X-Factor annual #1 (October) Grand Design.
Bob Layton, Brett Breeding.
Bob Layton bows out on a high note, relatively speaking. This version of X-Factor still feels conspicuously tooled for tidy monthly adventures ending with a joke on the last page as someone tosses X-Dog an X-snack which he swallows in one gulp before woofing eckshy-eckshy-racktaaaaa to make everyone laugh; so it's engaging and readable even if it reminds me that I still miss the New Defenders. X-Factor in their mutant hunting guise are sent to the Soviet Union by special request of the Kremlin, leading Bobby to quip, 'Maybe they found a female gymnast who doesn't have a full beard.' There they discover a mutant resistance organisation violently opposed to the institute which has drawn X-Factor across the iron curtain, which amounts to an experiment camp run by Doppelganger, himself a powerful mutant who was tentatively chalked in to become X-Factor's major villain - presumably before Louise came up with Apocalypse. I suppose Grand Design is a bit obvious in places, but the story is tight and well told with shocks sufficient to keep it interesting. It's also nice - if that's the word - to be reminded how the Soviet Union probably wasn't the greatest place to live, particularly given the growing number of purple-haired fuckwits born since its dissolution getting all misty-eyed over their heavily revised version of an historical reality that some of us actually remember.
No comments:
Post a Comment