1 Rahne and Rictor??? I thought Rictor was gay… didn’t you state this just a few issues back when he was talking to Jamie??? I am gay myself and was really excited to see a character in one of my favorite comics come out… but now he is hooking up with Rahne… what is up with that… Rictor is he gay or not??? Don’t toy with us homo’s David its not very nice…
1 Rahne and Rictor??? I thought Rictor was gay… didn’t you state this just a few issues back when he was talking to Jamie??? I am gay myself and was really excited to see a character in one of my favorite comics come out… but now he is hooking up with Rahne… what is up with that… Rictor is he gay or not??? Don’t toy with us homo’s David its not very nice…
I was under the impression that the mysterious figure changes after he’s hit by the semi because he takes on the appearance of the truck driver, who was thrown through the windshield of the truck when it stopped rather abruptly. It’s only after this that you see his face out of shadow. Not having read X-Factor prior to this series and the Madrox miniseries, I don’t know who this villain is supposed to be or what his powers are precisely, but I think the voices he hears are the result of an uncontrolled, overpowered form of telepathy, not the result of absorbed people trapped in his body or something like someone suggested above.
Oh, and like its predecessors, I really enjoyed the issue, though having so many open mysteries to wait to get more clues about is a killer for someone as impatient as me. And PAD says he doesn’t believe in torture….
Good issue.
Rahne gets to do the wild thing. Showing those animal urges are really starting to overtake her.
Lucky Rictor doesn’t die from Quicksilver’s touch, but can only see the glass half empty because he doesn’t have his powers.
Guido gets to join another team. “Agent Strong Guy” it is.
Somebody’s pregnant eh? The candidates will deny all allegations of course.
Jamie is about to go through another major change in his life. Wow, can’t catch a break can he?
Thanks for another good read PAD!
> So to offer “comfort sex” seemed very out of character.
Ah, but … was it? Or, more to the point, was she offering it to Rictor, or for the BOTH of them? She’s clearly been pretty unhappy/unsettled of late. Might she not be seeing a kindred soul in Rictor and impulsively decided to do some life-affirming thing with him? I could see that. After all, even with the variable time flow in comics, she’s no longer the naive, shy teeny bopper she was when she first joined the New Mutants.
> it would just be highly unlikely considering how rarely pregnancy is introduced into comics in the first place.
True. But then PAD is a pretty rare entity himself – at least in terms of being a quality writer/storyteller with surprises up his sleeve. Wherefor expecting something oddball such as that shouldn’t be that much of a stretch.
One thing, though, we’ve seen him send out dupes for extended periods of time on jobs, or to learn trades. Should he turn out to be a father, and the mother sues for child support, would that apply to any dupes he created after the fact as well?
I’m new to the Marvel world, and figured I’d “jump on” thanks to the Endangered Species storyline kind of starting new chapters in all the X books… as always I enjoyed your writing and am looking forward to continuing.
PAD
The scene with the Isolationist and the truck. Looks like a page taken from What Savage Beast.
Is everyone but me convinced that Rayne & Rictor’s encounter is just some sort of emotional “quickie?” “R&R” if you’ll pardon the pun? I’ve been away from the X-books a long time but my impressions of Rayne’s views about God and sex haven’t really changed since she showed up in X-Factor. I don’t think she was being impulsive. I don’t think that she was planning on creating the mental pretext that this never happenned. I think that she made a very deliberate choice about Rictor and she plans to stand by it. That’s always been my impression of who she is. Time will tell whether I right about this.
I agree with you David. I have seen the way Rahne and Rictor act with each other… I think it has been clear that PAD has been setting us up for something like Rahne and Rictor but the real question is will this “hook up” mean something more to come, with Rahne possibly deny what happened, or maybe will Rictor be the one to back away from it. Any of the situations could make for an interesting story and I think thats the beauty of PAD’s writing, constant twists and turns and many ways in which the story can progress.
I really enjoyed it. The potential pregnancy storyline with Monet (and Layla’s reaction to it) is verrrry interesting. I wonder if the earlier hints about Madrox not being a mutant mean that his genetics and Monet’s would cancel each other out to conceive a baseline human baby (the way Pietro’s and Crystal’s supposedly did for Luna back when she was first born) and get around the forced infertility issue. If Monet is pregnant, it makes for some great story fodder—all the trauma she’s gone through with her siblings has got to color her attitude toward child rearing.
I did have to raise a dubious eyebrow about Rhane and Rictor and wonder why it stopped being more entertaining and more thought-provoking if his sexuality were kept ambiguous. But they do have a history of friendship that could make for some drama here (to say nothing of Rhane’s Good Church Girl Gone Wild issues), and at least the discussion Jamie’s dupe was having with him kept the issue from being entirely whitewashed with straightness.
Kudos to Pablo Raimondi for some great artwork on this issue. That big panel of Layla looking out the window past reflections of the city lights may be the single most beautiful image I’ve ever seen in a comic book.
Hi David! I’m Spanish and I want to thank you what you’re doing with X-Factor. Here in Spain we have just 9 numbers but I have to say that all of them are brilliant!
I think, actually is the best mutant comic!
Very cool issue. So much so that I am featuring it in my comic column tomorrow (Monday, August 6). My review can be seen at philly.com, in the Philadelphia Daily News’ YO! section.
Hi, this isn X-Factor related (although I enjoy your run very much), but I didn’t know how else I could reach you in a public manner.
In any case, this is about that old Hulk versus Juggernaut issue during Heroes Reborn. I seem to remember you saying in some forum (but can’t find the post) that Hulk was only empowered by the HR energies, and not enhancements from Apocalypse, when he stopped the Juggernaut in his tracks. We were also strictly shown that he was outfitted with a sword and a helmet shielding him from his father’s very distracting spirit. He also only tore off his helmet at the end to get rid of the implants, so it doesn’t make sense that it was a wholesale genetic modification.
So could you please verify whether or not he was empowered by Apocalypse? Thank you very much for the help.
• 
1 Rahne and Rictor??? I thought Rictor was gay… didn’t you state this just a few issues back when he was talking to Jamie??? I am gay myself and was really excited to see a character in one of my favorite comics come out… but now he is hooking up with Rahne… what is up with that… Rictor is he gay or not??? Don’t toy with us homo’s David its not very nice…
1 Rahne and Rictor??? I thought Rictor was gay… didn’t you state this just a few issues back when he was talking to Jamie??? I am gay myself and was really excited to see a character in one of my favorite comics come out… but now he is hooking up with Rahne… what is up with that… Rictor is he gay or not??? Don’t toy with us homo’s David its not very nice…
I was under the impression that the mysterious figure changes after he’s hit by the semi because he takes on the appearance of the truck driver, who was thrown through the windshield of the truck when it stopped rather abruptly. It’s only after this that you see his face out of shadow. Not having read X-Factor prior to this series and the Madrox miniseries, I don’t know who this villain is supposed to be or what his powers are precisely, but I think the voices he hears are the result of an uncontrolled, overpowered form of telepathy, not the result of absorbed people trapped in his body or something like someone suggested above.
Oh, and like its predecessors, I really enjoyed the issue, though having so many open mysteries to wait to get more clues about is a killer for someone as impatient as me. And PAD says he doesn’t believe in torture….
Good issue.
Rahne gets to do the wild thing. Showing those animal urges are really starting to overtake her.
Lucky Rictor doesn’t die from Quicksilver’s touch, but can only see the glass half empty because he doesn’t have his powers.
Guido gets to join another team. “Agent Strong Guy” it is.
Somebody’s pregnant eh? The candidates will deny all allegations of course.
Jamie is about to go through another major change in his life. Wow, can’t catch a break can he?
Thanks for another good read PAD!
> So to offer “comfort sex” seemed very out of character.
Ah, but … was it? Or, more to the point, was she offering it to Rictor, or for the BOTH of them? She’s clearly been pretty unhappy/unsettled of late. Might she not be seeing a kindred soul in Rictor and impulsively decided to do some life-affirming thing with him? I could see that. After all, even with the variable time flow in comics, she’s no longer the naive, shy teeny bopper she was when she first joined the New Mutants.
> it would just be highly unlikely considering how rarely pregnancy is introduced into comics in the first place.
True. But then PAD is a pretty rare entity himself – at least in terms of being a quality writer/storyteller with surprises up his sleeve. Wherefor expecting something oddball such as that shouldn’t be that much of a stretch.
One thing, though, we’ve seen him send out dupes for extended periods of time on jobs, or to learn trades. Should he turn out to be a father, and the mother sues for child support, would that apply to any dupes he created after the fact as well?
I’m new to the Marvel world, and figured I’d “jump on” thanks to the Endangered Species storyline kind of starting new chapters in all the X books… as always I enjoyed your writing and am looking forward to continuing.
PAD
The scene with the Isolationist and the truck. Looks like a page taken from What Savage Beast.
Is everyone but me convinced that Rayne & Rictor’s encounter is just some sort of emotional “quickie?” “R&R” if you’ll pardon the pun? I’ve been away from the X-books a long time but my impressions of Rayne’s views about God and sex haven’t really changed since she showed up in X-Factor. I don’t think she was being impulsive. I don’t think that she was planning on creating the mental pretext that this never happenned. I think that she made a very deliberate choice about Rictor and she plans to stand by it. That’s always been my impression of who she is. Time will tell whether I right about this.
I agree with you David. I have seen the way Rahne and Rictor act with each other… I think it has been clear that PAD has been setting us up for something like Rahne and Rictor but the real question is will this “hook up” mean something more to come, with Rahne possibly deny what happened, or maybe will Rictor be the one to back away from it. Any of the situations could make for an interesting story and I think thats the beauty of PAD’s writing, constant twists and turns and many ways in which the story can progress.
I really enjoyed it. The potential pregnancy storyline with Monet (and Layla’s reaction to it) is verrrry interesting. I wonder if the earlier hints about Madrox not being a mutant mean that his genetics and Monet’s would cancel each other out to conceive a baseline human baby (the way Pietro’s and Crystal’s supposedly did for Luna back when she was first born) and get around the forced infertility issue. If Monet is pregnant, it makes for some great story fodder—all the trauma she’s gone through with her siblings has got to color her attitude toward child rearing.
I did have to raise a dubious eyebrow about Rhane and Rictor and wonder why it stopped being more entertaining and more thought-provoking if his sexuality were kept ambiguous. But they do have a history of friendship that could make for some drama here (to say nothing of Rhane’s Good Church Girl Gone Wild issues), and at least the discussion Jamie’s dupe was having with him kept the issue from being entirely whitewashed with straightness.
Kudos to Pablo Raimondi for some great artwork on this issue. That big panel of Layla looking out the window past reflections of the city lights may be the single most beautiful image I’ve ever seen in a comic book.
Hi David! I’m Spanish and I want to thank you what you’re doing with X-Factor. Here in Spain we have just 9 numbers but I have to say that all of them are brilliant!
I think, actually is the best mutant comic!
Very cool issue. So much so that I am featuring it in my comic column tomorrow (Monday, August 6). My review can be seen at philly.com, in the Philadelphia Daily News’ YO! section.
Hi, this isn X-Factor related (although I enjoy your run very much), but I didn’t know how else I could reach you in a public manner.
In any case, this is about that old Hulk versus Juggernaut issue during Heroes Reborn. I seem to remember you saying in some forum (but can’t find the post) that Hulk was only empowered by the HR energies, and not enhancements from Apocalypse, when he stopped the Juggernaut in his tracks. We were also strictly shown that he was outfitted with a sword and a helmet shielding him from his father’s very distracting spirit. He also only tore off his helmet at the end to get rid of the implants, so it doesn’t make sense that it was a wholesale genetic modification.
So could you please verify whether or not he was empowered by Apocalypse? Thank you very much for the help.