X-Cutioner's Song Part 2: X-Factor #84

     Our journey continues into the second part of X-Cutioner’s Song, X-Factor (Vol 1.) #84. Written by Peter David, Pencils by Jae Lee, Inks by Al Milgrom, Colored by Brad Vancata, with Letters by Richard Starkings, this issue provides a window into what is personally one of my least favorite series of the time period, but we will save that for after our summary. We begin not with the titular government sponsored team, but with X-Force, the edgy rebranded New Mutants, youth militants locked and loaded for the nineties. The team, recently estranged from Cable, who had just left them to pursue Mr. Tolliver (His evil son from the future, don’t worry about it), has seen a man bearing their mentors face shoot Xavier in New York and are determining their course of action. They decide to pursue Cable, reasoning he’s their responsibility if he has turned heel, and they owe the Professor if their leader hurt him. Sam Guthrie, however, makes an executive decision as leader to leave Sunspot at their base in Arizona despite him arguably being their most powerful teammate. We then smash cut back to New York City where Professor Xavier is being rushed into the operating theater, by Valerie Cooper and the members of X-Factor. Rahne Sinclair, aka Wolfsbane has to be restrained from assaulting some nurse due to her pseudo-father daughter bond with the Professor, but she is held back from her team mates as not to reveal to the public that Xavier is a mutant. X-Factor checks in with the X-Men referencing the assault that initiated the Unity Concert. Strong Guy busts into the hospital to check in on Chuck, only to be reprimanded by Havok for not showing up earlier. Here Peter David inserts the clumsiest series of panels about Strong Guy banging his girlfriend. Its bad. Rahne continues to flip out, feeling helpless with the Professor in the operating room. Alex sends her and Strong Guy out to Central Park to investigate the shooting. Warren gets a dramatic panel where he monologues about hunting Xaviers assailant and Apocalypse. As Strong Guy and Wolfsbane investigate the shooting, X-Force arrives with Guido and Rahne hiding to spy on them. Wolfsbane runs to her former team mates on the New Mutants, while Strong Guy attempts to arrest them for the crimes of their mentor. The arguments for X-Force’s radical outlaw lifestyle versus X-Factor’s government collusion continue. Tensions build and in the usual heroes misunderstand each other and then fight style of the times, the heroes end up fighting each other. There is a lot of quipping and action scenes as the rest of X-Factor arrive to the fight. Quicksilver and Shatterstar have some fun quips but its all largely empty. X-Factor eventually gains the upper hand in the fight as X-Force beats a hasty retreat. Havok manages to tag X-Force’s vehicle with a plasma blast so they can track it back to their base. The X-Men arrive and demand to be let in on the chase, and you can clearly see whose perspective David favors. We then cut to Jean and Scott, as the Horsemen who kidnapped them drops their bound bodies at the feet of their master. However, they are revealed to not be working for their progenitor but Mr. Sinister. And with just as much force as we cut to the Summer’s we then cut to the operating room. The X-Men are informed that Professor Xavier is stabilized in a coma, but he has been infected by the Techno-Organic virus and the issue ends as he is moved back to the X-Mansion because “a man should be allowed to die in his own home”.

    This issue is a bit of a downturn for last in my opinion and the reasons are twofold. First and foremost is Peter David. I know I said I was going to purely keep this to the writing but fuck it its my blog and I make the rules. Peter David is a rather divisive figure in modern comics, largely because he turned out to be a bit of a bigot. In 2016 David went on a tremendous and lengthy anti Romani rant, claiming that Romani parents mutilated their children to make them more effective beggars. David subsequently doubled down on his rant and then apologized, but this combined with his writing during the course of X-Factor Investigations (which is a barrel of worms I do not have the time or energy to get into but its really bad) makes it difficult for me to engage with him as a writer. This is coupled with the fact I find his writing insufferable. It’s a little hard for me to describe with written words, but if you have read one of his comics, I think you will know what I mean. He has this tendency to write like he thinks he is the cleverest person in the world. His comics are written in such a way that it feels like he’s trying to get himself to giggle, and it comes off as grating to me. The other issue I have with this particular comic is the fact that the heroes end up fighting schtick is at best stupid. Its always handled in such away to make the characters look as silly as possible and even here its based off Guido being an insufferable jack ass and picking a fight with Feral, a character whose sole trait is that she is angry. And the fight can never last or have any consequences because superhero comics have to return to a status quo with the heroes as friends. Its not a bad issue for what it is, but the issues that are there are too much for me. Which is a real shame because the art is incredible, the colors are fantastic, Lee’s pencils have this very sharp angular vibe that I love but the writing lets it down and we have very little in terms of actual progression for the main plot with the Professor being shot, all we have got is he is stable and infected with the Techno-Organic virus, which is slowly turning his flesh into machine, killing him. It’s okay, I guess. 6/10