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In which Wild Child makes an unlikely Santa Claus; Sabretooth champions continuity; Random’s last name should’a been Violence; Forge doesn’t have to like you; and Mackie’s X-Factor run gets interesting—right before its untimely end.
X-PLAINED:
- Another X-Factor
- X-Factor #142-145
- Unrealized anticipation
- Deadline
- What Val Cooper wants for Christmas
- The evolutionary symbolism of noses
- Several breeds of dog
- The secret history of Val Cooper and Wild Child
- Wildheart
- The Secret Empire
- The X.U.E. (more) (again)
- Ice skating, interrupted
- Another cool way to draw Havok’s powers
- A clever retcon
- The X-Factor that might have been
- Greystone’s origins
- Micah
- A temple of doom
- The hierarchy of cool skulls
- Branching timelines and the implications thereof
- An Alex Summers / Moira MacTaggert chimera
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I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before but, what the heck, why not do it again? (I’m also pretty sure you’ll talk about in your next X-Factor episode too).
This was a time when the marketing department was essentially running Marvel comics so they were probably the ones pushing the Big X-Factor #150 that never materialized.
According to a Comic Book Legends Revealed by Brian Cronin, he talked to Howard Mackie about the plans for X-Factor #150. And, as far as Mackie knew (or admitted) there was never any solid plans for a 150th issue. Bob Harras supposedly talked to Mackie about X-Factor’s poor sales and wanted to know if Mackie thought they could raise the numbers. Mackie didn’t think it was possible. And this was a year or so before X-Factor #150 would have hit the stands. So, if there were big plans for X-Factor #150, Howard Mackie wasn’t aware of them. Which seems kind of strange given the way he’s been building the book. It is possible that the letters column was teasing the change of direction and what would have been X-factor #150 turned into Mutant X #1 instead. It’s te only thing that makes any sense to me given the information. Either that or Mackie was under a strict NDA when Cronin asked him about it and he lied through his teeth. I think it was probably the former.
Based on this episode, I went on a Google fit this morning and found the link to the Brian Cronin article about this:
https://www.cbr.com/comic-book-legends-revealed-238/
As someone who was fascinated by X-Factor after the 1991 relaunch and someone who is fascinated by the behind-the-scenes dirt, this is very interesting to me that Marvel kept pushing an issue they would never publish. It also seems in line with some of the Jemas stuff coming.
I can never get enough Behind-the-Scenes stuff. I’ve read Marvel: The Untold Story several times now and I love Comic Legends Revealed.
What I find really interesting is that that particular Legend Revealed references an advert that was in the February ’98 cover dated issues which mentions the assassin being revealed in X-Factor #150. However, it also reveals a forthcoming “X-______? #1” coming later in the year. The only new X-Title that launched that year was Mutant X #1, but it doesn’t sound like that was ever the intention. I could be misreading things, of course. I’ve never been able to find a definite answer.
My nomination for Nu-Metal boy band: Crazy Town, the one hit wonders behind “Butterfly”
https://youtu.be/6FEDrU85FLE
Great\fun episode 👏🏻
Thank you for it 🙏🏻🤙🏻
I couldn’t make it through that era\team of X-Factor. Stopped and didn’t finish it.
But it’s fun to hear X-Pods fill-in-the-holes in your X-History memory for you, on series’ you didn’t finish.
It strikes me that in the Xth life of Moira-Havok, his plans are thwarted when Mystique enlists the help of Franklin and Valeria Richards to convince Doctor Doom to give Moira-Alex-X a doctorate from Doomstadt Polytechnique.