I became a fan of X-Factor late last year, and have been in
love ever since. To be fair, it’s pretty much just a giant man-crush on Jamie
Madrox, but there is nothing too shabby about Siren either, a character that I really
do like. However the reason I continue to keep reading X-Factor – primarily –
is to see when in hells bells Layla Miller will return.

And to anyone who wants to cry “Marvel continuity sucks” at
me for her appearance in Secret Invasion, give me a break; it was a flash-back!

I’m not quite sure how to look at this series anymore
though; it seems to have lost its way a bit. Yes, I still have a thing for the
team, but the writing seems to be asking too much of me. Take for example the
scene where Rictor punches Arcade, and his face comes flying off revealing him
to be a robot. Makes sense, right? Except, that the robot face is actually
another mask, and it was actually Arcade all along. I’m all for a little
unrealism in my comics, but this is going just a bit too far. Is writer Peter
David trying to tell me that no one would have noticed that it was a mask?

I was also a bit annoyed at the seeming fact that Tony
Stark, aka, Iron Man, was the only person in the whole world who was going to
be of any help to Mutant Town and their giant force field problem.

The scenes where we weren’t focusing on the members of
X-Factor were hard to read as well, as they seemed to play no other part then
fill a few more pages with words and art. The book is called “X-Factor,” not
“The Trials and Tribulations of Mutant Town;” we should at least be focusing on
said team a little bit more.

Now granted those irrelevant scenes I mentioned did make for
some great X-Factor story, in that they split up and began saving whoever they
could get too. It was a testament to what we – the readers – have always known
about X-Factor, and what the rest of the Marvel Universe seem to believe about
them.

There were two highlights for me, and naturally one of them
included Jamie Madrox’s classic comedy timing. He’s making his way up a
building to save an old guys life, and though he can’t fly, he announces that
he’s “got a kick’ support system.” This is accompanied by a pyramid of Jamie’s,
with a bottom one whining “could we move this along? Please?” It’s Jamie to the
core!

The best bit of the comic though was Rictor’s attempts to
bring down the force field. Though he tried his best to bring down the system
using whatever computer hackery skills he has up his sleeves, it was throwing a
chair in to the computer system that did the trick. This is an example of
unrealism that I don’t care about.

I can’t say much for the art either. I won’t say I don’t
like it, but it was nothing special either. All the faces seemed just a bit too
plain, and Arcade’s robot mask looked exactly like a robot mask, adding to the
total unbelievability of their being unable to identify him as the real Arcade.

All in all this book gets a 3 out of 5 on both counts, and
continues to leave me baffled as to why no one is making a rescue attempt on
Layla; especially Jamie who, despite everything, really cared for her.