Issue(s): X-Factor #1
Cover Date: Feb 86
Title: "Third genesis"
Credits:
Bob Layton - Writer
Butch Guice - Penciler
Bob Layton, Butch Guice, & Josef Rubinstein - Inker
Mike Carlin & Michael Higgins - Editor

Review/plot:
Every day, more and more people are threatened by the dreaded mutant menace. Law enforcement officials are ineffective and skeptical while you remain a helpless target of these strange beings! You've heard about them - they live in secret and plan to destroy the very lives of us normal people! But now there is help! Now there is -- X-Factor! Professional investigators who, with the help of today's technology, can protect you and your family from this unseen menace! If you suspect anyone of mutant activity call this toll-free number now, and let the mutant professionals handle it from there! Visa and Mastercard are accepted! You don't have to live in fear anymore!

With that, we enter a new era for Marvel's mutants. For better or worse, the question of mutant rights had not been the main focus of Chris Claremont's X-Men lately, and it was even less of a focus in earlier incarnations of the series. And most of the stories that did involve mutant issues were resolved by punching Sentinels. What distinguished the X-Men from any other superhero book was more a matter of tone and what i don't want to quite call lip-service in the script ("As usual", says Storm at the end of a story where a wizard from Conan's time period comes to New York and turns all of Marvel's super-heroes into fantasy characters and whose defeat was largely thanks to an robot alien, "the X-Men help save humanity - and nobody knows it. For all our heroics, we mutants are still outcasts. Nothing has changed."). In fact, the recent story dealing with mutant discrimination most strongly was Dazzler: The Movie. But with the premise of this new X-Factor series, the mutant topic had no choice but to be front and center.

Before we get to that premise, though, this book starts with some really nice character scenes, taking care to bring us from where the various original X-Men were left off prior to this issue. For Scott/Cyclops, that means forced retirement to his Alaska home with his wife and baby.

And for Warren/Angel, Hank/Beast, and Iceman/Bobby, that means facing up to the recent tragedy that ended the Defenders. Much is made of the fact that the Defenders never had a formal leader: "without a Scott Summers or a Professor Xavier around, we're not much to write home about." That actually was an on-again-off-again topic in the New Defenders series, although moreseo in DeMatteis' run than the final Peter Gillis issues. But the point is it's not coming out of nowhere and is a nice reading of that team.

With the Defenders broken up, the Beast and Iceman attempt to get day jobs...

...but Warren is contacted by Mr. Fantastic and told that Jean Grey is alive.

Warren calls back his Defenders buddies...

...and Scott.

You can see from a lot of the scenes above that the anti-mutant sentiment is being played up pretty heavily in this issue.

At the risk of sounding like a cranky old man (i know: waaaaaay too late), i really want to emphasize the effort put in place to show the after-effects of the Defenders failure in this book. I'm writing this entry at a time when Marvel is rebooting their books every six months (at least, that's how it feels), and with each new team configuration and creative team, there's no acknowledgement of where the various characters are coming from (my most egregious example is the Punisher getting sent to jail by the Avengers and getting recruited by Red Hulk for a new Thunderbolts team in the same publication month). By contrast, more than half this book is devoted to following the team members and exploring the implications of Defenders #152 and X-Men #201. A quick look at the credits here shows no Mark Gruenwalds or Roger Sterns, but this is "continuity" in a basic and necessary sense that makes us feel like we're following real characters from book to book and not just intellectual property getting shuffled around (and all that despite it being very obvious that the whole reason this third X-book exists was market factors).

Lots more to cover, starting with Scott's first meeting with Jean.

Jean is angered to learn that Angel has given up with superheroics, and moreso that Cyclops has given up only after failing to become the leader of the X-Men, who are working with Magneto. Scott is too tongue-tied to respond. Understandably. Forget Maddie Pryor for a second and the fact that Jean had died and just imagine trying to wrap your head around the fact that your significant other had actually been replaced by a pod person for the past several months or years (apply Marvel time compression as needed).

The other ex-X-men handle things a lot better...

...but of course they don't have these additional complications (not that Jean isn't a good friend, but for them this would be closer to the Changeling/Professor X revelation than it is for Scott).

The boys manage to track Scott down and bring him back...

...and that's when Warren reveals his new plans for keeping the original team together. He introduces his former college roomate, a marketing executive named Cameron Hodge.

And Hodge shows the team his idea for X-Factor.

X-Factor's first mission is a young sailor named Rusty, who burnt up his superior officer's ladyfriend during shore leave.

The officer, Chief Fisher, then tried to kill Rusty while he was being held prisoner (and the guards looked the other way) but Rusty's fire powers manifested a second time and he escaped. To prevent anyone from learning about his involvement in Rusty's escape, Fisher calls in X-Factor to apprehend the mutant.

While it's in their X-Factor suits that the team meets with Fisher...

...they show up to apprehend Rusty in new costumes reminiscent of previous X-Men costumes.

But then they show up again as X-Factor to give Fisher his bill.

That seems like an obvious problem with the X-Factor concept. But for a first issue, this is a nice start. In fact, despite major revisions to this story (see below), the execution here is really solid. Butch Guice definitely likes drawing ladies...

....but the art is clean and easy to follow. The plot doesn't really allow for spectacular splash panels, but there are nice character moments.

Likewise with the script, which is usually natural (although sometimes overly verbose) and has fun moments as well as what i think is a well handled series of interactions between Scott and Maddie.

The problem with the book is the premise and the implications for the series going forward. Running ads playing up the mutant menace are pretty obviously a bad idea even if your goal is to secretly rescue the mutants. The fact that you call X-Factor about a mutant and a group of additional mutants soon show up to take him away was going to get suspicious really fast as well. And then there's the problem with neither Scott or any of the others telling Jean about Madelyne, and Scott just straight up abandoning his wife and kid. It's understandable to draw that out for drama and realism for maybe an issue or two, but honestly next issue should have been all about that tension, with Warren, Hank, and Bobby confronting Scott if nothing else. Instead it goes on for way too long.

I have to admit that i'm projecting a bit since i know where the series is going. Depending on where we went from here, all the "problems" i'm identifying might have just been a really nice set up for future stores. And i guess that is ultimately the case even if it wasn't necessarily the intention. All of the above will become grist for the mill in future issues, especially when Louise Simonson takes over, and you can look at this issue as flawed characters making bad decisions. The biggest sticking point for me is Cameron Hodge's ads. Even if you didn't think of the fact that the ads would stir up anti-mutant sentiment, there's still the fact that such a hotline is ripe for abuse (my neighbor won't pick up after his dog, i'll turn him in as a mutant), as we'll see. There's also the legal angle. You'd think at least one member of the team would object to all of that, but i guess they were all just so excited about Jean being alive again that they weren't thinking straight.

In Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, it's said that this book was informally called "Chris-Busters" at Marvel, a knock on the Ghostbusters-like premise of the team and the fact that the return of Jean derailed Chris Claremont's plans in X-Men to such a large degree (and undid one of his classic stories).

It's known that this issue went through major rewrites. At one point, Dazzler was going to be the final member before the decision to revive Jean Grey was made (the intention to include Dazzler in light of the mutant hysteria that was common to her book and this series shows that there was more thought put into her than just "her book is getting cancelled"). As we'll see in Dazzler's final issue (with a Mar 86 cover date), it seems someone might have still been operating under the assumption that she was joining the team. According to Sean Howe's book, this issue was redone from scratch two weeks before shipping in a hotel room in New York during a major hurricane; Howe tells the story of how the hotel's concierge handed Guice a roll of tape to secure the windows and wished him good luck. There is also evidence of major scripting revisions in this issue, indicating that last minute changes were being made much later in the process. Notice that Michael Higgins, normally an assistant editor at this point, is given full co-editor credits on this issue. That could just be shorthand, but according to Howe again, the heavy revisions from Jim Shooter continued on issue #2, at which point editor Mike Carlin quit the book (after which he was mostly exiled to the world of licensed books) and was replaced by Bob Harras. Higgins' co-editing credit on this issue may be due to that as well. There were also several iterations on the cover.

All said, though, it's a great start for the series.

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 6 - first X-Factor. first Cameron Hodge and Rusty Collins. Beginning a period of more widespread mutant hysteria.

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Cyclops "bombed out in [his] bid to lead the X-Men" (Maddie's words) in Uncanny X-Men #201.
  
• Half the Defenders were killed in Defenders #152.
  
• Jean seemingly became the Phoenix after the X-Men fought Scott Steven Lang (thanks, Max_Spider!) in Uncanny X-Men #98-101.
  
• The Phoenix died in Uncanny X-Men #137.
  
• But it was revealed in Avengers #263 and Fantastic Four #286 that Jean Grey never actually became the Phoneix; she was actually replaced by it.
  
• Jean Grey holds up a Time magazine cover showing the airplane scene from Dazzler: The Movie to illustrate the anti-mutant sentiment pervading the country.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

There's a major plot hole in this issue- somehow X-Factor knows that Rusty isn't some sicko that likes setting women on fire before he tells them what happened. This supports the idea that Jean was supposed to have her telepathy in an earlier draft.
Some readers disliked X-Factor for their lack of sympathy for the injured woman- they're joking about blackmailing her boyfriend when he tried to take revenge. Later issues established that they used the money they got from the chief to pay for the woman's treatment.
Agreed on the legal aspects of the ads- aren't running kidnapping ads illegal in the Marvel Universe?
Note that Hank is referred to as "Doctor McCoy" in this issue- fans have argued for years about when he got his doctorate.
The X-Men breaking off contact with the X-Men because they think Magneto is evil makes no sense. It makes sense for the FF and the Avengers to distrust the X-Men because they don't know the whole story but X-Factor knows that the X-Men believe Magneto has reformed. It's especially stupid because there are some very powerful minors at the mansion with tragic lives that Magneto could try to corrupt- Rachel, Illyana, Warlock,etc.
Why didn't Hank and Bobby contact Maddie to find out if Scott had returned home? Or did they?
It makes no sense for Jean not to tell her family or Havok and Polaris that she's alive.

There;s so many things to like about this and early issues of X-Factor, nevertheless there are several major mistakes that ends up destroying so much.

1) Cyclops not being up front and telling Jean he is married. It makes him a complete heel - someone who abandons not only his wife, but his child. How could any editor let that go on so long?

2) The mutant hunter concept is one of those brilliant ideas when you're drunk, but sound awful once you are sober. Just adding gasoline to the fire.

3) How can anyone possibly see this group being clandestine when Angel has a publicly known identity, and Beast is well known as an Avenger.

That last one gets resolved early on, but not very satisfactorily.

Michael brings up some other good points. Even if Cyclops can't run the school, he could potentially reach out to the New Mutants and let them know that if they want to abandon Magneto, they have a home with his new group.

The original X-Men coming together is a cool idea. They have a back history and trust few other characters do. Having them deal with real threats to mutants instead of the space opera, lost cities, magical mumbo-jumbo, and whatever else digression Claremont comes up with is a great idea. But there are major flaws in its execution, and this will come back to haunt the franchise.

Is it possible that Scott's teammates simply trusted him to tell Jean about Maddie? Maybe assumed that he even did?

Steven Lang, not Scott Lang. THAT would have been interesting. xD

Max_Spider, the dialogue in later issues makes it clear they knew he was hiding the truth from Jean.

When this book was announced at several Comic-Cons(before Jean was officially brought back), a large piece of presentation art depicting the team was used with a silhouette representing a female member. Critics and fans immediately started blasting Jim Shooter for insulting their intelligences over what was an obvious return of Marvel Girl. Considering that Dazzler was supposed to be the female member for a while, I have to wonder if everyone was off base with the criticism. However, I don't know how close the presentation was to #1's release date...

You wrote: "But it was revealed in Avengers #263 and Fantastic Four #286 that Jean Grey never actually became the Phoneix; she was actually replaced it."

It should say "she was actually replaced BY it."

Speaking of... I love how they (quite hauntingly) expanded on the flashback scene from FF #286 in the second story in Classic X-Men #8.

There were 2 unresolved plot threads from The New Defenders... how Candy Southern's hair suddenly grew very rapidly (and darkened) between Defenders 152 and X-Factor 1 from a pretty short cut to half-way down her back as shown here...

And what happened to Beast's puppy Sassafras? I guess Beast gave Sassafras to The Defenders housekeeper Dolly Donahue (who disappeared and was never seen again after Defenders #146)?

;)

Thanks, Jay. But no No-Prize for the grammatical error or i'd be giving away 10 per post.

I like to think the Red Hulk freed the Punisher, somehow using his status as an Avenger before breaking ranks with them. But having yet to read Punisher: War Zone or the new Thunderbolts at this time, I dread finding a contradiction to that idea.

Max_Spider Punisher:War Zone is good but Thunderbolts is horrible.
These issue add to the reason I hate Jean Grey.

Oh, the one for which I have been waiting since I found this site. I loved this review, because it sums up my ambivalence very well. There were built-in problems that would become more troublesome, but at the time, I just couldn't wait for this issue to "drop" as the kids say now, and I was so happy to have it. I loved the original X-Men, and here they were. To have them every month in the same book, I was willing to live with that perilous mutant-hunting premise, the demise of the Defenders, and even years of "Jean Grey" retconned away.

After reading the review and looking at the scans, I have had to reconsider my opinion on Layton. I had thought the good writing only started with the Simonsons, but there is a lot of subtle character work, and I like the treatment of Scott so far. What a horrible bind the poor guy is in. Guice's art has his typical proportion problems (look at Scott's head in the panel in which he re-encounters Jean; it's too tiny for the body), but it's also dynamic and expressive, as it would remain on his FLASH run with Mike Baron. Those silent Madelyne reaction shots are excellent; he's helping a supporting character achieve real depth.

They should have brought Dazzler in anyway. I would have liked her participation here more than in X-MEN a year or so later. Her history with Angel and Beast would have opened story possibilities, and the cast expands anyway with all the kids.

In addition to this being a pretty well executed comic, the concept of X-Factor has two things to commend it. First, the O5 forming a team of their own separate from the X-Men makes sense given how well these characters know one another and how little most of them have interacted with the new X-Men. It actually made less sense to me when the teams were combined in 1991. Sure, they might have to join forces against a major foe like the Shadow King, but for the most part the personalities and styles if the teams were so different it didn't make sense to permanently mix them: it almost felt like mixing the FF and the Avengers.

Second, Jean's resurrection actually helps the Phoenix concept fit better with the logic of the Marvel Universe. The idea that any mutant might get powered up to the point of destroying suns just by getting zapped with cosmic rays just doesn't work in the context of the MU. That's just too much power too casually come by. But making the Phoenix a cosmic force accounts for her power-level nicely, and helps account for Rachel Summers being the next toughest thing to the Beyonder, too.

So maybe X-Factor was a good idea after all, crass commercialism notwithstanding. The a Ghostbusters premise is problematic, but one wonders how long that was ever meant to last.

Wasn't the Phoenix always some kind of cosmic force? At least enough of one that the Shi'ar knew all about it and were already scared of her? Or am I misremembering?

I had always thought that too, but I think it comes from reading the Dark Phoenix story in Classic X-Men first, when the ret-com was already in place. When I read the original stories I didn't see anything about Phoenix being a cosmic entity known to the Shia'ar---in fact, the scene I recalled from my Classic XM days as establishing that actually has Xavier independently realizing while he's in space that Jean might be too powerful.

In X-Men 135-136 the only knowledge Lilandra has of Phoenix is as one of the X-Men, the one who fixed the M'Kraan crystal. In XM 125, Xavier had realized that if Jean could repair the crystal, she must have more power than any human can handle. There's nothing said anywhere that indicates the Shi'ar think Phoenix is anything more than a native of earth. The explanation for Jean's power seems to be those cosmic rays from XM 100.

Jean's full head covering mask is just hideous. I can't wait for her to change it to the regular face mask in the X-Factor Annual #1/X-Factor #9-onward.

Always hated Jean and Scott's X-Factor uniforms with those silly big Xs. Also, they look like they were based on Medusa's costume from way back in Spider-Man #62. Jean's version is even green like Medusa's was, I guess green was the preferred color for redheads. ;)

Just before this came out, Butch Guice admitted in Comics Interview #28 that Steve Kent, his art partner on Southern Knights, was doing uncredited backgrounds for at least this issue.

In late 1985 there was a promotional video about this circulating at conventions. In it, Jackson Guice supposedly said he drew the first 10 issues while having no idea who the mystery 5th member was(a possibly apocryphal claim--does this video exist on Youtube?).

Critics pointed out that the last 3rd of this issue appeared to be heavily rewritten, Shooter being the main suspect.

Further suggestions of tampering:in 12/85, editor Mike Carlin said that Shooter felt #1 "wasn't strong enough", and quoted Mike:"There's been a lot of trouble and things have been changed every time I blink my eye."

For THIS they broke up the Gillis Defenders? Oy.

Did you know Steve Englehart had put his own proposal forward with Al Milgrom for the X-Factor title?

While Dazzler was the front runner before Jean (hence why she was earlier teamed with Beast), and Claremont offered Sara Grey as an alternative, I've always been keen to know who Steve & Al proposed as members of the team in their pitch!?

Good question. Perhaps the Scarlet Witch?

It would make sense IMO. Wanda is one of the very few mutants who may actually feel a bit guilty for being a bit privileged when it comes to mutant rejection, yet she would have a degree of divided loyalties (being married and all) as well. Besides, she has ancient yet underexplored X-Men ties as well.

Besides her, obviously Scott as well. And Beast, who he seems to be fond of and who he has a story of writing well. Perhaps also Havok and Angel, probably Iceman.

@Luis: Good suggestion re: Wanda. Was Steve lining her up to be available for the team I wonder, and what might this have meant for her relationship with the Vision?

With all the recent hullabaloo re: retconning Magneto as her father, I was never sold on the twins being his and my own preference for Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch's father is who I believe Kirby intended. In X-Men #11, the mutant twins say they are leaving the Brotherhood to return to their home in the Balkans, the same area Lucifer (intended by Kirby as a mutant) operated suggesting he was intended as their father. So the twins, Pietro and Wanda were the children of a lord of mutants, but Lucifer not Magneto! And yes my fixes span further back than Claremont;)

Yep Beast is obvious given Steve's work on Amazing Adventures!

Yeah, the only way to enjoy this (and I did enjoy it - I was thrilled to have the original five back together) was to simply enjoy it and try to ignore all the obvious plotholes / plot conveniences (there's just too many people who should be told that Jean is alive that aren't). But it was nice to have those five personalities back together again after a decade.

It doesn't seem like a coincidence that for the next five years all sorts of barriers were thrown in the way to prevent this team from re-merging with the X-Men, and when they finally did is when Claremont left.

Going back to 'mutant hunter' guise, I think the idea - at least how Hodge pitched it - was that the X-Factor would purposedfully act cold-hearted and cynical greedy mercenaries exploiting the mutant hysteria, so that eventually public would completely turn on them. I guess they never properly explored that alley. I dunno, it's kind of a mess any way you put it.

I never could get too excited about this series. I think the basic problem is that it is basically old X-Men reunited - but the old X-Men never were that great. It is interesting that individual characters have proven enduring, even iconic, however as a group I always felt they were 'meh'.

Bringing back Jean was a huge mistake. They should have stayed with Dazzler. It would have been interesting to see how X-Factor would have developed. I imagine Maddy would have stayed with Scott and remained part of the book, the same way Layton tried to keep the other romantic interests of the team involved like Candy and Vera.

Bringing back Jean was a huge mistake? Hell, bringing back Professor X was a huge mistake.

I never could get too excited about this series. I think the basic problem is that it is basically old X-Men reunited - but the old X-Men never were that great. It is interesting that individual characters have proven enduring, even iconic, however as a group I always felt they were 'meh'.

Which is funny, becsuse, despite this, creators seem obsessed with bringing back the original X-Men in one form or another. That's a lot of noopla for a team that starred in a book low-rated book on the verge of cancelation.

Brian Cronin did a CBR that reveals that Jean WAS always supposed to lose her telepathy in X-Factor:
http://www.cbr.com/jean-grey-x-factor-telepathy-bob-layton/
According to Layton, "In my view of the conventions used in writing comics (and the laundry list of standard abilities), a telepath would be nearly impossible to defeat." So apparently I started an urban legend that wasn't true. Mea culpa, maxima mea culpa.

Scott doesn't mention his baby ONCE. Douchiest character ever.

Absolutely agree with Will.

The way Scott walks Out on his wife and newborn son is a monstruosity imó

I'm looking forward to see Maddy's descent into madness (which, I suppose, occurs in Inferno)

I see poor Scott as a victim of bad, bad writing since X-Factor #1 until now. Like a son whose father does not teach him how to behave...

fnord, you might want to consider tagging the bystander who shrugs off Mr. Fantastic's arm as some nutty airlines promotion- he seems to appear about half a dozen times in stories written by Tom DeFalco whenever some super-powered display happens, chalking it up to some kind of promotional tactic! ;)

Comparing the continuity havoc the return caused and the future stories it destroyed with the actual issue, it's not worth it in my opinion.

The original X-Men were not all that great and the premise is flimsy.

It was nice to see a character like Scott away from the garbage heap of so-called X-Men he was part of in the 70s. Put Scott with his real team and not a carnival of cliched stereotypes? What a crazy idea!

Yeah, Scott finally got a chance to develop his three-dimensional personality alongside the millionaire womanizer, the wisecracking jackass, the spectacled know-it-all and fiery redhead no. 1 (after leaving fiery redhead no. 2).

If they wanted to bring back Jean Grey so badly, they could've at least have Maddie Pryor turn out to be Jean all along, suffering from amnesia and stunted mutant powers from the shock of being trapped in an underwater cocoon. From which she would have been liberated as a result of Phoenix's death, but without any real indication of who see really was. THEN she could've recovered her true self in X-Factor #1 for whatever reason, and all the "Chris-busting" would've have at least spared the other characters from acting (or being written as) complete assholes and dolts.

Let's face it: we'd have to explain Madelyne Pryor's connection to Jean SOMEHOW, and making her a clone meant no one had ever taken her fingerprints anyhow. Actually MAKING her Jean would've made no difference in that department.

Ha, good answer. Though to be fair, the new 70s X-Men did start off as some national stereotypes, even if they later mostly outgrew them. You had the Irish guy with Banshee powers, the African woman who was close to nature, didn't like wearing clothes & came from a primitive society where she was worshipped as a goddess, a Soviet farmer named Rasputin whose brother was a Cosmonaut, and, um, a psychopathically aggressive Canadian.

Having finally seen Deadpool 2, I admit...their treatment of Rusty Collins (er, Russel Collins) in the movie compared to the comics felt complete, probably more than whatever the comics did to him. Heck, the mere factor that Rusty nearly caused a "Days of Futures Past" scenario to force Cable to come back and stop him really says a lot.

According to Interlac #51, Jackson Guice was first mentioned as being attached to this book at a Creation-Con announcement in early Fall 1984.

He also apparently started being called "Jackson" because some folks at Marvel had reservations about the sexual connotations of "Butch".