Issue(s): X-Factor #36
Cover Date: Jan 89
Title: "Transformations!"
Credits:
Louise Simonson - Writer
Walt Simonson - Penciler
Bob Wiacek - Inker
Bob Harras - Editor

Review/plot:
This issue begins with Beast and Iceman still doing their best to fight off the effects of Inferno on the city alone.

But it's really about reporter Trish Tilby reconciling herself to this new version of the Beast.

But Trish does come around, thanks in part to Iceman acting as a wingman. This has been a long lingering romance that never actually happened, so this is another thread closed up during Inferno.

We also start to see some overlap with the X-Men book, with N'astirh talking about his plans for Madelyne Pryor. He says that Madelyne thinks that she's in charge of him but it's really the other way around. And he makes a comparison with Jean Grey that signals where things are heading.

N'astirh then presents himself to Angel, who is still carrying the corpse of Candy Southern (last seen two issues ago!).

Angel hears that N'astirh is planning something for Manhattan and vows to unleash his own evil against him.

Meanwhile, Cyclops and Marvel Girl are in pursuit of the demons that stole the babies from the orphanage last issue. Jean's telepathic powers are re-emerging, and she's picking up the thoughts of baby Christopher (Nathan) Summers, whose thoughts include a "master" that wouldn't like what's going on. Is that just the demons thinking that N'astirh wouldn't like them eating the baby? But it's Christopher's thoughts. My first thought was that the baby was referring to Mr. Sinister, but it could just be transmitting what it's hearing the demons saying.

Jean gets accusatory during this scene, wondering aloud why Scott married Madelyne. And also wondering why she's so attuned to the baby.

As they fly into the city, they are attacked by a demonically transformed plane, see the warped and growing Empire State Building, and then see the pentagram in the sky that is opening the portal to Limbo, same as in X-Terminators and New Mutants. But the demons that come out in this comic are of the Walt Simonson variety.

This event is big enough to attract the various members of X-Factor, so for the first time since the Mutant Massacre, the team is fully reunited.

Jean locates Scott's baby again, and they head off to rescue him. But we pause there to check in on the other books.

I think it's great the way Louise Simonson had the team split up so that their meeting up again here felt like a big deal even before the dramatic return of (Dark) Angel to the team. And i also think it's great how she worked in the scenes with Beast and Trish Tilby while progressing the Inferno event. But mostly i just like Walt Simonson drawing the team fighting demons.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Takes place concurrently with X-Terminators #3 and New Mutants #71. We saw in the middle of that issue that N'astirh was still waiting on his demons to deliver the babies stolen from the orphanage, but by the end of that issue he has them all. And in this issue there's a reference back to X-Terminators #3 during the conversation between N'astirh and Angel, with Crotus saying, "Boy nearly finished transformation. Demons ready enter Manhattan." The scene with the pentagram is from the end of X-Terminators #3 and also New Mutants #71. The explosion in the end scene may be the computer being destroyed and the pentagram broken in X-Terminators #4, which is a good illustration of how much these issues overlap.

References:

• Crotus interrupts the N'astirh / Angel conversation to give an update on the events of X-Terminators #3. And the pentagram scene is from that issue and also New Mutants #71 (a footnote just says "current issues of New Mutants and X-Terminators have further details").

Crossover: Inferno

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: X-Men: Inferno TPB

This issue makes the later storyline of Trish dumping Beast for his looks very bizarre and out-of-character. Trish made for an interesting supporting character, and it's too bad she was effectively dumped from the books after 2001.

This issue is one of the reasons Inferno's reading order is so complicated.

It seems to me that x-factor's creative team always had trouble lining up chronologically with other titles in crossovers.for example, XFactor 8, with the prelude for the Mutant Massacre, had events occuring exceptionally fast when compared to what was happening in the UXM book.

Same happens here. I had to break up this issue in 3 so things would make sense chronologically.

The first part has to happen after UXM 240-241 because of Nastirh reference to Madelyne. The second part has to happen after the babies are delivered to Nastirh in XTerminators 3 and the pentagram shows up and the portal opens. The final part (last page) should happen after the portal closes.