All-New X-Factor is a comic book series published by Marvel Comics which debuted in January 2014, as part of the All-New Marvel NOW! event. Focusing on a new iteration of the X-Factor superhero team, the series is written by Peter David and is a follow up to his previous book, X-Factor vol. 3, whose incarnation of X-Factor was a private investigation company.
The opening storyline, which continues events from issue #260 of the previous series, sees a return to the corporate-sponsored version of the team that was the initial concept when the first version of X-Factor debuted in 1986, and consists of Polaris, Quicksilver, Gambit, Danger, Warlock and Cypher.
The series was cancelled with issue 20 due to low sales.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: The Magus, Warlock's father, is programmed to try and kill his 'offspring' Warlock, like all Technarx. However, he's trying to avert this.
- All Part of the Show: While at a fair, Polaris and the Scarlet Witch see a guy trying to burn a woman who rejected him alive. They initially assume it's this, until Danger chimes in with the fact the young woman is terrified.
- And Then What?: Miguel O'Hara asks this of Harrison's end-game in the last issue, with his plan to have all the superheroes destroy Alchemax. Harrison says that then he plans to give mankind a new golden age.
- Ascended Extra: Danger, Doug Ramsey, and Warlock. Danger has always mainly been a supporting character, with the closest she got to being a main character being her role in Kieron Gillen's Uncanny X-Men run. Doug and Warlock were the most underutilised of the original New Mutants.
- Badass Boast: Danger gives one while tearing into a literal goddess.Danger: For what its worth, you may be correct that no mortal weapon may harm you. But I am not a mortal weapon. I am the mortal weapon.
- Badass Family: Polaris and Quicksilver are half-siblings.
- Badass Longcoat: Gambit wears his over his uniform. Justified in that his coat carries his expanding staff and his trademark playing cards, and the uniforms don't appear to have pockets or belts.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: X-Factor siblings Polaris and Quicksilver are finding all kinds of family members dropping by. Pietro has his estranged daughter Luna drop by and make up with him, leading to a confrontation with his ex-wife Crystal and her cousins. Meanwhile after years of knowing about it and not doing anything, Wanda has finally decided to drop by and be Lorna's big sister much to the latter's chagrin (and suspicion of an ulterior motive).
- Berserk Button:
- Danger really does not like being told she's wrong when she is certain she's not.
- Hurt Doug and Warlock will kill you.
- Hurt Warlock and Danger will destroy you!
- Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Scott Dakei, a mutant-hating bigot to his daughter who he knows is a mutant. His first reaction to someone showing up for her was to give them five seconds to leave. His second was to have machine guns open fire once time was up.
- Brutal Honesty: Danger has absolutely no filters about anything.
- The Bus Came Back: Fatale, Abyss and Reaper return from the other dimension they fled into back early on in X-Factor vol 3. The mad scientist responsible for their return also manages to save them from dying horribly. Fatale returns a few issues later on in the series, looking to ruin Quicksilver for almost killing her.
- Call-Back:
- Quicksilver has to own up to his actions from House of M through to Mighty Avengers, where he stole the terrigenesis crystals, nearly killed some people and forcibly exposed Luna to the mists, started a war between the US and Attilan, and then blamed it all on Skrulls after Secret Invasion.
- The Axis tie-in has Gambit think about his, Lorna and Sunfire's time as Apocalypse's Horsemen, back in Pete Milligan's X-Men run (with a sly acknowledgement of Horsman no. 4, Gazer, being C-List Fodder with Gambit not being entirely sure whether he died or not. Which he did.)
- Casual Danger Dialogue:
- Multiple examples in the first issue alone.
- Gambit, while dangling from a thin cable, in the middle of a laser grid.Gambit: Um, hello... nice evening.
- Polaris, upon being advised of a problem outside the corporate jet.Flight Attendant: Miss Dane! The pilot says we have a problem out the port window!
Polaris: Really? Oh, yes. I see. Don't worry about it. (snaps fingers, missile goes off course and explodes)
- Chekhov's Gunman: The recap page shows several silhouettes before the team is fully formed.
- Continuity Nod:
- On approaching Cypher, Quicksilver hears him remark about "no more mutants", and asks that he kindly not say that.
- Before the team has their first press conference, Lorna asks that no-one spontaneously give themselves a terrible code-name, as Strong Guy did way back in the 90s X-Factor.
- Conveniently an Orphan: By the end of issue #11 Georgia's lost her adoptive and real parents.
- Cool Big Sis: As noted above, Scarlet Witch tries to be this for Polaris. Keyword being tries.
- Corporate-Sponsored Superhero: The entire team is sponsored by Serval Industries, Snow's company, and their logo is on the uniforms.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Initially played with. Harrison Snow comes off as charming and sweet, but when Gambit dubiously wonders whether he's evil, his laughter does make one wonder. We then learn he has a nanotech camera in Polaris' right eye without consent and he recruits the Big Bad of the first issue to work for his company. It turns out in the final issue that he is from the same 2099 timeline as Miguel (Spider-Man) O'Hara, and has a ...mostly benevolent motive).
- Double Agent: Quicksilver. He's a member of X-Factor, but is secretly reporting to Havok about what Polaris is up to and how she's doing as a leader. He drops it in issue 12.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Gambit gets destructively drunk in a bar after getting upbraided by Wolverine, in a Call-Back to Polaris getting destructively drunk in a bar at the end of the third series.
- Foreshadowing: Ammit possesses the body of Snow's goddaughter because she is "out of time". This turns out to be because her parents were from 2099. Just like Snow himself.
- Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: Quicksilver apologizes for his actions after Son of M, and while it does get him Luna's forgiveness, some of the other Inhumans are understandably pissed about the truth coming out.
- Goggles Do Nothing: All the humanoid members of the team wear yellow tinted goggles, which so far have no purpose other than looking cool. Lorna has a camera in one of her eyes planted by Snow without her knowledge.
- Guest-Star Party Member: Luna hangs with the team during Axis. Sunfire sticks around afterward, though whether he would've stayed longer is unclear because the series ended.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: With every thing that's happened to her, Polaris is a lot less patient that she used to be.
- Hostage for MacGuffin: The O.N.E Sentinels take Harrison's wife hostage in exchange for the nuclear football. She points out he won't compromise and the team has to rescue her.
- I Have No Son!: Scott Dakei insists that Georgia stopped being his daughter the minute she turns out to be a mutant. Of course, he's her adoptive father anyway.
- It's All About Me: Nil of the Thieves Guild has captured Danger and is doing horrific things to her. When he's told to free her by X-Factor, his first response is to refuse on the grounds that it took him forever to capture 'it'.
- Jerkass: This series is not Havok's best showing, putting it mildly. He orders Quicksilver to spy on Lorna, showing no regard for her sudden shift in temperament, and is massively arrogant about being an Avenger, dismissing X-Factor as "second-stringers".
- Know When to Fold 'Em:
- Faced with an angry Magus, Polaris decides the best thing to do is just leave, rather than try and fight him.
- A group of thugs burst into a bar while Danger, Polaris and Scarlet Witch are there. On seeing the three, they run out again.
- Lack of Empathy: Danger. Her reasoning for sleeping with Cypher was because Warlock ran off the first time, despite him having a crush on her.
- Love at First Sight/All Love Is Unrequited: Warlock immediately develops a crush on Danger upon meeting her. She thinks he's a simpleton. Initially anyway, but it's made worse when she sleeps with Cypher.
- Mad Scientist: The bad guy of the first storyline is a man who vivisect mutants to try and replicate their powers.
- The Mole: Quicksilver is keeping an eye on Polaris for Havok. He quits in 12, joining the team without any ties to the Avengers.
- Mr. Fanservice: Gambit. He's nude on the cover of issue 9 as well as the bulk of issue 11
- Mythology Gag: One based on a panel. Issue #14 has a Spit Take in connection with a discussion about sex, similar to issue #14 of
the third series. - Never Found the Body: While it's pointed out that Georgia's mother and father disappeared, and that this trope might be in play, they don't return before the series is cancelled.
- No-Sell: During Axis, the team are immune to the Red Skull's Hate Plague because of Warlock-given implants, and Serval Industries has Layla's gauntlet protecting them. Danger's immune because she's an AI.
- No Sympathy: Havok shows a shocking lack of concern for why Lorna is so bad tempered these days.
- Nuke 'em: During Axis, the team have to stop the President of the US from nuking Russia while afflicted with the hate plague. Then the Inverted X-Men come looking for the nuclear football because they want to play with it.
- Obligatory Joke: One Lemar Smaug appears in issue five. The Hobbit jokes ensue.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In issue 1, Gambit tears through an entire bar, after someone apparently made a comment about how Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Gambit's reaction to being told he slept with Harrison Snow's wife.
- Gambit again upon realizing that the entire team but himself was teleported out of enemy territory just as Memento Mori showed.
- One-Steve Limit: Discussed when Havok gets confused if by "Magus" Quicksilver means Warlock's father, or Adam Warlock's evil future-self (it's the former).
- Past Experience Nightmare: Cypher's introduction has him suffering these, involving him horrifically killing his former New Mutants teammates.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure:
- Quicksilver doesn't get a Star Wars reference, because he hates fantasy films.
- Lemar Smaug doesn't know what Doctor Who is. Justified, since he's the Magus, an alien robot.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Magus has decided to drop his vendetta against Warlock and live peacefully on Earth simply because his species is currently so few in number that would be bringing them significantly closer to extinction.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Wolverine, at the end of his already seriously limited patience.
- Punny Name: Georgia joins the team and starts calling herself "DK". Get it? Decay?
- Relationship Upgrade: In the final issue, Danger and Warlock finally get together, and have robo-sex.
- The Reveal:
- Lemar Smaug is the Magus, Warlock's father.
- Snow is from the year 2099 and a former employee from Alchemax.
- Robosexual: Cypher, apparently.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Snow has come back from the future to try and get every superhero working for Serval in order to crush Alchemax and then guide the world properly.
- Significant Anagram: Magus is living under a human guise with the name "Smaug".
- Stealth Pun: One of Gambit's 3 cats licks his face when he wakes in the morning.
- Superpower Lottery: Memento Mori's got a pretty swish range of powers, including flying, healing, and energy projection at the very least. It's hinted his powers are magic, which might explain some of that.
- Take That!:
- Gambit calls the first Star Trek film crap.
- In issue 18, Lorna threatens to fill a bunch of terrorists full of "more holes than a Transformers plot".
- Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Gambit seems to have stepped into this role as the wisecracking, quippy one.
- Technicolor Ninja: Gambit plays with the trope. In the first part of the book, he's wearing all black like a stealthy person ought. But the X-Factor uniforms are all bright yellow (not much of a step up from his bright magenta outfit).
- Trapped in the Past: Snow gets trapped in the past by an accident, and decides to roll with it until he can gain enough power and crush Alchemax.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Warlock gets hurt by a Sentinel. Danger fucks them up for it.
- Wham Shot: Harrison incinerating his former co-founders at the end of issue #19. The next issue shows that he thinks he instead sent them back to the future, but since time is altered, he essentially did kill them.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
- Lorna is pretty casual about straight-up trying to kill Danger because she's "just" a robot.
- The team fight against Ammit the soul devourer, who takes out most of the team with ease but Danger proves immune as she is a machine which has no soul. Afterwards she goes through a very nasty existential crisis about all the things that implies about her.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: Ammit is called the soul-devourer for a reason.
