X-FACTOR #40

X-FACTOR #40

Review by: bobdoad

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Avg Rating: 4.6

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Size: pages
Price: 2.99

This review contains spoilers, click here to read

<meta content="OpenOffice.org 2.4 (Win32)" name="GENERATOR" /><style type="text/css">  </style> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> To say David's X Factor has been maligned over the past year is quite the understatement. Ever since the Messiah Complex, X Factor has been, much like Madrox, going through a bit of an identity crisis. For a while Peter David received much of the blame for the book's waning sales, banal story lines, awful art (I still stand by my assessment that the man drew with his feet) and general fan displeasure. However, Peter David this is a little unjust. Marvel tried hard to murder this book, first by taking Wolfsbane to form a new “sexy, bloody” team. Charming Marvel, charming. Additionally, Marvel kept pulling this book into X-overs and attempted to make it something it is not, a team book. With issue #40, X Factor continues its track back to being what it was always intended to be: a character study of arguably the most intriguing mutant, Jaime Madrox.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> With the end of last month's book (a gasp-inducing ending that I will gloss over as much as I can), we were reintroduced to why we loved this book to begin with. As I said above, somehow this book confused itself with a team book like Astonishing or X Force. However, it is not. This book has been from the beginning about one man, Jaime Madrox. After all, this book is a spin off of a mini-series called Madrox. No one cares about Longshot anymore. No one ever cared about Darwin. They have only ever cared about Jaime. The story in this issue gets back on that track: delving deeper into Madrox and how he is coping with the issues brought about in #39's “holy ____” ending. Once again, just like last issue, Mr. David has requested that spoilers keep to themselves, therefore I can't speak much more to the story other than what I said. It is important to note that the end of this is another shocker, so brace yourselves.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> The art in this will more than likely get a pass from everyone, even me. DeLandro is a talented artist and is even more lucky that everyone still has that Stroman taste still in their mouths (which tastes a bit like if you licked a pay phone.) My 18 month old niece's crayon drawings could have replaced Stroman and I'd probably still give the art a 3. The art is not bad. In fact, it is very good. It is not without complaint though. At some points, Madrox puts on roughly 50 pounds and then sheds it next frame, as do other characters. Aside from this and some other slights, I still am happy with the art. The mood of the colors and inking gets the book back to its noir feel, which is what caused me to fall in love with this book in the first place. In the end, most people are not in it for the art, just as long as it isn't so bad it distracts from the story.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Overall, this book is my clear front runner for pick of the week for a number of reasons, most notably: it is a sign of this book reemergence as a book I look forward to every month. Issue #40 solidifies that #39 was not a fluke or a gimick. It feels as though David has finally taken back the reins and began guiding this book again. The ending shows promise that he will begin moving this book in a new direction breaking the trend of stale story arcs. Now X Factor fans, cross your fingers and toes that there is not another X-over looming or that the Marvel big dogs decide they need to have another double amputee draw the next 12 issues or tell David he needs to add some Wolverine cameos. If Peter David continues to produce work at this level, he will replace Larry David as my favorite David.</p></div><div class="single-review-storyart">Story: 5 - Excellent <br />Art: 4 - Very Good</div><div class="post-meta"> </div><script type="text/javascript"> jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('#review-hider-link').click(function() { jQuery('#review-hider').slideToggle(400); jQuery('#review-hider-link').slideToggle(400); return false; }); }); </script></div></div> <div id="respond" class="comment-respond"> <h3 id="reply-title" class="comment-reply-title">Leave a Comment <small><a rel="nofollow" id="cancel-comment-reply-link" href="/reviews/x-factor-40/#respond" style="display:none;">Cancel reply</a></small></h3><p class="must-log-in"><a href="/login/">Login</a> or <a href="/register">Register</a> to get involved and leave a comment</p> </div> </div><div id="sidebar" class="sidebar widget-area"><div id="custom_html-6" class="widget_text widget widget_custom_html"><div class="widget_text widget-wrap"><div class="textwidget custom-html-widget"><p class="sidebarsocial"> <a href="https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=3213503" data-patreon-widget-type="become-patron-button">Become a Patron!</a><script async src="https://c6.patreon.com/becomePatronButton.bundle.js"></script></p> <p class="sidebarsocial">iFanboy Social: <a href="https://twitter.com/ifanboy"><img src="/images/icon-l-twitter.png" alt="twitter"></a> <a href="https://facebook.com/ifanboy"><img src="/images/icon-l-facebook.png" alt="facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/ifanboy"><img src="/images/icon-l-youtube.png" alt="youtube"></a> </p></div></div></div> <div id="custom_html-2" class="widget_text widget widget_custom_html"><div class="widget_text widget-wrap"><div class="textwidget custom-html-widget"><div id="fb-root"></div> <script async defer crossorigin="anonymous" src="https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v8.0&appId=59854389026&autoLogAppEvents=1" nonce="afjO01XC"></script> <div class="fb-page" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/ifanboy/" data-tabs="" data-width="300" data-height="280" data-small-header="true" data-adapt-container-width="true" data-hide-cover="false" data-show-facepile="true"><blockquote cite="https://www.facebook.com/ifanboy/" class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ifanboy/">iFanboy</a></blockquote></div></div></div></div> <div id="custom_html-3" class="widget_text widget widget_custom_html"><div class="widget_text widget-wrap"><div class="textwidget custom-html-widget"><script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>  <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:inline-block;width:300px;height:280px" data-ad-client="ca-pub-3609178311430460" data-ad-slot="4118215835"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script></div></div></div> <div id="custom_html-5" class="widget_text widget widget_custom_html"><div class="widget_text widget-wrap"><div class="textwidget custom-html-widget"><div id="zergnet-widget-86237"></div> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> (function() { var zergnet = document.createElement('script'); zergnet.type = 'text/javascript'; zergnet.async = true; zergnet.src = (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? 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