March 12, 2025

ON THE X-MANHUNT: Archangel is a Beyblade in X-Factor #8

Dan Grote and Adam Reck024 mins

Charles Xavier has escaped from prison, and X-Factor must track him down. But how will the X-Men react to X-Factor hunting their founder? And what will happen when Havok and Cyclops collide? X-Factor #8-slash-300 is written by Mark Russell, drawn by Bob Quinn, colored by Jesus Aburtov and lettered by Joe Caramagna.

Dan Grote: And so we come to the first chapter of “X-Manhunt” from a book we stopped covering regularly after the first issue. How are we feeling about this return visit to X-Factor, Adam?

Adam Reck: I mean, this book has sucked since its first issue, depicting core cast members wildly out of character and relying on a rehashed version of the X-Statix pitch that feels both stale and weirdly out of place in a line that already has very little status quo. Bob Quinn is a talented and fun artist, but yeesh, I was loath to read this. Which is all to say, I actually had some fun with this one. 

Dan: It certainly didn’t do anything to lower my estimation of the book. My main point of contention about this series remains that it pairs a writer I generally like with a team concept that I generally have enjoyed over the years and makes something that is somehow less than the sum of its parts. I can see why X-Factor is ending with issue #10, joining the From the Ashes dust pile with NYX (which I’m sad about) and X-Force (which I dropped after the first issue).

Adam: This issue is also crossing over with a deeply weird and very loosely tied together “event” involving an insane Professor X busting out of Graymalkin Prison presumably to save his space daughter, Xandra, only to immediately gain his senses so he can get his hat? The previous issue, X-Men #13, course-corrected with a legitimately fun “let’s all fight” sequence, so the vibes heading into this one are good. Whether Russell and Quinn keep that energy is questionable. 

Hot Mutant-on-Mutant Action

Dan: After a quick intro with Havok and Frenzy, we pick up where X-Men #13 left off, with a confrontation between Cyclops’ team and Angel’s X-Factor. This is more a criticism of the previous chapter, but when you treat your government mutant team like a joke, it’s not really a strong cliffhanger when they show up on the last page of a comic. But I guess it tells the readers where to go next.

Anyway, we get another misunderstanding-based superhero fight, despite Beast’s best efforts to defuse the situation by embarrassing the new characters created for this series. This leads to Warren revealing his Archangel form has gotten some upgrades, including hand and feet claws, a sword and the ability to transform into a buzzsaw like he’s the 1987 G.I. Joe Cobra Buzz Boar. What do we think of Warren’s new tech?

Adam: My bar for this book is super super low. But I was coming off the silly high of X-Men #13, so the fact that this went straight up Looney Tunes, complete with Hank doing Wile E. Coyote expressions and dashes, was amusing. (I also get the impression that Russell was excited to write actual X-Men characters instead of D-listers like Granny Smite.) I have questions about Warren’s “upgrades,” including “why?” and “how?” And also, “why?” 

This is a great example of Russell really not understanding these characters. Warren has been at odds with his Archangel self since he was originally manipulated by Apocalypse. While he’s come to terms with the form, and writers have forced a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde transformation idea onto the character, I find it hard to believe Warren would seek out additional disfigurements. Also, who did this work? And if they’re just added “improvements,” how do they go away when Angel transforms? It’s a lot to swallow just so we can have the joke of Hank running from an Archangel Beyblade, but that’s kind of how this book is.

Dan: For the record, since I dropped this comic a few issues ago, I went back to #7 to see if Angel’s enhancements were part of the plot. They weren’t. There’s a part of me that hopes the changes stick and the next creative team to handle Warren has him make Transformer sounds.

Cry, Havok

Dan: Havok is sad. Very, very sad. He’s lost his team, his ex-girlfriend, he never finished his dissertation at the University of New Mexico, he appears to have spilled nacho cheese on his UNM sweatshirt, he (and all of Marvel editorial) seems to have forgotten he could have just stayed in the Limbo Embassy with Madelyne Pryor. The list goes on.

I’ve made fun of Havok for being mutant Homer Simpson — getting dumber with each passing year — but here he appears to have gone full Kirk Van Houten, fired from the cracker factory and living in a bachelor’s apartment, complete with indoor yard chair and off-brand orange juice. At this point, what does a happy ending even look like for Alex?

Adam: I don’t have much to contribute here regarding Alex. This book has (even taking the cues from the From the Ashes Infinity Comic that retconned his Madelyne zombie form) gotten his and Polaris’ post-Krakoan status quo so completely wrong that it doesn’t make much sense to continue deliberating. 

Dan: I will say this for the leads of X-Factor, they’re at least making attempts to talk things out. Alex is the first to point out he and Scott’s powers cancel each other out, and Scott — fresh off a Storm-via-Eternity-induced head-freezing — is the first to throw a punch. Well, the first to aim an eye laser at the dirt to blind Alex, but still. The Summers brothers fighting is a tired beat, but it serves to further punctuate the shitty time Alex is having.

Adam: Really do not know where this anti-Alex “you should go away forever” stuff is coming from with Scott. There’s no inciting incident here, and the basic argument of whether Professor X should be returned to a federal prison for mutants is very stupid at its core and ignores what both of these characters would probably do in this situation. 

Dan: It’s true, Scott is being aggro in a way that makes me think about how the two main X-teams were manipulated by Scurvy during “Raid on Graymalkin.” But my main problem with Havok in this comic is that he serves as the mouthpiece for Mark Russell’s Morality Lessons. Listen to these snippets of dialogue:

  • “All we have in the world … are those who will have us.”
  • “I tried to have it all, and it cost me everything.”
  • “The world only gives you so many people! And turning your back on them is the biggest mistake you will ever make!”
  • “In the end, when you’ve betrayed everything and everyone you ever loved … you don’t even get to keep what you traded them for.”

This man, whose life has been run through the shitter for eight issues now, is somehow the one handing down life lessons instead of receiving them. It doesn’t gel for me, though I suppose you could say that about a lot of the personalities in this book. But we’re not here talking about Pyro’s emotional arc, or Xyber’s, or Granny Smite’s, or Forget-Me-Not’s.

At least when Alex was a zombie, he was a sex zombie.

Adam: Listen, Havok has been getting the short end of the stick for pretty much his entire existence. But yeah, I don’t think anyone is interested in listening to platitudes from the dork who delivered the “M Word” speech in Uncanny Avengers. The fact that the issue has to come to a halt for the Summers brothers to verbally spar is annoying enough. And there is a way to give Alex more nuance and personality than just making him an eternally heartbroken dumbass, but that would require a more subtle approach, and let’s face it, this book is anything but subtle.

What if they threw a #300th issue party and no one came?

Dan: Per the legacy numbering (and some fuzzy-ass Marvel math that excludes X-Factor Vol. 2 but includes All-New X-Factor, even though that technically is a different name), this comic touts itself as the 300th issue of X-Factor. To celebrate, we get a regularly priced $3.99 comic whose only extra material is a cover gallery showing thumbnails of every cover used to get to that 300 number.

Meanwhile, next month sees the release of Wolverine #8-slash-400, for which Marvel is pulling out all the stops with a plus-size issue and a backup story by Daniel Warren SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY Johnson, making it the first issue of Wolverine I’ve been interested in since Ben Percy’s run ended.

Now, on the one hand, one could argue it’s nice to see Marvel NOT milk an anniversary issue for all it’s worth, but on the other, you’re gonna sit here and tell me Tom Brevoort didn’t briefly consider opening the janitor’s closet where they keep Peter David and ask him to write an eight-page backup story about Strong Guy and Multiple Man so they could jack up the price? What do you think about this?

Adam: Given that every other issue of Amazing Spider-Man seems to be an anniversary legacy number brouhaha, I’m actually grateful that this #300 nonsense is meaningless. I don’t think anyone is reading this book, so to go the extra mile of tacking on a backup or jacking up the cover price wouldn’t be doing anyone any favors. 

I will say that anatomy-defying Greg Land cover aside (I dare anyone to explain the anatomy of Havok’s waist there), this week’s X-Men and X-Factor were at least more cohesive and tied together to last week’s Storm than anything we got in the first three installments of “X-Manhunt.” This event has been an absolute nonsensical mess so far, so to read two comics that actually picked up on story beats from the previous issue managed to pass the minimum requirements for a crossover. Now, if the entire event could have committed to a tone or even a plot, I’d appreciate that more.

Dan: You’re right, there’s definitely more of a narrative throughline from Storm to X-Men to X-Factor than there was in Uncanny X-Men to NYX to Storm. More of the cognitive dissonance of the Brevoort administration at work. But let’s pivot to the end of this comic. Let’s talk about the egg.

Adam: For a line that seems to clearly hold the previous era in contempt, trying to distance itself from Krakoa as much as possible (NYX excluded), I am baffled by the continued practice of rehashing some of its iconography. Much like the Krakoan spaceship in the recent Dazzler mini, I’m confused about what the Cerebro helmet, or the Krakoan flower, or now the last of Goldballs’ eggs is supposed to do or mean without the island and its infrastructure. An egg and Chuck’s hat are great, but what is their value without The Five? How, when and why would Xavier have hidden these things? If we were continuing the culture of Krakoa into the current era in more than just one book, this might make more sense, but as it is, these are little more than props to remind us of much, much better comics.

Dan: I’d love to give the benefit of the doubt and say we’re getting the pieces to a puzzle that will pay off for Krakoa heads not feeling the current era. Why was the egg buried on Utopia/New Tian? When was it buried? Is it preprogrammed to resurrect a specific mutant? If it’s a blank slate, what are you going to do with it without Proteus, Elixir and Hope? (Tempus is theoretically out there somewhere, per Timeslide.) Is Xavier still trying to get to space? WHAT DOES THE EGG TASTE LIKE?

But instead of answers — because there are still three-ish parts left in this crossover (Extraordinary X-Men is considered more “X-Manhunt”-adjacent) — we get John Wraith (Adam: I had no clue who that was! Glad you did.) popping in to steal the egg and Xavier and jam them both on over to X-Force, where Jake Murray is waiting to pick up another comic we stopped covering with issue #1.

X-Traneous Thoughts

  • This is the fifth of eight installments in this crossover, and the fourth to give zero on-panel advancement to what is happening with Xandra in space or more than a passing reference to what’s going on with the virus that makes people kill their families. Xavier’s motivations, including who he’s reaching out to, make no more sense than “I needed to swing by your book.”
  • I don’t love Juggernaut calling Xyber “BTS” as a dismissive nickname.
  • Also don’t think Quentin would call Xyber’s hair “baller,” but game recognizes game, I guess? 
  • Wait, Forget-Me-Not is here now, and we’re still doing the same lameass jokes? (LOL Yes, Forget-Me-Not appeared in X-Factor’s last issue, though how I remembered that with his powers is beyond me.)
  • Frenzy is also in this comic. We’re big Frenzy fans, and so is our Redesigning team. Check out their interpretations of Joanna Cargill later this week.
  • When the recap text at the beginning says, “another of Xavier’s earliest students was notably absent,” I didn’t think they were talking about Havok. I was like, “Bobby? He’s over in Exceptional. Pay attention, recap page.”
  • Storm writer Murewa Ayodele, who is co-writing the “X-Manhunt” finale with Gail Simone, was very excited for John Wraith to be in this story. Listen to his recent appearance on The ComicsXF Interview Podcast for more on that.
  • [Editor’s Note: John Wraith was portrayed in the abysmal Wolverine: Origins film by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas; this just feels like information everyone needs to be reminded of.] 

Buy X-Factor #8 here. (Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, ComicsXF may earn from qualifying purchases.)

Dan Grote is the editor and publisher of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Paul Winston Wisdom. Follow him @danielpgrote.bsky.social.

Adam Reck is the cartoonist behind Bish & Jubez as well as the co-host of Battle Of The Atom. Follow him @adamreck.bsky.social.

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