All-New X-Factor 1: Not Brand X

Comic Info

All-New X-Factor #1 Skottie Young Variant

Reprints All-New X-Factor #1-6 (March 2014-June 2014).  Madrox has sold off the X-Factor brand which has been picked up Serval Industries.  Under the control of Harrison Snow, a new team is being formed with Polaris and Quicksilver as the base.  Quicksilver and Polaris bring in Gambit to the team and begin to assemble more mutants to help their investigative team.  Gambit has a habit of never trusting anyone…and Serval Industries might just fall into that category as well.

Written by Peter David and illustrated by Carmine Di Giandomenico, All-New X-Factor 1:  Not Brand X is a Marvel Now! title which served as the relaunch of X-Factor (which ended its run in the collection X-Factor:  The End of X-Factor).  The new series was met with positive reviews.

I have always been a big fan of X-Factor.  Even with the original line-up of the old X-Men, the series had its moments, but the series really took off when Peter David took over.  Through his original run and his run on the relaunch, David always just had a real handle on the characters.  Once again with All-New X-Factor, David juggles the team up for good and bad.

I loved David’s original team from the original comic.  This storyline has aspects of the team with Polaris and Quicksilver, but the loss of Madrox as a member is a big blow.  Gambit has a bit of a similar personality, and I really like what David does with Danger in this volume (I previously had little interest in the character).  Warlock was always a favorite of mine along with Doug Ramsey from New Mutant days, but I sometime feel that they are the go-to pairing for team books.

All-New X-Factor #3

Though I like the team and how they are written, I don’t really love the direction of the story.  The whole “shadow corporation” feels played out in comic books and this volume feels very much just like a “collect the heroes” volume with little surprises on who will become members.  I wish that there had been a few more screwball choices like adding Reaper or someone to the team to spice things up.

I do like the art of this series.  I like Di Giandomenico’s character designs and aspects of the coloring.  Sometimes the stylized coloring almost washes out the great art, but for the most part it enhances it.

All-New X-Factor 1:  Not Brand X is a promising new start to the series.  I am not a big fan of relaunching comics to relaunch comics, but it at least makes sense here with the radical change in direction of the story.  In the competitive comic industry (and the fact its been canceled before), the chances of All-New X-Factor’s survival are slim and it could be a corporate collapse by Serval.  All-New X-Factor 1:  Not Brand X is followed by All-New X-Factor 2: Change of Decay.