We open the issue with Gambit trying to steal an ancient artifact of evil. Which is all good until after what seems like an eternity of him getting past security, Wolverine walks in and tells him to cut it out. Yes, Gambit gets a lecture from Logan because it’s not a Marvel comic without Wolverine these days. Still, that goes by pretty quickly and we see Gambit go off to drown his sorrows before he’s visited by an old friend.
When the last ‘X-Factor’ book closed it looked as if we were going to have the title over for quite some time. With Madrox taking some leave, you’d be hard pressed to figure out how a new ‘X-Factor’ was going to come together. Oddly enough, that was mentioned and some of how the book opens makes sense. Someone wants to use the name ‘X-Factor’ and apparently they actually worked out a deal to buy the name ‘X-Factor’ from Madrox! Except, what company that just wants to do good also sells arms and has their planes fired upon? I’m sure we’ll be well into the series before that actually gets addressed.
So who is this ‘they”? Apparently a new multinational company known as Serval Industries has the nefarious purpose of wanting to help people and feel that they need a team of superheroes to do it. They’ve tasked Polaris to run it and that is where our old friend comes in. She’s approached Gambit to offer him a spot on the roster to help do good in the world and get a paycheck while doing so.
When making the job offer, Quicksilver ends up showing up. While his reason for being there was given, it was enough of an excuse for Polaris to offer him a spot on the team as well. This ended up working out great as their first assignment was to rescue mutants who were being experimented on by A.I.M. How convenient that they are rescuing mutants right off the start, right? It fits in great with how much of an uneasy feeling Gambit has about the entire situation.
They move in and make quick work of the outer guard and the first issue ends before we can get too far into the fight. What we did see though fit perfectly for the mutant powers on hand and Carmine Di Giandomenico can certainly draw these characters quite well, including some amazing facial expressions on all of them that perfectly fit the scenes.
Peter David has done a great job at giving us just enough details to get us interested but not enough to really see where we’re going yet. I’m really curious as to where he plans to have the series go and also how he’s going to bring the rest of the team onboard (who I won’t mention here for anyone who doesn’t want the spoilers.)
It’s a strong first issue with some great character interaction and a good setup. Now, let’s see if they can keep up the level of quality. I do find it interesting that the superhero team that is being put together is made up of all mutants or those who hang out with mutants. Polaris’ call or is there something else at work here?
ALL-NEW X-FACTOR #1
Writer: Peter David
Artist: Carmine Di Giandomenico
