About Heroes

2005 gave us many great moments in comics from the possible betrayal of Emma Frost to Batman telling Superman his ass hasn't inspired anyone since he died. From Blue Beetle getting his brains splattered all over the floor to the triumphant return of Hawkeye.....oh well, forget the last one. To summarize things we had some great moments and we had some eh why the hell am I still reading this shit moments? Then we have the best damn moment in 2005.....which was giving Peter David his X-factor book back.

At a time when Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio and Rob Liefeld were given their own X-books. The underdog book was X-Factor, written by Peter David and illustrated by Larry Stroman(whatever happened to that guy?). It was the early to mid 90's so writers were normaly overshadowed by the artist. I was a huge fan of David's Incredible Hulk run at the time so I knew I was in for a ride when he took over X-Factor. He took B and C list characters at the time and made them fan favorites with just a couple of issues. He did things on that book that most writers would think impossible. He made Quicksilver, who up till X-factor vol.1 92 was one of the biggest dickheads in the Marvel universe, into a likeable character. But, this was not to last, David was forced into doing crossovers and the editors really had too much control of his stories. So he left the book and the infamous Scott Lobdell took over, but that's a different story.

Finally about 10 years later in 2004, David got some of his characters back in a little miniseries called Madrox. Actually it is thanks to Madrox that we are blessed with X-factor. The sales on Madrox were good enough to give David his own monthly title the green light. Now we get to the good stuff. Finally after a couple of delays in December of 2005 we finally got our first issue of X-factor. This unlikely cast has some old faces and some new....really no one wanted these third tier characters.

So what makes X-factor#1 my favorite comic of 2005? Easy...David's love for the characters. He could have easily killed Rictor or Siryn in the first few pages for shock value. Instead he uses all his characters to slowly set the stage for a damn good story. Rahne screaming her head off at Rictor not to jump, because he lost his powers showed the love these characters once shared for each other. M's pompus attitude, Siryn's accent and Rictor's self centered attitude are all here. No one acts out of character, this is what we should recieve out of every writer when they take over a book. Of course the ending really sealed the deal for me; The look on Rictor's face as he is pushed off the building by one of Madrox's dupes was priceless. I am the X-factor! How bad ass is that? The art is superb, Ryan Sook follows the style set by the Madrox miniseries. Its got a dark tone to it, like a film Noir, nice little detective feel to it. If you haven't picked this book up yet go and read it!