Issue(s): Marvel Fanfare #50
Cover Date: Apr 90
Title: "If I had the wings of an Angel..."
Credits:
Mary Jo Duffy - Writer
Joe Staton - Penciler
Josef Rubinstein - Inker
Marc McLaurin - Assistant Editor
Al Milgrom - Editor

Review/plot:
It used to seem like Marvel didn't want to admit that Marvel Fanfare was just about running discarded inventory pieces, but that is out in the open now.

This was a just-in-case fill-in for X-Factor, with a main story that took place a while ago but a framing sequence that placed it close to current X-Factor status quo. Iceman and Beast approach Archangel and tell them about a woman that they met while he was thought dead.

The woman is Cressy Desford, and she hired Arcade to kill Angel. But Angel was thought dead, so she settled for killing some of his friends instead. She is angry that X-Factor spread so much mutant hatred. And Arcade is well aware that X-Factor were the original X-Men.

Beast and Iceman are lured to Arcade's latest murder maze by a boy with wings like Angel's.

Cressy claims that the boy, Dominic is Angel's son. But then she admits (or claims) that she also slept with Sub-Mariner and Mimic in the same time period (and they both have wings too!). Then she claims that the wings are really mechanical. Then, when Beast and Iceman tell the story to Angel, he says that Cressy is really crazy, and had a husband that was into radioactive experiments, and he grafted the wings onto Dominic and then died of radiation poisoning, and now Dominic is dying of cancer. There are so many reversals in the story that your head will spin. But in the end it seems that, no, Angel did not father an illegitimate child. But he was funding the hospice care for Dominic until he died and lost control of his fortune, and he's going to start it up again.

In the flashback, Cressy eventually has a change of heart and calls off Arcade, who is happy to do so since he was paid in advance.

Weird story. Not worthy of the $2.25 cover price, but it would have made an OK fill in for the regular X-Factor series.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The framing sequence takes place while Archangel is with X-Factor on Ship while Ship is a building, so circa X-Factor #59. The main story takes place while Angel was thought dead; the MCP have it circa X-Factor #17.

References:

• Angel seemingly died in X-Factor #15.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A