X-FACTOR #6: Apocalypse Now

 

X-Factor meets their greatest foe, and nothing will ever be same for them!

Originally Published July 1986

(This post was originally featured on the Uncanny X-Cerpts Patreon and may be subject to formatting issues)

When we last checked in on our friends in X-Factor, the original five X-Men (Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Angel and a newly-restored original flavour Jean Grey) has hatched a bizarre and complex scheme: pretend to be mutant-hunters called X-Factor, and leverage their positions there to perform costumed super-heroics in the mold of the original X-Men, rescuing wayward mutants from the forces that would hunt and subjugate them. 

It actually sounds like a great plan -- as long as you ignore the cockamamie dual identity part of it, which seems to hamper them as much as help. So really, what I'm saying is, they should just be superheroes. Is that so hard?

We catch up with them in the wake of a loss to the prosaically-named Alliance of Evil. The AoE was after a mutant named Mike, who has the ability to increase other mutants' powers. The only problem is, Mike's powers are devastatingly uncontrollable... except when he's on heroin.

Gotta say, that's not much of an evolutionary advantage, but then again neither are unstoppable optic blasts.

Although nobody is particularly sympathetic to the plight of a drug user in the "Just Say No" Reaganite 80's, Cyclops is particularly harsh in his judgment of Mike, who had little choice but to comply with the Alliance, under threat to his regular-human girlfriend Suzy.

Jean is on Mike's side in the matter -- how could anyone just abandon someone they love? Leave them in their time of need? Fail to protect them? That would be the worst thing a person could do, bar none. Unforgivable. The mark of a real piece of shit.

Cyclops responds, "Well uh, you know... sometimes..."

Cyclops flips the subject back to the game tape -- the Alliance never should have got the drop on them. Jean takes this remark personally. After all, she's no Phoenix. She doesn't have universe-shaking psychic powers to ward off threats, just her little old telekinesis.

Which still makes her the most powerful X-Factorer, but whatever, it's a raw nerve.

Basically, the X-Men spend ten or fifteen minutes getting extremely wound up about all the things going wrong in their lives, including Jean's concerns that Scott is harboring some horrible secret, which she suspects to be the fact that he loves Phoenix and doesn't love her (close!) but also the fact that humans hate mutants more than ever and, whoops, they're playing into and in fact increasing that tension with their stupid ruse.

Like the mature, grown adults they are, the team has a literal fistfight before realizing they're very much in a public space and some composure is required. These issues will have to be resolved another time.

Elsewhere, at the fabulous beach house base of the Alliance of Evil, the baddies threaten Mike and experience the delirious pleasure of his power-amplifying-powers. This causes them to get deliriously out of control, but as Frenzy prepares to settle poor Mike's hash for good, she is interrupted by... the big boss.

That's right, the Alliance of Evil work for the man with the big A on his belt, a previously-unknown mutant megalomaniac known as Apocalypse, and he has need of Mike's power. Apocalypse asserts control over the situation by knocking Frenzy out and gently placing Mike in the control chair that he has devised.

The chair will keep him on a controlled dose of heroin, whose supply will be cut off when they have need of his powers. 

Apocalypse lets us know his deal: he's looking to separate the weak from the strong, and even the Alliance of Evil aren't guaranteed a slot in the latter category, so best ta protect ya neck.

Outside, X-Factor have arrived. As Angel and Jean flirtatiously fly ahead to scope out the situation, Cyclops is having a normal one.

Once inside, X-Factor battles with the Alliance over Mike and Suzy. Apocalypse uses Mike to augment his team's powers, but it goes a little awry...

With Suzy dead, Mike calls back all his power, overloading himself and basically assuring his death. Apocalypse, having seen X-Factor in action, abandons the Alliance of Evil altogether and makes his getaway on a slow-moving elevator platform, promising to return... in disguise.

(Adieu mon vieux, a la prochaine, goodbye 'til when we meet again...)

With their benefactor having r-u-n-n-o-f-t on them, the Alliance folds and runs. Beast promises the dying Mike to find a way to help him live with his powers, but Mike declares himself just to be a worthless "junkie" with no reason to live, and promptly dies to death.

X-Factor has ultimately been dealt an L and stand in contemplation of what the meaning of this episode truly was. Warren notes, perceptively, that sometimes bad stuff just happens. Jean expands on this that it's not what happens but "how they handle" things that is the real measure of worth, and if that's true, X-Factor is in trouble because they have demonstrated that they emphatically do not handle anything well at all.

But Cyclops' mind is elsewhere -- in the thick of the fighting, while Jean was in action, he thought he noticed a certain familiar bird-shaped pattern of energy hovering around her. I didn't see it, and nobody else did either, but if true that's some pretty considerable cause for alarm.

Further Thoughts:

X-Factor continues not to be a great comic, but it's been brought closer into line with what we might expect from the 1980s incarnation of the X-Men by swapping out original writer Bob Layton with former X-Men editor Louise Simonson, who brings Chris Claremont's sense of "Everything is fodder for drama" and ratchets it up to 11 by having every single interaction between the X-Factor members be fraught with interpersonal drama that exposes the deep sense of cognitive dissonance required for the characters to behave the way they do.

Curiously, Layton, alongside artist Jackson Guice, gets an "X-Factor Created By" credit. Considering none of the characters involved are Layton-Guice originals (except, I suppose, PR Manager Cameron Hodge) that means Marvel was then giving out credits for original concepts. So if I came up with the idea to send the X-Men into space, I could get an "X-tronauts Created By Scotto Williams" credit. That's good to know.

Yes, these heroes get into a fit about everything, and it's almost perversely enjoyable for that. Admittedly, they've got a lot on their plate but man, they just do not cope well at all. Between Scott's misdeeds, Jean's insecurities, the team's public deception and place in fueling mass hysteria and Jean's budding flirtation with Angel (which is the best part of the issue) the book almost doesn't need a tease that Jean is Phoenix again/for the first time/whatever in order to be overwhelmingly melodramatic.

Oh yeah, if you squint, there it is.

This issue brings our X-Factories into contact with one of their top villains of all time, the social Darwinist known as Apocalypse. Big 'A' makes his mission statement clear by repeatedly saying he intends to winnow the weak from the strong, and in the process finds that these mutants are pretty stronk themselves.

As is often the case when a new big bad first appears, this Apocalypse is pretty embryonic. All the pieces are there but he's a lot more hands-on than probably in the future. He has the mutant power to control every molecule in his being, which he uses to... make his hands into hammers, and turn his torso into a doughnut to evade Cyclops' eyebeams. He's also incredibly manic and histrionic as he declares his intentions, in a very Old Skool Comics way. Still, in theory they're very impressive powers and what's important about Apocalypse is his ambition. He's an A-level foe worthy of main antagonist status.

It's regrettable that this comic is so focused on a drug-using character, considering the treatment he gets. I like and respect Louise Simonson (and she didn't conceive of Mike -- he first appeared in the previous, Layton-written issue -- but she does use him more or less in the same mode as her predecessor) but writers in the 80's weren't positioned to be sympathetic toward addiction or mental health issues. Even the heroes derisively refer to Mike as a "junkie" and imply he has little worth until he cures his Personal Moral Failing of addiction, which is mortifying when placed against the themes of acceptance and understanding that are supposed to be baked into X-Men comics. When covering this issue and the previous, my friend and fellow X-fan Conor Mulvaney  did an incredible job parsing out the problematic aspects. I think it's important to note how far we've come, but also as of the 2020's, how much further we have to go before we reach a place of common understanding and acceptance.