Written by: Peter David
Art by: Valentine DeLandro
I missed Layla.
I really, really missed Layla.
Seriously, there isn’t enough Layla love to give.
So I guess it’s even better that when she got her little spin off one-shot to show what happens to her after she’s stranded in the future after the events of Messiah Complex, that it was assigned to the man that made her lovable.
Peter David.
Seriously, just like The Quick and the Dead a few months ago, PAD delivers us a compelling story involving a character that has been a fixture in the main title, and yet for reasons shown in the one-shot, can’t be in the regular title. If anything, and this isn’t a knock on X-Factor as a book, this one-shot more then makes up for the She-Hulk crossover that hasn’t done much for me.
The book picks up sometime after Layla was separated from Jamie, and eight days after she’s chosen to go and stand watching a fence. Doesn’t eat, drink, or even move. She sleeps standing up, and drinks the snow and rain. She just stands there as the guards bet on her, and as the prisoners are beaten behind her. It’s a scene that could easily bore someone, as while things happen….nothing happens. It just leads to an example of what Layla knows best.
She knows stuff.
Oh, how she knows stuff. And knowing stuff opens her up to her place as the book continues, granting her freedom from the camp without having to raise a finger. She maneuvers her way through this mutant hating future, using her uncanny ability to be the butterfly whose wings create tsunamis to work everything into her favor, one step at a time. It’s a method PAD has perfected in the pages of X-Factor, and it takes front and center in this issue. Everything Layla does from the first page until the last is for a good reason, nothing randomly happens involving her. Not a single unimportant action or word, everything comes to a heard at one point or another. And under a lesser writer it would be annoying, tedious, and possibly even destroy the flow of the book, but not here.
Bet you wish you knew what she was crying about, don’t ya?
It’s incredibly difficult to explain the depth of this without spoiling the book, so I’m going to shift onto some of the other sub-plots. It’s eighty years in the future, mutants are in concentration camps, there’s some humans that protest that going on (something that plays an important part). Eighty years in the future, and these people don’t know who Hitler was. That’s the part that blows my mind, things have gotten so messed up in less then a century that one of histories greatest monsters is mistaken for a musician. They also don’t know what toilet paper is, which made me laugh.
This book also reveals the truth behind the long mentioned ‘Summers Rebellion’, revealing just who the Summers in question is and how they’re related to Scott and Alex.
The Summers in questions….want to know who it is? READ THE BOOK!
Ironically enough, something Layla says to a group of protestors early on in the issue causes the Rebellion itself. A single statement made to the right person builds a chain reaction that leads to the Summers in question starting their rebellion.
I’m a Peter David fan, I will never think to claim otherwise. Hulk, Aquaman, X-Factor v.1 and 2, Captain Marvel, Young Justice, Fallen Angel. I’ve seen the occasional bad issue by him, but for the most part I’ve loved every thing he’s done. Why is this little tidbit important? Because this issue is easily one of the best books I’ve ever read by him, ever.
Now onto the art. As I’ve found to be a recurring theme lately, I’m reviewing a book by an artist I’ve never heard of (to my knowledge), and after reading it I can say only one thing…..WHY IS VALENTINE NOT THE REGULAR SERIES ARTIST?! Seriously, the book is beautiful, the images dynamic, the characters human. Everything is so perfectly done it’s just….I’m not an expert at putting art into words, so enjoy the images in this review and see for yourself.
I miss Layla again already, and this is to me hoping she finds her way back to the loving pages of X-Factor, full time.
Though I have no doubt in my mind that she’ll find a way. After all, she’s Layla Miller.
She knows stuff.
10/10
