X-Cutioner's Song Part 6: X-Factor #85

                 Sadly, we must return to the world of Peter David with X-Factor with issue #85. Written Peter David, with pencils by Jae Lee, inks by Al Milgrom, Glynis Oliver on colors and Richard Starkings on letters we immediately find ourselves back in the midst of the action as Bishop and Wolverine are confronted by Cable at the Department K installation that we have previously covered. Bishop opens fire almost immediately and battle commences. Wolverine manages to get the drop on Cable pinning him as we cut to the uneasy alliance between X-Force and the X-Men as they arrive in Dust Bowl, Arkansas to investigate the MLF headquarters. Cannonball asks the residents about the whereabouts of the MLF, and the townsfolk draw guns on our heroes. The merry mutants quickly handle the townsfolk and unearth the entrance to the MLF base under main street. We have a brief aside as we check in on Apocalypse in Switzerland as he investigates Cables safehouse and his potential connections to X-Factor. We slam back to Department K where the battle continues, and the quips are mediocre. Cable finds the armory, but the battle reaches another stalemate when his newfound firepower conflicts with Bishops power of energy absorption. We cut away from this battle again and go back to Arkansas, where Dragoness and the MLF goons try and take the fight to our heroes. Dragoness briefly gains the upper hand exploiting her previous one sided romantic connection with Cannonball, but Polaris, Rogue and Storm arrive to save the day in a pandering girl power moment. Our next transition brings us back to Cyclops as he remains imprisoned in darkness. He is attacked by a gang of unidentified aggressors who appear to be children and Jean Grey. Before Cyclops can process this, he is attacked from behind by Stryfe. The MLF leader is continuing his psychological torture of Jean and Scott for trying to operate so confidently when he is completely in the dark. Meanwhile back in Arkansas Archangel is getting more and more uncontrolled as he battles the MLF before he ultimately accidentally kills Kamikaze while his attention is on Forearm. Back in Canada the battle reaches a momentary pause and FINALLY Cable says that he did not shoot Xavier. But Bishop refuses to believe him as the battle comes to a halt after Cable reverse suplexs the young X-Man. Wolverine quite reasonably asks why they should believe the time traveler, to which Cable responds that they’ll just have to trust him. They could kill Cable but if he is telling the truth someone is manipulating them and Cable holds the key to finding the truth. Wolverine decides to believe him for now, despite seeing someone who looked like Cable shoot Xavier, he is willing to give Cable a chance. We have a brief aside to the X-Patriots which is an arc that does not matter and does not go anywhere and as far as I can tell is just Peter David making a shit pun. We cut back to Arkansas where we see Quicksilver and Gambit take on Wildside before they get jumped by Reaper and the issue ends with Reaper, scythe raised, poised to kill Gambit and Quicksilver.

                All in all, not a bad issue but not a ton really happens, the heroes are moving forward with the investigation, we are finding out new information about the MLF and Stryfe continues to be extra as fuck. Its nice that here, six issues in, they’re beginning to consider that in a universe with Skrulls, mystic possessions and numerous powerful shapeshifters and psychics, that maybe, just maybe Cable wasn’t the one to shoot Xavier and that it might have been an imposter, even if the heroes are not entirely convinced. But moving past that my standard complaints about Peter David writing the smarmiest goddamn dialogue imaginable still apply. Archangel in particular is written in a very wink, wink, nudge, nudge sort of way,  when he makes fun of Forearm for his power of having four arms. I am normally a big supporter of the art team on this book but there are several instances where Jae Lee’s faces just don’t work. For example, there are several instances where Gambit looks like Dolph Lundgren. Its not a bad issue by any means but it spins its wheels a bit and doesn’t really hit the heights of its predecessors. 6.5/10

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