X-Factor #15 has seventeen pages of adverts (plus one recap page) between the start and end of a 22 page story.  Er, what happened to the idea of going back to normal numbers of adverts after Christmas, hmm?  Alright, it's an improvement on 23, but it's still excessive.

Now, I'm not going to waste too much time on this, but one point is particularly worth making.  Over Christmas, one of Marvel's big arguments in favour of the wonders of massive quantities of advertising was that, hey, look at all the big names who were advertising in comics.  Wasn't that great?  Well, of the seventeen pages of adverts in this issue, six are for Marvel licensed products, four are for other products related directly to comics, and one is a car advert featuring the Hulk.  There's diversity for you.

But enough of the adverts.  (Really, enough.)  This is the second, and presumably concluding, part of "Multiple Issues", in which HYDRA kidnap Jamie Madrox and try their best to brainwash him.  Naturally, it doesn't go to plan.  Meanwhile, Siryn and M go to France.

I'm not sure this one quite works.  There's something a little odd about it.  The lead plot seems to be aiming for some kind of metaphor where HYDRA burn through all the layers to Madrox's core personality and end up setting loose his self-loathing, which backfires on them.  But to be honest, that's more of a best guess, because I can't really quite put my finger on exactly what point the story is trying to make.  Don't get me wrong, it's definitely got one - I'm just not altogether sure what.  It might simply be the idea that Madrox's search for identity is a dangerous thing because it might unlock something nasty, but if so, it makes it in a terribly roundabout way, and the oddities of Madrox's replication powers obscure the point.

The Paris scenes are more straightforward, but show signs of either strange editing or downright weird artistic decisions.  Page 8 opens with a curious black space, out of style with the rest of the scene, which looks decidedly as though a panel ought to be there.  On page 13, when the story needs to prompt M to attack, we have a baffling line of dialogue - "Aw, no!! The Victor Mayer Faberge Egg I just bought!  A bullet bounced off me and shattered it!" - which, aside from being in completely the wrong idiom for the character ("Aw, no!!"?) simply doesn't bear anything resemblance to what artist Pablo Raimondi has drawn.

A strange issue, and I don't know quite what to make of it.  Bluntly, it shows signs of last-minute editing, but heaven only knows why.  Whatever the exact reasons, this issue doesn't quite seem to work.

Rating: B-

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