X-FACTOR #76- March 1992

X-Communication

Credits: Peter David (script), Tom Raney & Kevin West (pencils), Al Milgrom (inks), Michael Heisler (letters), Glynis Oliver (colors)

Summary

Quicksilver searches for Wolfsbane while X-Factor battles the Pantheon in the Middle-Eastern country of Trans-Sabal. A young religious man and his sister kidnap Wolfsbane. The sister aides Wolfsbane in her escape and is killed by her brother. Wolfsbane, in a rage, responds by apparently killing the man.

Miscellaneous Notes

Pages two, seventeen and nineteen look like Larry Stroman drew them. They definitely don’t look like Tom Raney’s work. Kevin West is the other credited artist and these might be his pages, perhaps trying to match Stroman's style.

The Statement of Ownership in the letters page says the average number of copies sold during preceding 12 months is 265,252 and the actual number of copies single issue sold nearest to filing date is 392,000. This title gained over 100,000 readers in one year. I was one of those new readers, and I think this is a testament to commercial success of the 1991 relaunch of the X-titles.

Review

This issue could have turned into “a very special episode of X-Factor”, but it’s able to deal with serious issues without being tacky or preachy. I don’t know if a mainstream comic today would be able to do a story with a Middle Eastern antagonist and not cause controversy. Wolfbane’s growing inability to control her animal impulses had been a small subplot leading up to this issue, so having it suddenly become a major element of this story is a nice twist. Comparing Wolfsbane’s guilt over her actions to Feral’s psychotic glee in X-Force sums up the differences between the titles very nicely.