All-New X-Factor #9
Written by: Peter David
Art by: Carmine Di Giandomenico
Colored by: Lee Loughridge
Lettered by: VC’s Cory Petit
Published by: Marvel
Cover Price: $3.99
Note: This is a review of the digital version which can be found on Comixology.
Warning! This review contains quite a few spoilers!
Summary (contains spoilers): For the last two issues, the X-Factor team had borrowed their boss’s jet and went to New Mexico to help a girl named Georgia Dakei. Her father is a big, anti-mutant activist, and Georgia had been posting messages online saying she wanted out of her father’s compound. When the team arrives, they find out that she’s a mutant, and she really didn’t want to go. She was just being a dramatic teenage girl. X-Factor’s boss, Serval CEO Harrison Snow, shows up and has a private conversation with her dad. After the meeting, dad insists she has to go with X-Factor.
This issue starts with some mysterious creepos monitoring Georgia’s mother, who we believed to be dead. The X-Factor team arrives with Georgia, and the creepos decide they should call their boss.
The issue jumps back to earlier in the day. We find out that Harrison was pretty pissed when the team stole his jet and went on an unauthorized mission. His biggest concern seems to be that they didn’t let him know so he could support them.
Georgia has grown withdrawn and sullen since the team took her away from her father, though she seems to like Gambit a lot. Pretty much like every teenage girl ever, in comics and in real life…
Gambit goes to a bar to consider his place with the team and hooks up with a girl named Angela. He later finds out that she is Harrison’s wife. Whoops!
Back at X-Factor HQ, Serval scientists take a blood sample from Georgia. They reveal that she is adopted and her mother is still alive. She demands the team take her to see her mother, Dakota. Quicksilver convinces Polaris that this is a good idea, and off they go.
This gets us back to where we started. Dakota is happy to see her daughter. Cliché “I was too young to take care of you, but not a moment goes by that I don’t think of you” reunion. Georgia asks about her father…Dakota doesn’t want to talk about him…BUT…the father arrives in a barrage of energy. We finds out that the creepos work for him.
He takes Georgia and gets out of there.
Review: I am real curious why they told the story the way they did. Opening with the creepos and revealing that Georgia’s mom was alive kind of took a lot of the impact out of the rest of the issue. It was just a strange choice. Really the whole thing about finding out Georgia’s asshole dad was not really her asshole dad…in fact, there is another asshole dad out there just felt unnecessary. Just too many moving parts, and I am not sure they were handled in the best way possible.
I do love the name Momento Mori. Wiki tells me it is Latin for “Remember that you will die.” I also like that Peter David has taken this book in a very different direction than his prior X-Factor series. That felt like a walk through the hidden corners of the Marvel mutantverse, telling us secrets about characters we already knew. Instead, this series seems determined to create new characters and stories, and I think that is a welcome change.
That said, I did like the prior X-Factor series a little more. I do think the stories here might be better, but I found the characters a lot more engaging and likeable in X-Factor. There are just too many standoffish types here. Even Doug Ramsey joins in the fun in this issue, getting pissy whenever Georgia seems interested in any other male on the team. It never feels like this team is going to gel together, and it seems like many of the characters would prefer this that way.
I am also curious how old Doug Ramsey should be by now…something about his seeming crush on Georgia seemed creepy to me.
I also think the subplot about Harrison and his wife’s infidelities is kind of dull. I have no real connection with these characters, and I feel like I am watching Desperate Housewives. LOOK! He’s sleeping with his secretary. Well LOOK, his wife is picking up Cajuns at a bar. It all works out in the end. Probably with someone getting shot.
Carmine Di Giandomenico’s art is a good fit for this book. I do think some of the art loses something in dull scenes, with characters seeming to lose all detail and definition.
But, those moments aren’t distracting, and the good art far outweighs those few awkward scenes.
It may sound like I am down on All-New X-Factor, but it really was just this issue. It was a lot of afterschool special drama and no one really doing anything. I thought the earlier stories were a lot more compelling. Momento Mori could be interesting, but we didn’t get to see much of him yet.
Normally, this is one of my favorite books, it just happens I am reviewing an off issue. I will try to come back and review issue 10 too. So final verdict? I love this series…but this issue itself isn’t the best example of why. We’ll try again next time!
Final Score: 7.0: I would normally rate All-New x-Factor a little higher, but it just felt like a filler issue. It was fine for what it was, but when I am paying 4 bucks for a comic, I want a little more meat.
