X-Force or X-Factor?

Factor...there are a lot of bad X-Force runs saying them down, while at worst X-Factor only gets to "meh" levels.

X-Factor. X-Force has a ton of meh runs before it got anything near good, and suffers from a constant state of '90s-itis.

X-Force. More interesting stories and cast.

Nah. Disagree. The original X-Factor completely torpedoed the X-Men continuity forcing the writers at the time to have to retcon and rework a bunch of things, and X-Factor in the 90s was essentially a low rent X-Men team with no particularly interesting characters. Peter Davids 2011 X-Factor run is great, but, as I have posited before, that series just may have well been his own creation with original characters because a lot of the characters were basically reworked from the character they were before (Madrox, Shatterstar, Layla Miller etc.) and the stories were rarely related to X-Men lore.

X-Force has been almost consistently equally bad but at least in the early 90s they introduced newer characters and ideas that were specific to their title. Then, in the late 90s when Moore and Chueng were on the book, the character interactions and developments was better than the X-Men at the time. Remender and Openas run on X-Force was the sort of tone and storytelling X-fans always pine for. I would say overall X-Force has always been better, not by much though.

Well I'll concede the late 90's X-Force points as well as Davids team having "adapted" the characters to better fit his and the stories needs.

However 90s X-Force (and this is strictly my opinion) is everything wrong with the 90s and is very much a pile of trash. And as much as I HATE to admit that X-Factor is essentially a watered down X-Men book by nature, X-Force is just it's dark 90s reflection except where X-Factor delivered light, casual and self contained stories and was soft handed in it's use of X-Men themes, X-Force took X-Men and boiled it down to where only mutants(sometimes), violence, blood and tension remained.

As wholes, X-Factor has always been about taking unexplored, less explored and unused characters and putting them in the line light. The drama and stories are almost always character driven and always have profound effects on the characters. Their wins and losses give the story, team and roster a well rounded character to them that can take on any form at any moment.

X-Force as a whole tends to consistently feed into it's niche base, where fights are for the sake of fights, resolutions are for setting up the next fight and villains have no goals, reasoning or motives beyond being the enemies of the heroes and those like the heroes. SOmething which is the newbie description of what an X-Man enemy is. It allows for generic Anti-Mutant groups, evil mutant teams/businesses, never before seen Evil Clones/relatives, and random bad guy returns to be presented as simple and easy to identify opponents so the story can focus on the drive (and later the struggle) of the heroes. But it's so one note that it only hits story arcs on two points of the color wheel, red and black. X-23 is a killer, who doesn't want to be a killer, but is good at killing, Psylocke is a hero, who didn't want to be a killer, but ended up killing. Cable is angry, he seems like he's found a reason not to be angry, but now he's angry again.

Honestly it's the early X-Force issues which present the most diverse plot on paper as they would at least present the idea of evolving characters identities and questioning their roles, but even then it becomes "guess what crazy change is about to happen to this character!!!"

To me X-Factor was never out and out trash, It got close...but it always had the fact that even if the villains and enemies were a flop it was the characters arcs who would keep you on the books. X-Force prides it's self only rarely being more then a one trick pony during a given run and even if that trick is cool, i've seen it before.

I agree, in terms of the artwork, it is everything that was wrong with the 90s, overly ornamented costumes (this wasn't just restricted to X-Force though) big guns, ridiculous physiques etc. However, after Liefeld leaves X-Force after only about 10 or so issues to go to Image, Fabian Nicieza writes the book in the same manner he wrote the X-Men, with soap operatic melodrama. Stuff like Syrins alcoholosim, Cannonball balancing his duty between being the future leader of mutantkind and helping his family, Warpath realizing he is the last of his tribe.....I'm saying, despite popular opinion of it just being an action driven series, it did have lots of character drama. Not saying it was good character drama, but it was there.

The unique thing about the early to mid 90s X-Force was that they were a large team with 8 kids as members and two "mentors" with Cable and Domino and constantly featured guest stars like G.W Bridge and Moonstar, so basically, with this large cast of a dozen characters, there would be several sub plots running through issues that only features two or so characters at a time, then the whole cast would reconvene for a larger story arc and it would feel rewarding. It kept things interesting.

Not really. The original 5 X-Men weren't exactly "unexplored" and when the 90s X-Factor team was formed the only characters on that team that were largely unknown were Strong Guy and Multiple Man. The book in the 80s was a pale imitation of what the X-Men product was at the time and in the 90s, it wasn't really any less or more character driven than X-Force or X-Men. In the late 90s, I would actually say it became more action driven when Moore wrote it and Wild Child was on the team. It sounds like you are overlooking all the X-Factor series and just talking about the David 2011 run, in which I agree with you.

x-factor had no name talent lmao

@hopesummersforthefuture: What are you talking about? Louise Simonson? Peter David? I wouldn't call them anything near "no name talent"

the characters

@hopesummersforthefuture: Jean Grey? Cyclops? Beast? Angel (and the creation of Archangel)? Iceman? Gambit? Havok? Polaris? Madrox? Wolfsbane? Quicksilver? Mystique? Sabertooth? Monet? Danger? Warlock? Doug Ramsey?

I would call none of those characters "no name"

@cattlebattle: Well I'm a few days late so i'm not gonna go to far in because I'm not nearly as passionate as I was when I wrote that tangent....but yea your pretty much right on all accounts.

I'd argue that X-Factor has had a little more creative and interesting villains to originate in their books, but i'll freely admit that early X-Force is more character driven with stronger writing then what was going on in X-Factor until the Investigations era.

Maybe it's because I feel like X-Factor (by extent of being X-Men lite) is far more appealing do to it's limitless potential for stories, dramas and genres. Where as X-Force (despite the characterization done in it) is largely just action heavy superspy/kill squad/mercenaries and as such I have to be looking for that in order to want to read it.

And lmao X-Factor may have jumped on board the 90s train (bad art and eveything) but X-Force was driving it.

X-Factor wasn't any good until 2006. But in the last 10 years X-Factor has usually been a better comic.

Between those versions pictured? X-Factor Investigations.

However, I would vote for original, militant X-Force anyday. I love the hardened twist Cable's team brought and would cast my ballot for them even over my favorite character driven X-Book (XFI).

X-Factor.

Apocalypse first appeared in Fall of the Mutants which started in X-Factor. Angel first became Archangel in X-Factor. Cameron Hodge who instigated the whole Extinction Agenda first appeared in X-Factor. X-Factor lay the groundwork for what came after. X-Force was MARVEL trying to reinvigorate the dying New Mutants series. It also let Rob Liefeld create truly questionable looking costumes full of useless pockets. And baggy pants. Baggy pants...

Also Rob Liefeld couldn't draw feet and still can't to this day. Walter Simonson and Jim Lee could. Although Walter Simonson is still today the better illustrator anatomically speaking.

As you can see my reading era was the Claremont/Adams/Davis/Neary/Silvestri/Portacio/Lee/Simonson/Lobdell days of the X-Factor & X-Men. I probably forgot a few.

X-Factor. Mainly because of Peter David's multiple runs with the book. X-Force was more hit or miss.

X-Factor was the first book I personally collected. And that was the O5 X-Men run. Loved the Apocalypse storyline, and apparently it was good enough to make a movie out of... so my vote is X-Factor.

Hmmm? I disagree. Simonson's run alone should be counted as "good"

Force

Lots of my favorite mutants ended up being in one X-Force book or another and I usually liked where the stories went which kept me a lot more interested than most X-Factor runs.

They didn't really make a movie out of any X-Factor story line in particular. X-Men Apocalypse isn't based on Fall of the Mutants.

She had a few good ideas but I thought her dialog was weak. I thought her over use of exclamation points and the word "dude" was annoying. The original X-Factor concept (which I know Simonson didn't create) also seemed dumb in my opinion.

@cattlebattle: 1st appearance of Apocalypse & 1st time Apocalypse creates the horsemen ever. Without X-Factor, that movie wouldn't exist.

@invain: Sure not the best writing. Especially in today's standards. I still think Walt and Weezy did a good job on those titles. Especially the build up to Fall of the Mutants through Inferno.

Yes but the original idea the Simonsons had for Apocalypse is not what appeared in the film. I am just saying that just because they used Apocalypse and the concept of the Horsemen in the film, does not mean they specifically made a movie out of that story.