pitting the X-Men against aliens and magic, Bob Layton was writing the kind of stories the mutant premise calls for. In the first annual Bob Layton asks what do the Soviets do with their mutants? The answer: death camps. Mutants, including children, are dissected. Soviet scientists are trying to isolate the mutant gene to weaponize it. Claremont’s first Genosha story, recall, is still two years away. (There’s even a genetically engineered mutant here.) Funnily enough, Claremont’s annuals were always pretty unconcerned with the concept of mutants fighting to protect a world that hates and fears them. Maybe this X-Factor story would be better remembered if it wasn’t an annual? Readers always considered them throwaway stories, anyway (which prompted Marvel to try so hard to make them matter—crossovers! new characters!—that they somehow became even less important.)

There’s also some of Layton’s quirky humor in the annual. Like when Jean jokes that she’ll try not to be too nervous when they land in Russia. “It’s my first suicide mission, y’know?” It’s nice to see Jean have a sense of humor. Claremont wasn’t really big on that. He also wasn’t really big on strategic action scenes. In the annual the team infiltrates the Soviet death camp. (It feels very TAS: Night of the Sentinels, actually.) It’s pages not panels long, and it’s very fun and tense.

Another X-Factor first, in the annual we see for the first time someone use Iceman’s powers better than he does. Writers with lout a soft spot for Bobby will revisit that well many times over the years, each one thinking he’s being creative.

In issue 5, we meet what is essentially a proto-Jubilee. She’s a trendy teenage girl who shoots lasers out of her fingers. Three years later she’ll become famous when she transitions to a Chinese-American mallrat. In the same vein we but not quite as spot-on we meet a mutant with the power to augment the mutant powers of others and his name is not Fabian Cortez, who Claremont introduced 5 years later. We also meet mastermind “master” Apocalypse—The Apocalypse—granted its on laundry day so he’s wearing the Owl’s costume.

Issue 6: welcome to the stage new writer Louise “Exclamation Point” Simonson! Dear Lord… the terror of this lady’s punctuation! Full stop?! Period?! Not in a Louise Simonson comic! And in between exclamation points you get goofy writing, mostly!

Newsflash: between issues the entire cast was apparently infected with a disease that regresses their mentalities to that of junior high students. We open in the wrecked motel room and Scott is bummed they got their asses handed to them by Apocalypse’s goons. Out of absolutely nowhere Jean Grey decides she’s in a telenovella and starts a weird monologue about how Scott must think Jean’s to blame for losing the fight because she’s not as powerful as Phoenix, and isn’t that terrible?! Last issue Jean rightly told Scott not to ever yell at her again, now she’s telekinetically throwing a mattress at him. Then Scott turns on Warren and legit blasts him….! What?! Scott Summers—whose main character trait is brooding that his powerful optic blasts might someday harm somebody—gets a little bit peeved and shoots his concussive blasts at one of his best friends. What?! This won’t be the last temper tantrum thrown by a member of X-Factor under Louise Simonson’s very shitty but well-connected pen.

Her sense of humor is also terrible. Look at the scene where Warren throws a wad of cash into the motel room they wasted. Scott says he’s showing off, Warren makes a joke about getting reimbursement from X-Factor, and says “right, Jeannie?” Jean replies, “Ha-ha! Right!” Never mind the fact that we’re on our 100th exclamation point (EP going forward) five pages in, WHAT?! “Ha-ha! Right!” What is so funny? Jean looks like a mooning schoolgirl crushing on a high school senior. Simonson must have had some kind of arrested development. I know people like her Power Pack but on both X-Factor and New Mutants she infantilizes her cast. It’s abominable.

In the first five pages you can see that Louise is gonna change the mutant-hunting premise. Cool, but she does it in such a car crash way. Same with this scene. She’s trying to play up the love triangle between Scott, Jean, and Warren but it’s so friggin’ hamfisted. At one point when the team is about to storm Apocalype’s headquarters Scott decides to have his own telenovella moment. “I think I must be going mad!” It’s just so, so bad.

It boggles my mind that Louise Simonson’s terrible writing was better received than Bob Layton’s at the time. Nepotism and friendship is understandable on why Marvel kept her. Why readers didn’t storm the bullpen, the only explanation is her course correction of the title’s flawed premise. Which I don’t think is a big deal since the “bad premise of X-Factor” was a novel idea and Layton was going somewhere with it. It was actually new, it was actually different. In her first issue on the book Simonson is already reading the return of Phoenix, for crying out loud.

Then when Louise Simonson has the chance to resolve the awkwardness between Jean and Scott and the rest of the boys she doesn’t take the easy way out. Which would be commendable if she didn’t choose to somehow make it all much stupider. I’m of two minds about it. She contributed to damaging these characters in the minds of many X-Men fans, but it also was very dramatic. Ya know what, I’ll say it’s commendable. I came at these issues after all the dust had settled. Jean was Phoenix and Phoenixes live and die and live. Maddie was always just a clone and she ended up becoming a demon sorceress.

One thing that comics has over any other medium (excepting tv soap operas in their heyday probably) is its wonderfully complex, sometimes confusing, hodgepodge of story interweaving with story over and over through the decades, tons of different creators knit something no single mind could conceive. I think the success of Louise Simonson’s X-Factor, as much as it’s considered a success, is completely in spite of Louise Simonson. Instead it’s due mainly to the characters, the reunification of the original five including the resurrected Jean, the novelty of all that, and the will they/won’t they relationship with the Uncanny title. Regardless, X-Factor is a great read. Looking forward to finally getting issues 40-60 onto my shelf!

[Cameron H · Rating 4 out of 5]

The interpersonal character stuff is phenomenal. Some of it even better than what was going on over in X-Men at the same time. (Hell, they even managed to make Angel an interesting character, and you know that couldn’t have been easy.) However, none of praise I heap on it will ever change the fact that the whole “X-Factor as ‘Mutant Hunters’” thing was one of the silliest plot lines ever dreamt up or that Cyclops’ character wasn’t forever changed by the editor mandated character assassination he suffered during these issues.

Still...Fun to read 😉

[Michael Holland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read although I find the premise a bit weak in hindsight. There were a couple highlights including Destiny's premonition there was a chance that Cyclops would eventually fall, become evil. We've seen that play out now. This was a nice walk through 80's nostalgia.

[Tony Romine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection houses the first nine issues of X-FACTOR along with a few random issues of other series directly related to the formation of the group and it's initial storylines. These are all from around 1985-86.

This collection starts with issues of THE AVENGERS and FANTASTIC FOUR that served as Marvel's way to bring back Jean Grey (aka Marvel Girl) after her death in the Dark Phoenix Saga (only 5 years earlier). One could argue what made that story arc such a masterpiece is that it was brave enough to kill off a main character of a major team and bringing her back kind of cheapened the impact of such an groundbreaking moment, but whatever I guess they needed the money or something. They had to bring her back because the initial concept of X-FACTOR was a new book featuring the original team in more dramatic, mature stories.

X-Factor's first four issues are next and they serve as introduction the team and their poorly thought out ruse of disguising themselves as mutant hunters so they can rescue mutants from the growing anti-mutant movement in 80s America. It also sets up their first group of villains to fight, the Alliance of Evil with skirmishes with new villains like Tower and Frenzy.

Let's meditate on the scorched Earth that had to happen so the original team of X-Men could be reformed. They had to go back and retcon one of the most incredible comic book stories ever written just a short 5 years after it happened to get Jean Grey. They had to cancel an ENTIRE long-running title (THE NEW DEFENDERS) to get Beast, Angel, and Iceman. The worst though is Cyclops. 

When we see him in issue 1 he is a man who had found happiness and new love with Madeline Pryor. They'd married, he left the X-Men (currently being led by Magneto lmao), moved to secluded mountain cabin, and was expecting their first child. One phone call later ('Jean is still alive bro') and he abandons all of that to go lead X-Factor. You'd that such a villainous turn (abandoning your wife and unborn child) would be because he wants to get back together with Jean. NOPE. He spends almost the entirety of this collection straight up lying to Jean by not telling her he left his pregnant wife to come hang with his "true love" while he leads X-Factor. I say hang, but what I mean is he negs Jean and treats her like shit for asking him what's wrong while he struggles with his inner turmoil that isn't 'should I have left my pregnant wife', but rather 'should I tell Jean I left my pregnant wife'. He is also terrible at leading X-Factor, but that's a whole other thing. He is actual trash in this book and I hate him.

After those first 4 issues we get a sleeper underdog of an issue, IRON MAN ANNUAL #8. It starts with a rescue mission by X-Factor to get a kidnapped mutant Project Pegasus (whom Iron Man is funding? working for?) has at their facility. This first half of the issue is a snore with lots of typical action and Marvel style drama, but the second half gets really, really, really dark and goes to some depths I hadn't seen in Marvel comics much up until this point. The highlight of the book I think. This is followed by a pretty forgettable X-FACTOR ANNUAL #1 that has the team traveling to the USS$ for some 80s Russian espionage nonsense that bores me to tears.

The next few issues are the highlight of the X-Factor issues where we finally see them battling the Alliance of Evil, but also we're introduced to one of my favorite Marvel villains, Apocalypse. A true standout among the forgettable Alliance members and a foe that will show up a LOT in future issues. This is followed by a random issue of SPIDER-MAN where JJJ hires the team to hunt down Spider-man (in his awesome black costume post Secret Wars). It's okay, but adds not much to the overall X-Factor story. The final two issues of X-Factor set up some stuff for the 'Mutant Massacre' storyline and  deal with the fallout of Cyclops being a terrible human being.

The book wraps up with lots of interesting sketches and original art related to the comics inside. It also includes excerpts from two issues of CLASSIC X-MEN wherein Chris Claremont revisits the Dark Phoenix Saga and gives us some context to her fate. Spoiler alert: they are not great, just contrived pseudo-philosophical ramblings about death and rebirth. It goes on for way too long and I refuse to believe Claremont actually intended to include this nonsense in the actual comics.

I can see why Marvel wanted X-FACTOR to happen, but what I can't fathom is why they didn't make for a smoother transition that didn't involve making one of the biggest X-Men characters into such a bad person. Also for a book made in 1985, it still clings to the boring art style of the early 70s and the God-awful reliance on dialogue to explain everything, not trusting the art to tell the story. Nothing makes me groan more than seeing a panel that's like 65% word bubble and a face with an open mouth. That being said there are some fun moments in this and it's interesting to see the origins of the team. It's also the part of the gateway into the late 80s X-men stuff that is legendary stuff. Recommended.

[Fizzgig76 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reprints Avengers (1) #263, Fantastic Four (1) #286, X-Factor (1) #1-9, Annual #1, Iron Man (1) Annual #8, Amazing Spider-Man (1) #282, and Classic X-Men #8 and #43 (January 1986-January 1990). The New Defenders have fallen and the X-Men are now under the leadership of Magneto leaving Beast, Angel, Iceman, and Cyclops without teams or identities. When a strange cocoon is found beneath the waters of Jamaica Bay by the Avengers, the original X-Men discover that the heart of their team Jean Grey has returned. As anti-mutant sentiment blankets the world, X-Factor is born. X-Factor’s mission is to eliminate the mutant threat…but the members of X-Factor are secretly planning to train and guide young mutants like Professor X did when they were children. See a mutant? Call X-Factor!

Written by Roger Stern, John Byrne, Bob Layton, Bob Harras, Louise Simonson, Tom DeFalco, Chris Claremont, and Butch Guice, X-Factor Epic Collection—Volume 1: Genesis and Apocalypse is a Marvel Comics X-Men spin-off comic book collection. Featuring art by John Buscema, John Byrne, Butch Guice, Keith Pollard, Paul Neary, Bob Layton, Rick Leonardi, Marc Silvestri, Terry Shoemaker, John Bolt, and Mike Collins, the collection features the Avengers and Fantastic Four issues that launched the franchise along with Iron Man and Amazing Spider-Man tie-ins and the back-up stories from Classic X-Men featuring Jean Grey. Issues in the collection were also collected as part of Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne—Volume 7, X-Men: Phoenix Rising, Essential X-Factor—Volume 1, and X-Men Classic: The Complete Collection—Volume 1 and Volume 2 among others.

X-Factor has a soft spot for me in that it was released when I really started to get serious about “collecting” comics. I had always read comics (even looked through before I could read), but at some point a switch flipped, and I actively started collecting them…and X-Factor #1 (February 1986) was one of my bigger first purchases.

The story is essentially divided into three parts. The first part involves the return of Jean Grey after years of her character being “dead” following the events of Uncanny X-Men #137 (September 1980). It deals with the fact that everyone moved on from her death, but Jean was essentially held in stasis for her missing years. X-Factor was the solution, but the actual plan of X-Factor was pretty wonky from the beginning with the “TV Mutant Hunters” X-Factor actually being the “mutant liberators” X-Terminators…that part of X-Factor never worked well.

The second storyline introduces the significant and important X-Men villain Apocalypse. Though he is powerful in his premiere, he lacks a lot of the history and depth that was later added to the character. In fact, Apocalypse is rather goofy looking in this collection (but still better looking than the X-Men: Apocalypse take).

The third part of the collection is the lead-up to the Mutant Massacre in the Morlock tunnels. The character saved by X-Factor (Rusty Collins who appears in a very different form in Deadpool), is being hunted by Freedom Force. Only nine issues into the series, and the basic premise of X-Factor is starting to crumble. This does make you question if X-Factor was planned to really flourish as a “company” as the book set-up. X-Factor works better when it focuses on the drama of the original X-Men and the training of new mutants.

X-Factor Epic Collection—Volume 1: Genesis & Apocalypse is an important volume in that it sets up years and years of X-Men stories. Jean Grey’s return of course had ripple effects and was one of the better character returns (especially since her death was also considered an X-Men high point). If you are an X-Men fan, the volume is worth seeking out.

[Tom Ewing · Rating 1 out of 5]

A new Marvel reader as of late '85, I was the perfect mark for X-Factor's marketing. Why yes, I was excited to "get in on the ground floor" of a brand new mutant comic, even though the specific nostalgia X-Factor was tapping, for the original five X-Men together again, meant nothing to me. But the months passed, and X-Factor slipped lower and lower down my reading order with each issue, and around the time a dorky-looking guy with a weird mouth called Apocalypse showed up I had to admit the awful truth: these comics were bad. Read now, in context of the other X-books? They're even worse.

X-Factor is the classic comics illustration of the phrase "if you're in a hole, stop digging". The premise is notoriously terrible, but once set up the writers here - Bob Layton, who has to shoulder a lot of the blame, and Louise Simonson, who gets handed the nightmare brief after a few issues - find it extremely difficult to do anything about it without making things even worse. The longer Scott Summers goes without telling Jean Grey that he has a wife and son he's walked out on to run around with X-Factor, the worse he looks (and he already looks pretty bad) - but once he does, that fact becomes the black hole the rest of the comic is pulled into. Layton and Simonson know that Cyclops is a heel now, but everything they do with him makes him seem weaker and stupider. As for the "pretend to be mutant hunters" concept, within four issues the whole cast is saying 'wow, what a bad idea' and then tying themselves and the comic in knots trying to square an impossible circle.

X-Factor was a sales success, and nobody at Marvel was going to take a sales success and say "look, this isn't working, scrap it and start again". But even if you don't give a flying fuck about the comic's wrecking ball impact on Cyclops' character or the wider X-Men line, these are just not entertaining things to read. The character angst feels desperately contrived, the pop culture references are cringe (has Layton heard of no musician aside from Elvis Costello?), the mutant-rescue plots are grindingly generic (three misguided villains protecting loved ones in as many issues) and the villain pool is so shallow that the team have to battle "the mutant menace of Tower!" for FIVE ISSUES IN A ROW.

Sure, there are higher points. I like how Jackson Guice draws people who sometimes look gawky and homely and individual. The Avengers and Fantastic Four issues which bring Jean back are beacons of professional quality here, and John Byrne does an excellent job getting across the confusion and pain Jean feels and selling the resurrection as far from an easy cop-out. And when Louise Simonson gets going she treats the comic as an opportunity to write about the weird misfit kids and semi-monsters she always enjoys doing, and those scenes feel fresher. But when the most relatable, enjoyable scenes in your comic about five Marvel icons involve Rusty Collins and Skids, something's gone seriously wrong. Flashes of quality can't hide the fact that X-Factor was a comic with only terrible reasons to exist and which managed to make a pig's ear even of those.

[Adam Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled with whether or not to include this in Headcanon. I don't believe in needing to include Important Moments in my chronology, so I didn't really care that an early version of Apocalypse is seen here for the first time. He's not interesting in these issues.

The real story is that they bring Jean Grey back from the dead, and Scott has a crisis of "My first ever girlfriend died, and then I dated an alien entity that I thought was here but was actually an evil cosmic monster using her appearance, and while I was mourning the dead monster I stumbled into someone who I don't yet realize was just a clone of my first girlfriend who I married and had a kid with, then my original girlfriend was discovered alive somehow and I abandoned my wife and son to be a superhero with her and now I'm too much of a coward to tell her about the family I made while she was dead and too much of a coward to tell my family that my dead girlfriend is back and booooohooohooo life is hard. Cyclops has been The Worst X-Men since X-Men Epic Collection, Vol. 1: Children of the Atom but he's particularly loathsome here.

The other major storyline is that the original X-Men team are posing as mutant hunters in order to hunt mutants. It could be an interesting story but they keep bringing up how conflicted they are but they don't ever do anything about it in this volume. Their time is split between pretending to be the mutant hunting group, X-Factor, and being a mutant terrorist group called X-Terminators. Eh.

In addition to Apocalypse, this volume introduces Rusty, Skids, Cameron Hodge, and Trish Tilby, who are all a bit important to the late 80s/early 90s X-cast. It also feeds directly into the events of the next big crossover, X-Men: Mutant Massacre

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rating this gets harder by the day. Originally my frustration at Scott's character assassination ruled. Accompanied by the untenable premise, the diminishing of the Dark Phoenix Saga, the clear lack of Claremont's influence, X-Factor rubbed out any excitement I had to finally scratch this patch of continuity.

Yet every time I return (because I am a continuity addict.. they don't have recovery programs for this...), I find myself begrudgingly liking the book more. Some of it is for what the book becomes. Some of it is for what is actually present. But mostly, I suspect, it is the draw of the Original Five all being back together.

While never my favorite team makeup, there's a special spark whenever the First Class is in a room together. Their (fake) history lends both gravity and levity to any scene. Layton steeps this particular go with heaps of Soap Opera that Weezie actually dives deeper into in order to right the ship. So levity may feel far afield in this collection, but despite the real and forced tragedy these characters carry, their abiding friendship unites them beyond the soap wars. Or I am making excuses. The things I am growing to like about this book have less to do with what is in the book and more what I bring to my reading.

That aside, there are a lot of important stories and appearances collected.

The "resurrection" of Jean Grey (that noticeably avoids Claremont's pen)
Apocalypse (not the most promising first appearance, but bits of who he becomes are here)
Cameron Hodge (his turn is how they try to justify the ludicrous/problematic nature of X-Factor, which I will grant, I love to hate him after his turn)
Rusty Collins
Artie Maddicks (the world needs more Artie)
Skids
Frenzy
Trish Tilby
and others.

[Matt Aukamp · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit lighter than the other X-titles at the time, which was refreshing. It also introduced a bunch of rad characters, many of which still have an effect on continuity today. But ultimately the beginning of X-Factor is kind of dull and loaded with frustrating plot contrivances that don't hold up to even a modicum of scrutiny*. I wouldn't recommend this to any but the most die-hard of X-Men fans.


NERD STUFF:
*Scott couldn't tell Jean about Madelyne because he kept getting interrupted? This assumes there is zero down-time or travel time between these incidents. And your mind will boggle if you try to figure out the logistics of how the difference between X-Factor and the X-Terminators is kept a secret. Angel has a public mutant persona at the time!! Plus, just moment to moment, the plot backflips used to make this work are headache inducing and there's a LOT of gaps that break the whole logic of it instantly. The "connection" between mutants and radioactivity is leaned on a few times here, which is a weird relic of the era. The Beast's "transformation" is nonsensical. It's all just a nightmare for continuity and verisimilitude, making the suspension of disbelief impossible.

Also, a minor weird gripe: they start calling the fake super-villain team their "X-Terminators personas" in like, issue 4, but the origin of the name doesn't occur until about issue 8, where they all talk about it like it's brand new and was thrust upon them by the media. Bizarre.

[Francisco · Rating 3 out of 5]

This pretty hefty volume, clocking near to 500 pages, charts the first adventures of the X-Factor team. This is a team which basically consists of the original X-Men from the 1960s, minus Xavier. So you get a new team composed of Cyclops, Beast, Angel and Iceman and also, controversially, Marvel Girl/Jean Grey.

This is controversial because this was the series that brought her back from the dead after the Phoenix Saga left her for dead. At the time readers felt it was a betrayal, but now as we are all aware that no deaths are definitive in Marvel or comics in general, really, it doesn't feel like that at all.

Sillier than reviving Jean is actually the idea behind X-Factor, the gang poses as mutant hunters for hire who actually go save mutants from an increasingly anti-mutant world and train them to be good mutants, in a type of Xavier School thing. This is a bit of a silly idea as mutants that they are trying to save actually feel attacked and fight back at them and they spend their lives basically lying and spreading anti-mutant propaganda to promote X-Factor. Imbeciles. Still the stories are fun an even if Cyclops is once again a bit of an asshole, the team dynamics and dramatics keep your interest throughout. Oh yeah Apocalypse also appears here for the first time, but his part is completely forgettable and more of a set up of things to come.

[Adam Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars might be too harsh; I enjoyed X-Factor Vol. 1 as an X-Men fan and a completionist. But I will say this book starts out very strange. The premise doesn't make a ton of sense. This book only existed due to editorial mandate, and you can really feel it. But there are things about it that I still liked -- the soap operatics are in high gear, and the last few included issues of X-Factor, once Louise Simonson takes over as writer and the Mutant Massacre approaches, actually start to get into a good groove. The art is passable, if not inspired, Marvel house style. I'm impressed with the Epic Collection line reaching out to grab relevant material from Fantastic Four, Avengers, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Classic X-Men backup stories. If you're not into X-Men, DON'T start here. But if you are, you might have a little fun.

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprisingly good book considering that there does not seem to be a real impetus behind it (other than "Let's get the original X-Men back together!" and the basic conceit of the plot ("they're mutants posing as mutant hunters!") is unwieldy and unbelievable.

Also, two big characters are introduced: Cameron Hodges and Apocalypse. And it seems clear that the author's original conceptions of both are extremely unsatisfying and completely abandoned.

Apocalypse in particular is goofy. He gathers a couple of sixth-rate mutants in search of a second-rate mutant with first-rate personal problems. Then the stretches his body to allow a laser to shoot through it. (I'm not sure Apocalypse can do that anymore.)

Finally, he retreats and slowly descends from battle yelling,

"And now I bid you all adieu! Do not try to find me!
A search would prove fruitless, so many and varied are my guises!"

A winner.

This book also introduces Artie, Rusty, and Skids. The best thing you can say is that Artie seems fine. sometimes.

[Csaba Rusznyák · Rating 1 out of 5]

The 80s was a glorious decade for Marvel - but you wouldn't know that reading this horseshit. Even the basic premise is ridiculous and convoluted, the characters are horribly bland, agressive dicks, the dialogues are painful, the stories frustratingly cliche-ridden and boring.
Two things worth meantioning:
1. Jean Grey returns after years of *ahem* being dead, basically nullifying the events and tragedy of one of the best X-Men stories up until that point (also one of the reasons why the 80s was, indeed, a glorious decade for Marvel).
2. Apocalypse makes his debut - but here he is just a boring, blustering two-bit villain completely void of his (sometimes) later aura of threat and majesty.
Just a horrible, horrible comic book.

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Collects Avengers #263, Fantastic Four #286 (both January 1986), X-Factor #1-9 (February - October 1986), X-Factor Annual #1, Iron Man Annual #6 (both October 1986), Amazing Spider-Man #282 (November 1986) and lots of supplemental material.

Still mad at the retoconning of Jean Grey's death after all these years. And the way Scott left his wife and child. And the dumb original premise of X-Factor as mutant hunters. Luckily, I know it gets better almost immediately after this volume (which leaves off just as the Mutant Massacre was beginning). Still not over it so I can't really love this volume

[Chen-Wei Cheong · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was nice to re-read all the old X-Factor issues from the old days. A period of time when mutantkind was still in constant struggle for survival in the world, and how the original X-Men banded together to save young and emerging new mutants, under the pretense of hunting mutants, and taking on the name of the group X-Factor. Also, we find out what happened to the original Jean Grey, and how she was saved by the Phoenix Force. Like with all Marvel comic characters, one never stays dead, even after there "killed off" in storylines.

[Crazed8J8 · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wild and interesting ride. I was never a huge fan of the O5, but this is a fun run. We get to see the resurrection of Jean, and the reunification of the original X-Men sans Xavier. Good writing, great artwork, and touching. Knowing the future of Cameron Hodge, I feel like I read this through a filtered lens though. Jean seems weak, and I didn't love how she was downplayed, but otherwise, it was a solid run. Leads right into the Mutant Massacre. The best moment was in issue #9 where Artie meets Leech, it was very cute!

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts out alright and ends alright. Everything in the middle? Eh... It really says something when Louise Simonson takes over the series and immediately voices within the pages themselves how absolutely stupid the base concept of the book is. What if your minority allegory heroes pretended to be a 1-800 lynch mob complete with a marketing blitz? Why certainly they wouldn't succeed in stoking the fires of racial tensions to make things worse? Oh wait... But it's okay, the heroes are too busy to notice while brow beating Cyclops for being a total piece of shit.

[Juan Carrillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time to grow up

Jean Grey coming back from the dead started almost a running joke in regards to Marvel Girl being very hard to kill. This is also a growing point in the life's of the original 5 and how this took them to the next step in there evolution and growth to becoming adult heroes and a better master of what there powers will grow to become.