Nope, I still don’t care for it. I was pretty harsh in my review of All-New X-Factor #1, but I had high hopes that the second issue would alleviate some of my concerns and prove that I’m an idiot. It didn’t. Not even a little. The second issue is just as generic and uninspired as the first. It doesn’t help that writer Peter David spends the whole issue in action mode, pushing what little character and creativity exist into the background.

All-New X-Factor #2

It’s not that All-New X-Factor is a bad comic, per se, it’s that I know PAD can do much, much better. So far, the relaunch is painfully mediocre, and that’s just not good enough.

Comic Rating: 5/10 – Alright.

There is nothing about the second issue of All-New X-Factor that has anything to do with ‘X-Factor’ as a comic or a concept, let alone this new Serval Industries angle. The mission to save a bunch of captured mutants could have been performed by any of the X-Men squads, either of the X-Forces, the New Mutants, the Fallen Angels, the X-Statix; anybody. Any chance PAD had to make this comic specifically about these characters is wasted. Gambit, Polaris and Quicksilver are all in fine superhero form, but nothing they do is particularly unique to them, least of all the dialogue.

Gambit makes a Star Wars reference in this comic that literally anybody in the universe would make. Captain America would make that same reference. I could see Magneto making that reference, it’s so simple.

I think part of the problem is that PAD (or Marvel?) just didn’t pick very interesting characters for this team. Gambit, Polaris and Quicksilver don’t really have anything to do with one another, but they’re all old hats at this concept. They all know what it’s like to randomly be part of a new superhero team, so they’re all familiar with what they’re supposed to be doing. But they’re not really familiar enough with each other to make the banter or interpersonal relationships all that interesting. There’s no wonderment involved in being on this superhero team.

So far, All-New X-Factor is just a group of workman superheroes doing their job, but it’s written as if this is all supposed to be really cool and exciting. Generic superhero comics are a dime a dozen, even at Marvel Comics. X-Factor needs to find a way to stand out and do something new.

Also, if you don’t remember the specific characters and the conclusion to the X-Cell storyline from 2007, you’re a little bit out of luck with this new issue.

For those who don’t remember, the X-Cell was a small group of de-powered mutants who ganged up together after M-Day to…exact revenge? I think? I really don’t remember their motivations. X-Factor opposed them and their troublesome ways, until Quicksilver came along to cause even more trouble. At that time, post M-Day, Quicksilver was a little crazy. He was going around using Terrigen Mists to re-power mutants, except the process was unstable, and the mutants had a tendency to explode. Three of those re-powered mutants, Fatale, Reaper and Abyss, managed to escape explosion by disappearing into Abyss’ dark portal. They haven’t been seen for seven years…until now.

For whatever insane reason. Was anybody clamoring for an X-Cell follow-up? Did anybody care? I can’t think of three less interesting or popular characters in all of comicdom than Fatale, Reaper and Abyss. Yet apparently PAD was gripped with an urgent need to revisit their story. That is not a good sign. Shouldn’t a new series try to be accessible to new readers? We didn’t all read every single storyline in the previous X-Factor volume (though I did!). Why waste the first storyline of All-New X-Factor by turning it into an unwanted sequel to a random story from seven years ago?

But whatever, I don’t want to get into yet another rant. On with the story!

We open with the villain, Doctor Hoffman, rushing through his lab to unlock his secret weapon. He’s rather pleased at the news that there are new mutants in the facility, even if they’ve come to get him, because it means he gets to do a test run of his weapon – which involves his other two prisoners: Reaper and Abyss.

Feel free to use Serval’s search engine to look them up

Seriously, Fatale, Reaper and Abyss…does anybody care!?

Elsewhere, Polaris, Gambit and Quicksilver are making their way through the facility until they randomly set off some booby traps.

First, Gambit falls down a hole.

All villain lairs need a trap door

Then Quicksilver is sucked up through a tube in the ceiling.

How many trap tubes does Hoffman have in his ceiling to get one to land perfectly around Quicksilver like that?

Booby traps? Really? They stumble into perfectly placed booby traps? That’s what amounts to conflict in this issue?

Anyway, there isn’t one for Polaris, so she just gets pissed and uses her powers to start tearing the walls down. She sets off some kind of gas attack, so she forces her way through a wall and randomly finds herself in the lab where Hoffman is keeping Fatale. They recognize each other immediately for some reason. I guess all mutants generally know each other on sight?

We cut to Gambit, who is still falling down his hole. There’s a furnace at the bottom, so he charges up a card, blows through it and crashes to the floor below. He’s greeted by a bunch of armed AIM guards, who are about to open fire, but Quicksilver shows up and defeats them.

With that thing he does…super…speed, is it?

Gambit asks what happened to Quicksilver, and he says he easily handled his own death trap. But apparently we didn’t get to see that one live.

Meanwhile, Polaris frees Fatale, who gives the reader a quick recap of the X-Cell storyline and what happened with crazy Quicksilver. She says that Hoffman plucked the three of them out of the dark dimension and somehow suctioned that explosive energy out of them. Hoffman also took their powers for his experiments, claiming that he could manipulate the mutant energy in a special way. We see Hoffman in another part of the lab, dressed in a special suit and hooked up to a machine. The mutant energy from Reaper and Abyss is being fed into his body, turning Hoffman into a giant energy monster!

Why not.

There’s an interesting idea in there somewhere, but mostly he’s now just a big crazy monster, spouting weird ideas about the nature of mutant powers (or their energy, at least). But this is definitely not some new take on mutants. It comes off as just an idea Peter David had once that he’s finally bringing to the page.

Hoffman starts blasting away at the various mutants around his feet, but he can’t seem to hit any of them. Quicksilver has an idea, and he grabs Gambit and races him up Hoffman’s giant arm towards his head. Gambit then hurls an exploding card into the monster’s ear!

He didn’t even get the reference right!

See what I mean? It’s such a lazy Star Wars reference. And would Gambit even make it? I don’t doubt that Gambit has seen Star Wars, but is he the type of guy who whips off such a casual reference in the middle of battle? I think Gambit would just stick to his own playing card puns. But at least PAD is trying.

Hoffman falls, defeated, and the energy immediately disappears, leaving him just a normal, brain dead man lying on the floor. Reaper goes to bash his head in, but Quicksilver stops him – and the arrival of the speedster just pisses the lot of them off. They’re all still holding a grudge, remember?

What the hell is ‘chuck-all’? It’s not even in Urban Dictionary

Polaris tries to get Fatale to calm down, and Quicksilver tries to apologize, but none of these Z-listers are hearing it. Fatale threatens that they will never forgive Quicksilver, and they will never stop trying to get even.

Oh man, now that’s a threat. Fatale, Reaper and Abyss are never going to stop trying to hurt Quicksilver! I bet he’s shaking in his boots!

That’s where the issue ends. Gambit jokes that Quicksilver isn’t good at making friends, and that’s it. The second issue is over.

And nothing happened. Nothing was accomplished. The only thing this issue did was wrap-up the unnecessary fates of Fatale, Reaper and Abyss. Was that plotline weighing so heavily on PAD that he had to tell this story? Is he just a big Abyss fan? The first storyline for the All-New X-Factor could have been anything. The entire universe was open to story. But PAD chose this. And I don’t know why. It says nothing about the new team or Serval Industries. It doesn’t accomplish anything in terms of team-building or status quo setting. I don’t get it.

I’m disappointed that this issue was all action. I like comics best when character is first and foremost, and PAD is usually great when it comes to character. He has written some character-based comics that stand as legends in the industry. But I don’t see any of that in All-New X-Factor. Gambit, Polaris and Quicksilver remain skin deep. Their attempts at banter in this issue are weak to nonexistent. The characters have no history with one another, but like I said, there’re all so used to this way of life, there’s no excitement for any of them about joining X-Factor. They may as well be joining the X-Men: Gold Strike Team or a third version of X-Force. There’s no heart to this team, either in character or concept.

And there’s definitely nothing about Serval Industries in an issue like this one. There’s nothing about this mission to stop Hoffman and rescue the mutants that has anything to do with being a corporately-owned superhero team. That is the main plot of this series, or one of them at least. What can PAD do with this corporate concept? Apparently nothing. Any superhero team in existence could have gone of this mission. There’s nothing ‘corporate’ about it. So why even bother with that premise if he’s not going to use it?

I just don’t see anything worthwhile in this comic yet. The characters are paper thin, and still seem randomly thrown together. The premise of being a corporately-owned superhero team has amounted to absolutely nothing. And PAD’s usual skill at banter and characterization is nearly nonexistent.

All-New X-Factor is competently written and drawn, but it has absolutely nothing unique or interesting going for it. It’s a comic that doesn’t appear to have anything worthwhile to say. It feels like PAD and Marvel are comfortable with just phoning it in. They could have called the book ‘X-Treme X-Force’ and nobody would know the difference.