The X-books are all in mid-storyline this week, but on the principle that I ought to properly review at least one of them, let's check in on X-Factor.

Issue #29 is titled "The Only Game in Town, part 1", but in reality it's the second part of a story that began with last month's post-Messiah Complex transition issue.  Notionally, that crossover provides the starting point for this story.  But in fact, X-Factor is currently doing the sort of soul-searching that all of the X-books should have done a few years ago, after House of M.

There are still virtually no mutants around to protect, and "Mutant Town" has now reverted to being the Middle East Side, as the ex-mutants drift back into normal lives.  The X-Men have officially called it a day, and as the only X-team still together (so far as they know), X-Factor find themselves sitting around wondering: What's the point?  What exactly are we trying to achieve here?  And, by extension, what's the book about?

Ironically, it's Madrox who seems most determined to keep the team together.  Over the last few years, Peter David has generally been writing Madrox as somebody who has no direction in life, because he can do everything at once and never needs to choose.  David has written a very clever gradual transition over the last few years, with Madrox rediscovering some sense of purpose in his new group - and now haunted by the niggling fear that the group might not have any purpose at all, beyond sticking around for the sake of it.

The story doesn't offer any particular answer to the "What's the point?" problem, which continues to afflict most of the X-books to some extent.  But it does place the issue front and centre, giving the storyline the direction and purpose it's been missing.  If you just wipe out all the mutants and the survivors carry on doing superhero stuff as normal, even thought the raison d'etre of the team has been eradicated, then you've got no direction.  But if you have the characters standing around wondering why they're still together then that lack of direction becomes the direction in its own right - at least for a short period.

Admittedly, to some extent, this genuinely does come across as a last-ditch attempt to salvage something from a deeply unsatisfactory status quo.  Rahne was hastily written out last issue, so that she could join the cast of X-Force, and this month the subplot about Guido becoming the sheriff of Mutant Town is also dropped like a stone.  All this gives the impression that David is changing tack to address the problems that the wider X-Men storylines have caused for him.  But he's doing it successfully, and turning a highly questionable status quo to genuine advantage.

From here, it seems, we're heading into an Arcade storyline.  Arcade couldn't be further removed from the noir stylings of early X-Factor issues, nor is he obviously likely to an answer to the team's existential woes.  After all, as a weird pseudo-Silver Age gimmick villain, Arcade is perhaps the most pointless and absurd bad guy in the X-Men's catalogue.  I suspect that's why David is using him; the last thing the X-Factor cast want right now is to spend two or three issues fending off utter meaninglessness, which may well make this a singularly inspired use of this questionable character.

The crucial thing, I think, is that while I have no idea where Peter David is heading with this series, the fact that he's so openly addressing the apparent problems with the status quo convinces me that he must have something in mind to get out of this corner.  And that makes everything work.

Rating: A-

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