Another Befuddling Mess In Service of Easy Satire — Reviewing ‘X-Factor’ #7

The cover is the best thing about X-Factor #7. Though, in true comic book cover fashion, it is more a symbolic representation of the events inside the issue than a literal one.

Which is to say, (spoiler?) Angel does not don a Doctor Doom mask and colors. But the two are connected in the way they bring new elements to the series for the issue, but in the process, only serve to continue the series’ confusing mishmash of tones and mischaracterization.

The end result is another issue of the series which, despite coming in the wake of the series’ second major shakeup, is unfortunately more of the same, unfortunately.

In the wake of Havok’s departure last issue, a recovered Angel is once again put in charge of the titular team, just in time for a crossover with the “One World Under Doom” event.

This leads to a mission involving X-Factor trying to take out an AI that has assumed control over Genosha before Doom can get his hands on it. In the end, the tie-in has little bearing on the plot; while Doom’s ascendence elsewhere in the crossover is ostensibly the inciting incident of the team’s mission, nothing about it is specific to Doom or the event.

Doom could be lifted out entirely and X-Factor #7 would unfold as is, with just some other supervillain subbed in for Doctor Doom (frankly, it probably work better if, say, X-Factor was trying to get to the tech before the Mutant Underground or the X-Terms could get it). Here, at least, it can be assumed that this plot point comes at the behest of Marvel editorial and/or marketing, and isn’t necessarily the fault of writer Mark Russell.

What can be laid at Russell’s feet is the befuddling return of Angel. Not because he’s back — Russell clearly had this in his plans when he kept Angel around after the massacre in issue #1 — but because Russell builds the issue around Angel, but then does nothing with him.

Angel is the POV character of the issue, the captions are written from his first person perspective, but they offer little insight into his characterization, his feelings about the direction of team, of resuming command after Havok, etc. He more or less just narrates what artist Bob Quinn has drawn.

If Russell is trying to make some kind of subtle point about Angel being a shallow dimbulb or something, he’s being too subtle. Otherwise, bringing Angel back into the mix just to then do nothing with him even while he’s the focus of the issue is mystifying. 

In addition to the Doom crossover and Angel’s return, the issue continues to do what the series has done since its beginning: hamfisted satire. Here, this comes in the form of the AI that has taken over Genosha, using an algorithm to control the population’s actions.

Genosha is a setting with a rich history in X-Men lore: shortly after its introduction, it was the setting for a major crossover, the fallout of which hung over the X-books for years. Later, it became Magneto’s personal fiefdom for a time, before being reduced to rubble at the start of Grant Morrison‘s New X-Men run (an event which got referenced into the Krakoa Era nearly 20 years later).

To use it here in service of some fast and easy satire (“isn’t wild how these people let an algorithm control their actions? That’s just like people in the real world with social media and whatnot!”) is a waste. It’s not to say that satire can’t go after sacred cows — it should, and often, must. But if Russell and Quinn want to use Genosha to make a point about something, it deserves to be used for something deeper, more involved and more pointed than the drive-by satire of this issue.