Ah, now here's something I haven't had in quite a while.  A new ongoing X-book that I'm genuinely excited about.

X-Factor is one of those names that's been attached to a number of unrelated concepts.  Loosely, this ties in with the second version of the group, which appeared in the original X-Factor series from issue #71 onwards.  Peter David also wrote that book for a brief but highly enjoyable run in the early 1990s, and he's brought Madrox, Strong Guy and Wolfsbane with him into the new version of the book.

More directly, it's a sequel to last year's excellent Madrox miniseries, which saw Jamie setting up a low-rent detective agency in Mutant Town.  Now that he's got a regular title, however, the agency has had a bit of money put into it, and he's got a load of regular staff on call.  So it's a detective agency cum superhero team.

Once again, even among the third tier X-book characters, M-Day's effects are suspiciously muted.  Rictor's lost his powers (and he's not very happy about it), but everyone else seems to be just fine.  As a book set in Mutant Town, though, X-Factor should be the title best placed to follow through the concept.  It'll be interesting to see how far it takes that.

Ryan Sook is the regular artist for this book, but the general style follows the tone set by the Madrox miniseries.  It's beautiful stuff but it's also very muted, with brown and green predominating.  It'll doubtless look wonderful in the trade paperback when it isn't competing for attention with the adverts.  It's the right sort of muted, though - Sook doesn't get sucked in to doing the grim and gritty routine.  He's also got the lightness of touch to carry off Peter David's comedy material.

It's a good set-up issue, which at least gets a storyline underway while handling all the necessary exposition, and then hits you with a neat twist ending.  The Madrox series set a high standard to look up to, but on the strength of its first issue, X-Factor seems to be comfortably up to expectations.

At last, a new X-book that has a really good reason to exist.  Quality entertainment in the offing.

Rating: A

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