I never particularly bought into Pip the Troll being a member of X-Factor. He was often funny, with writer Peter David giving him some of the best zingers in the comic, but what the heck was Pip the Troll doing as receptionist for X-Factor? It just never made much sense to me. Well PAD clearly loves the idea, and so he has devoted an entire issue to the secret life of Pip the Troll. It’s a somewhat entertaining issue, with a surprise finish. But I can’t say that it has relieved my Pip prejudice any. Pip never becomes anything more than PAD’s in-joke to himself.

X-Factory #246

Still, if you’re a fan of Pip the Troll, this issue is probably a hoot.

Comic rating: 3/5: Alright.

This is a ‘day in the life’ issue, fairly common in all types of fiction. What does Pip get up to behind the scenes? Quite a bit, apparently, some of it entertaining, some of it downright funny and some of it more than a little sleazy. I suppose it gives us more about Pip as a character, but the oddness of a cosmic space imp playing receptionist for a very grounded team like X-Factor is still his defining element. It’s a weirdness that I don’t particularly like to see in X-Factor, but that’s a personal taste more than anything. I don’t think Pip ever fit in, but I suppose PAD makes it work.

Still, it’s a fairly entertaining comic, for what it is. Nothing really special about it, unless, like I said, you are a huge Pip the Troll fan. He has an adventure, reveals some funny secrets about himself, and we all move on with PAD’s ongoing story. He’s been building to this big picture story forever and a day. Let’s hope it gets here soon, and let’s hope he really knocks it out of the park!

Join me after the jump for a full synopsis and more review.

We open with Pip saving a woman from a mugger in a dark, dank alley. He’s dressed like an old noir detective, and giving semi-noirish narration as he tells the mugger to leave the woman alone. Pip’s narration will guide us through the entire issue.

Is that one of Madrox’s trench coats?

The mugger fights back, and Pip soundly defeats him using his highly trained fighting skills. The little dude used to roll with Adam Warlock and Gamora, after all. Pip knocks the mugger out cold and leaves him in the alley, then takes it upon himself to lead the lovely young Vera to safety. He suggests they leave rather than wait in a smelly alley for the cops. Pip tells her he’ll buy her a drink at this bar he knows. Then he ‘sort of’ introduces himself.

Close enough!

So they head to Jim’s Bar, where Pip is such a regular that the bartender helps him with that whole Peter Dinklage thing, because PAD drags out the Game of Thrones joke a bit too far. But while Vera chats with the bartender, Pip is in the back playing darts with a drinking buddy of his. They chat briefly about Pip sealing the deal with this one, until Vera runs up to get Pip’s help! She saw the mugger out the bar window, and now she’s super scared!

Pip tells Vera not to call the cops as he rushes outside to confront the bum – who we discover was working for Pip the entire time.

Apparently Pip pays his buddy to mug beautiful women, then Pip swoops in to save them, ensuring him some hero sex. This is…kind of horrible. I mean, I’m not horribly offended or anything, but that’s a pretty low class thing for Pip to regularly engage in. Aren’t we supposed to be rooting for him?

At least he pays well

Anyway, the mugger says he showed up to warn Pip that he overheard some people talking about how “X-Factor will fall.” Pip doesn’t like his night being ruined, but he’s a team player, and decides to check this out. He sends Vera away in a cab – much to her horny dismay – and then grabs another cab to head to X-Factor HQ to sort this out. On the way, Pip thinks to himself about how weird his life directory has been. He used to be tall and handsome, he thinks to himself, until he took some mutagenic hallucinogens and turned into Pip the Troll. Since then, he’s lived a glorious life of debauchery. He figures he’s kept himself bouncing and wandering around the galaxy in order to stay one step ahead of whatever’s going to get him in the end.

But wandering is getting old. And when circumstances dropped him in X-Factor’s lap, he decided to stay. It’s the closest thing he’s had to a family since Warlock and Gamora, and he likes it, the old softy. Though he says that he keeps X-Factor together, and the others don’t realize it.

Pip eventually just steals the cab after the driver makes an Oompa Loompa joke.

Pip then reveals via flashback that his job as receptionist actually allows him to do a lot more for X-Factor than anybody realizes. They’re a detective agency, and they get a lot of walk-ins – more than Madrox and the others know. They get a lot of missing persons cases, and Pip then just uses his cosmic powers to find the missing person. Case closed. Even if the clients don’t like the answer.

That’s probably that lady’s fifth husband to do this

That’s a funny little flashback, but the next one isn’t as much.

Pip also reveals that he fights off attacking bad guys when the team doesn’t realize it. Like the squadron of ninjas from Friends of Humanity who kicked in the door the other day. Yes, a squadron of ninjas, in full ninja gear with swords and everything. From the Friends of Humanity, no less. Since when do they employ ninjas?

Pop culture referencing ninjas even

Pip takes out the ninjas using a portable worm hole generator that he bought in an intergalactic practical joke shop.

That’s where the issue kind of loses me. The art and the rest of the story makes it all seem rather serious, like this is a legitimate take on Pip’s daily routine. This isn’t like the Doop issue of Wolverine and the X-Men, with it’s wall-to-wall insanity. This is Pip being a normal person living his normal life. But suddenly we’ve got ninjas and portable worm hole generators. The story kind of goes off the rails.

But it’s brief, and we move on. Though if you’re keeping track, and you remember last issue, we now know where Pip gets his petty cash and why the door was being repaired.

Back in the present, Pip arrives at HQ and rushes to the door, only to suddenly find Vera outside. He doesn’t have time to question her before she points a gun at him and tells him, “X-Factor will fall.”

Imagine if he’d slept with her!

Now that’s a shocking ending. Though you can’t say PAD didn’t foreshadow it earlier in the story.

The ending doesn’t really have much to do with the story, and comes out of nowhere. Vera really put on quite the con in order to kill Pip. Why did she bother to go through all of that? Why not kill Pip in the alley? And who did the mugger hear saying “X-Factor will fall”? Unless the mugger and Vera were working a double cross to get Pip. I guess that could be it. Still, there are more than a few plot holes to jump through. From the sound of it, there would probably be a lot of easier ways to get Pip alone with a beautiful woman. Though I will say that the shock ending definitely helps the comic overall.

But I can’t say I’m particularly interested by this turn of events. Like I said before, I never felt that Pip belonged in this book. And I can’t imagine anyone at X-Factor being too hurt by his loss. They’re not going to be happy that Pip is dead, but I don’t see anyone getting really broken up over it. He’ll be passed and forgotten soon enough.

His death also doesn’t do anything to propel the larger story forward. We have no idea who Vera is, who she works for or why she wants X-Factor to fall. X-Factor is just a bunch of X-Men cast-offs working a detective agency in New York. Who would want them to fall? And how does it tie into this bigger picture that PAD is working on?

We don’t have any further answers this issue, which is kind of how PAD has been writing the story all along.