twofacedjoker's All-New X-Factor #1 - Not Brand X, Part 1: We Specialize In Helping People review

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    A Chore

    I was never very interested in delving into this series, especially after reading the rather mediocre preview for it a few months back, but when my girlfriend decided to pick it up, I thought I'd give it a go.

    I can honestly say that the best thing about this comic is the cover.

    We're quickly introduced into a corporate world, filled with stereo typically evil corporate types, and they all feel pretty similar in origin and identity, none of them really standing out from one another. A big question that this book seems to want to present is if corporations can be good, presenting one, Serval Industries, that wants to do good unto the world, and the obnoxiously evil groups that are less realistically evil and more '70's cartoony evil. However, anyone who is associated with such groups, including the supposedly good one, is portrayed in really poor light, as they laugh maniacally for no reason and are made to seem more self-serving than otherwise.

    The book isn't helped by the fact that Gambit is made our main character. As a figure of the X-Men, Gambit has gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to writers as of late. His last series was pretty awful, degrading his character down a bit and constantly shifting artistic perspectives. Here, we see him as the character who knows as much as we know; that is to say, nothing. He's supposed to be our guide into a world that we know nothing about, a tired trope that doesn't really work anymore. This leads to weak dialogue and overall writing, as well as repetitive conversations as Gambit tries to make sense of things readers probably picked up much earlier. Not only that, but Gambit seems to need to narrate anything that he isn't talking about, meaning there's almost no rest from his incessant chatting about nothing and everything at the same time. Polaris, though interesting in concept, comes off as pretty bland and stock here; having known nothing about her before, this isn't a great intro to her. Quicksilver is probably my favorite of the group, but he's just okay, and not enough to recover the various blunders of the book.

    This issue is also particularly slow, having almost no action in it whatsoever, instead slowly setting up the scene and making promises for later. This is a pretty poor way to give a first impression; generally, you want to get the audience invested in what they're reading with a little action interspersed in their story as well.

    Not only that, but the book expects you to have extensive knowledge of some really obscure characters and their interactions with our main characters and others from who knows how far back. From what I could gather, none of this was recent, so I found myself fairly lost at the end of this issue. Instead of being a juicy cliffhanger, I was instead confused and annoyed. It's clear that this author isn't interested in slowing down for any new comers, yet slows down to set up his own setting in a way that's like pulling teeth.

    I'm not terribly surprised by this, but what I am surprised by is how many people seem to like this series. I earnestly advise you to skip this venture for something better, perhaps even go back and read the last X-Factor series. There are many books that are better than what is presented here.

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