More X-Factor, more Hell on Earth War goodness! The battle for the fate of the Earth marches on into Part Five, and it looks like Peter David is finally moving his various pieces into place for the big finale. Specifically, he has Mephisto start making the sort of power plays that put him dead center as the story’s true villain, while X-Factor deals with some more internal problems. I rather like that. I’m not so much a fan of big, chaotic fights between superheroes and faceless demon spawn, but I love it when superheroes bicker and talk with one another. That’s just something weird about me, I guess.

X-Factor #254

We get plenty of both action and talking in this issue, which is another solid installment of the Hell on Earth War.

Comic Rating: 4/5: Good.

One thing that’s interesting to note is that the recap page mentions a meeting between Peter David and his editors at Marvel HQ. As we all know, the recap pages always contain some fun, behind-the-scenes tidbit, usually about PAD’s life and family. This time we learn that PAD has a lot of big, big plans for X-Factor in the coming months, which I’m taking to mean that the upcoming ‘End of X-Factory’ storyline is just going to be a chance for him to relaunch the series with a new focus. Marvel has been talking about Marvel NOW! Wave 2 being on the horizon, and I think X-Factor is going to get a little shake up. I’m excited for this…in theory. If we find out that PAD is ditching all of his characters and going in a completely new direction, then I will be less happy. I’m hoping, instead, that he just plans to streamline the current team and figure out a new direction to take all of them.

As long as PAD is still writing a Multiple Man comic book, I will be one happy camper.

But that also gives extra emphasis to the Hell on Earth War, which might turn out to be the big, penultimate story of this volume of X-Factor. PAD has been writing this ongoing tale for years now, and this looks to be his big blowout adventure. I can definitely get behind that. The story is fast-paced with usually strong character work. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been for X-Factor, and mostly we get to see everybody working together (or knocking heads) as they try to be superheroes and save the world. You couldn’t really ask for more.

We open, oddly enough, with Tier suddenly deciding he doesn’t want to kill the Hell Lords. He seemed pretty gung-ho last issue. But now, after spending a little quiet time looking up at the stars, he tells his mother that he doesn’t want to be turned into a killing machine. He wants to find another way. Rahne tells him she’s perfectly OK with that, and she’s sure the rest of the team will understand. They rejoin the group, but everyone is in too much of a rush to hear them out and they teleport back to Times Square.

Unfortunately, the usually stellar art of Leonard Kirk makes a slight mistake. We’re told they arrive in a ruined and destroyed Times Square…but the actual panel is taken up by the huge, glowing teleportation energy.

We can’t see nothin’!

Are you telling me Kirk couldn’t draw a kickass picture of a decimated Times Square?

Anyway, we jump away to a fight between Mephisto and Satannish, because the Hell Lords have decided to just fight each other now instead of wasting too much time hunting for Tier. Mephisto easily wins and kills Satannish, probably because everybody knows who Mephisto is, whereas I’ve never even heard of Satannish. Mephisto gloats and transports Satannish down into Mephisto’s new Hell realm to be his prisoner.

Back in Times Square, Polaris doesn’t take it very well that Tier has decided not to kill the Hell Lords.

Totes for reals!?

Polaris has become de facto leader of the team with Multiple Man indisposed, and she’s rather upset that Tier is wussing out. He’d just told her the issue before that he was ready to do this, ready to kill. But now he’s having doubts and second guessing his true purpose. Polaris points out that they’re only talking about the end of the world here!

Take your time, everyone

This is a fun scene. Like she says, they’re facing down the end of the world, but X-Factor is stuck bickering among themselves. PAD is doing a lot to build up Polaris’ character, and I like what he’s doing. Polaris could definitely stand to be better defined and this is a great way to show it. Some of the characters don’t get a lot of play in this story, like Rictor, but it’s still a nice little scene as X-Factor arguing among themselves about what they’re going to do next. Polaris makes a move on Tier, but Rahne smacks her away with incredible strength. Polaris just gets angrier, but then Darwin and Longshot come out on Tier’s side as well. Polaris is not having a good time at the end of the world.

Then nobody is having a good time, because an army of demons find them and race to attack!

We’ll check back in with them later.

Next, we jump to Hela and Asmodeus sword-fighting in some frozen wasteland. And again, I ask, who the hell is Asmodeus?

A big fat red demon, apparently

I’m probably not the only one asking, whereas everybody knows Hela from Thor. So she wins! But then Mephisto shows up to stab her in the back and gloat some more, transporting both of them down to his Hell dimension as prisoners, just like Satannish. This is what I meant when I said PAD was moving his characters towards the finale. All of a sudden, in just this one issue, Mephisto takes out all the rest of the Hell Lords. So we’re clearly setting up for some kind of showdown with Mephisto. That sounds good to me!

Back in New York, before the demon army has a chance to reach our heroes, Jezebel shows up and orders them all to leave. All the demons know her to be Mephisto’s daughter, so they listen, and she tells them to go find her father.

Guido shows up, with Demon Madrox slumped over his shoulder, and he tries to explain who Jezebel is to his friends and why they should all trust her. Unfortunately, Demon Madrox goes nuts and starts attacking everybody!

He’s into that sort of thing

The scene erupts into chaos as the members of X-Factor tried to reign in the duplicating Demon Madroxes. During the battle, Jezebel tries to get Tier to step up and fight the Hell Lords.

Cue rimshot

Jezebel is insistent and Rahne tries to fight her off, but Jezebel fries her with some heat vision. Tier runs, and then Layla creates a forcefield to protect him. Everybody’s standing up for Tier, and I suppose it’s pretty sweet of them. Jezebel calls for Guido to help, but Monet intercepts him, and together they go crashing through the street down into Hell. Not entirely sure how they were able to fall so far, but Monet wakes up and challenges Guido to a fight, determined to put him down once and for all!

What is up between Monet and Guido? I’ve been following along this whole time, but when and why did her anger turn so murderous? They went on one bad date, and ever since, Monet has wanted nothing more than to destroy the poor blork. Seems like overkill to me. Still, it’ll be cool to see what PAD does with their final encounter.

There are two issues to go in Hell on Earth War, and I’m excited to see what happens next. The climax is coming, and all of the pieces are so far in a very interesting place. I’m confident PAD’s going to knock it out of the park, setting us up for the End of X-Factor arc. I’m pretty confident it won’t really be the end of X-Factor. All I know for sure is that PAD has some big, big plans!