This page refers to comics starring the original X-Factor team, from issues #1-70 of the first volume of X-Factor beginning in 1986. For other eras of X-Factor, see the following YMMV pages:
The first series contains examples of:
- Complete Monster: Dr. Wolfgang Helmut Heinreich from the first Annual is the son of a Nazi geneticist who inherited his father's penchant for experimentation. Working for the Eastern Bloc and killing any informants, Heinreich's evil is revealed when the team uncovers his lab: hundreds of mutants are abducted and experimented on, brutally vivisected, and left conscious or brain dead throughout his attempts to recreate their powers.
- Broken Base: Even at the time of the title's launch, readers were divided over bringing Jean back, with some feeling (understandably) that it cheapened the ending of The Dark Phoenix Saga, and a few who were just fed up with the whole Phoenix matter as it was.
- Growing the Beard: Louise Simonson taking over writing duties led to a more complex narrative, as well as the introduction of one of the franchise's most notable villains.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: In an interview in 1999, published with one of the series' trade paperbacks, Kurt Busiek explained how he was sort-of responsible for the method of Jean's return and the resultant Continuity Snarl it brought forth. At the end of it, he jokingly says that if anyone out there has an idea for how to bring Bucky back, they should keep quiet just to be on the safe side. Five years later...
- Mis-blamed: Bringing Jean Grey back to life wasn't a mandate from Marvel editorial: there genuinely was a sizeable amount of people who wanted it to happen. In fact, editor-in-chief Jim Shooter had prevented it from happening for years.
- My Real Daddy: While Bob Layton started the series, it was Louise Simonson who really shaped it and introduced Apocalypse. She even did a mini-series, X-Factor Forever, to show what it would have been like had the entire premise of the title not changed.
- Never Live It Down: Cyclops abandoning his wife Madelyne and newborn son without a word of explanation to run back to the newly resurrected Jean and join X-Factor, letting weeks pass before he even attempts to contact Madelyne at all, and never admitting to Jean that he is married until she figures it out for herself. Needless to say, this proved controversial – Chris Claremont went as far as to say that it destroyed Scott's character, and to this day Scott is often considered to be a jerkass because of it. The later retcon, where Madelyne is revealed to be a clone of Jean and turns evil, really didn't help that much, because it was such an obvious attempt to do an Author's Saving Throw and salvage Cyclops as a character.
- Pandering to the Base: The initial big selling point for X-Factor was that it was reuniting the original five X-Men for the first time in years. Creative decisions like bringing Jean Grey back to life and restoring Beast to his original human-with-big-hands-and-feet appearance were clearly intended to pander to fans of the Silver Age X-Men. Notably, in the first issue the newly resurrected Jean practically acts as a mouthpiece for people who thought of Magneto as an irredeemable villain and were unhappy with how Uncanny X-Men had him undergo a Heel–Face Turn and take over the Xavier School.
