X-Factor Annual #4

I Must Go Down to the Sea Again by John Byrne and Walter Simonson is the next chapter in Marvel's Atlantis Attacks crossover event and stars Beast and a consistently unconscious Marvel Girl as both the crossover's major antagonist Ghaur and one of the crossovers other antagonists Attuma both individually try to claim Marvel Girl for their own purposes.

The first thing that struck me is for an X-Factor story, this really only featured Beast. Jean is more of a prop, she has I think 2 lines when she momentarily wakes up after Attuma captures her, and other than that she's just a sleeping body throughout. There's no Cyclops, Iceman, Archangel or any of the X-Factor kids, etc. This is more like a Beast solo story. Although, it also does feature Andromeda rather prominently.

Anyway, this one does actually progress the story a bit, with Ghaur capturing the sixth and seven brides of Set (Marvel Girl and Andromeda) - despite us having not actually seen the capturing of brides one through to five - and the last few issues have begun setting up Attuma's realisation that he is only Ghaur's pawn which I'm predicting will led to a reluctant alliance with the heroes in the final act.

This is a harmless issue, there's nothing really offensive there, there's nothing truly spectacular either, but I didn't get bored at any point reading it. For a crossover that has had two issues drawn by Rob Liefeld and about 5 chapters focusing on a random aside about the Serpent Serum, this one definitely felt like less of a chore to read.