Intro to X-Cutioner's Song

It’s hard to believe I’ve already posted reviews for over a year’s worth of x-books; who knew my attention span was going to last this long? As some of you probably know, the next story in continuity is the massive twelve issue X-Cutioner’s Song that sees both X-Men books crossing over with X-Force and X-Factor. Despite the irritatingly annoying name, this is a pretty awesome story overall. However, if you are only a casual fan of the X-Men, then there are a lot of characters that I’m going to be writing about that you have no idea about. So here’s a brief description of X-Factor and X-Force.

X-Factor: This book actually began in the late eighties as a vehicle for the original X-Men to star in. In order to make this comic happen, Jean Grey was resurrected and Cyclops’ marriage to Madelyne Pryor was quickly and awkwardly abandoned. The stories revolved around X-Factor pretending to be mutant hunters, yet they were actually helping the mutants that they captured. The series was notable for introducing the villain Apocalypse and transforming Angel into Archangel.

After the original members of X-Factor rejoined the X-Men, the incredibly talented Peter David took over the book and focused it on a team of mutants working for the U.S. government under the supervision of Dr. Valerie Cooper. The team included former X-Man (and Cyclops’ brother) Havok as the leader, his girlfriend (and also a former X-Man) Polaris, the former New Mutant Wolfsbane, former Avenger and founding member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants Quicksilver, and X-Men supporting characters/comic relief Strong Guy and Multiple Man. While it might not sound like the most exciting super hero book, David was able to get a lot of humor and personality out of the team.

X-Force: X-Force was a team composed mainly of former New Mutants. In case you don’t know who the New Mutants were, they were a group of teenaged mutants who lived in the mansion with the X-Men and were trained by Professor X and for a time Magneto. Basically they were the teen X-Men, or X-Men: The New Class. Anyway, the mutant Cable recruited them to fight for a world that feared and hated them, only in a more extreme and violent way. In practice, X-Force wasn’t that much more radical than the X-Men, other than the fact that a lot of the members carried large guns and swords; the present day iteration of X-Force is far more violent, but then again this book took place in the nineties, where there was still such a thing as the Comics Code.

The members of X-Force were Cable—a mutant telepath/telekinetic with a penchant for carrying big guns, a warrior who carried around double bladed swords named Shatterstar, a former member of the Hellions (and brother of Thunderbird, the first official X-Man to die in battle) Warpath, Wolfsbane ripoff Feral, and Siryn, who is the daughter of former X-Man Banshee. The rest of the members were former New Mutants: Cannonball, Boom Boom, Rictor, and Sunspot.

Hope this clears up any confusion, and sorry for those of you who already knew this for wasting your time. Feel free to ask any questions in the Comments Section, and I’ll get to them eventually.