X-Factor #257 preview art by Neil Edwards
By Paul Montgomery
With “The End of X-Factor” this summer, writer Peter David boxes up years of open and closed cases with Jamie Madrox, Layla Miller, Strong Guy and the rest ...
X-Factor #257 preview art by Neil Edwards
By Paul Montgomery
With “The End of X-Factor” this summer, writer Peter David boxes up years of open and closed cases with Jamie Madrox, Layla Miller, Strong Guy and the rest in the pages of X-FACTOR. By the time it all wraps in September, he’ll have logged 106 issues with the motley mutants of X-Factor Investigations in their most recent volume, and even more going back to the initial permutation in the early 90’s.
Despite a decade-long hiatus, the story of Peter David and X-FACTOR bristles with complex equations, from the simple addition and subtraction of friends, lovers and bitter enemies, to heartbreaking team divisions. Paramount to all, the multiplication of one indecisive troublemaker called Jamie Madrox.
We spoke to David about shuttering a detective agency, scripting a landmark kiss and disappearing a baby. He spoke with refreshing frankness about bringing this era to its natural, inevitable conclusion.
X-Factor #257 preview art by Neil Edwards
Marvel.com: You’ve commented that the “Hell on Earth War” felt like a natural conclusion for the story you’ve been telling all these years. Did you know that going in, or did you realize that in the writing of it?
Peter David: It was something that developed as a consequence of writing it. The more I got into it, the more I saw that the various storylines and characterizations I had begun really culminated in the “Hell on Earth War.” I decided that this would really serve as a good time to wind down the entire series.
Marvel.com: In these final issues, you’re telling stories about single characters or pairs, right?
Peter David: Sometimes. #257 focuses on Layla Miller, #258 focuses on Rahne. Rictor and Shatterstar are #259. Polaris is in #260.
X-Factor #257 preview art by Neil Edwards
Marvel.com: Which is the greater challenge, plotting the larger scale blockbusters or these more intimate issues and tying together loose ends?
Peter David: Oh, definitely the big blockbusters stories. It’s probably why I don’t really do a lot of them.
Marvel.com: What is it about them?
Peter David: I don’t know. Because you’re trying to do two things at once. You’re trying to tell this big massive story, but by the same token, you still don’t want to lose sight of the individual characters. You still want the story to be about the characters rather than just have them be fighting cyphers in the course of the story. You want to make sure that they maintain their individuality.
Marvel.com: Does that tie into the choice, with this most recent volume, to turn it into a sort of detective series?
X-Factor #257 preview art by Neil Edwards
Peter David: No, not particularly. The idea of making a detective series came from the original editor, Andy Schmidt.
Marvel.com: How did you feel about that focus, of doing detective stories?
Peter David: I thought it was unlikely when it first started. I didn’t understand why in the world Madrox would be running a detective agency. It seemed like such an utterly arbitrary thing for him to be doing. But the more I got into it, the more that it made sense to me or I managed to make it make sense.
Marvel.com: The book is called X-FACTOR and, appropriately enough, it involves a lot of math. A multiplying man. The subtraction of powers and even a baby. Is part of the fun in the giving and taking away from these characters?
X-Factor #257 cover by David Yardin
Peter David: Yeah, I suppose it is. The fact that I can have things happen to them that will have a permanent effect is certainly liberating, as opposed to having to put everything back to the way it was. I can do stories that are definitive or have major moments in it that has them having to deal with the shock of loss or the unexpected acquisition of things.
Marvel.c
