X-Factor #30 Review

X-FACTOR #30
Written by Peter David
Art by Valentine De Landro

I'm not much of a fan of Arcade, so this arc has left me a little underwhelmed, simply due to my bias against him. I read this book for the characters, though, and PAD didn't disappoint on that front. There were several great scenes in this issue, such as Jamie's "brilliant" deduction on the mastermind behind their current troubles or Monet's "shocking" hairdo after a run in with one of Arcade's traps. She was so out of it, she started calling people random names, like Cyclops or what have you.

As this is an Arcade story, we get Murderland-lite with this booby trapped Mutant Town attack. The Purifier that recruited Rictor hired Arcade for payback, as the Purifiers were his life and saved him from his drug addiciton and gave him purpose. Now they have cast him out for recruiting a traitor like Rictor and that leads us to Arcade. After a series of attacks, the team finally catches up to Arcade, but a moment too late as he made his escape. Monet took off after him, but the rest were left to deal with the ex-Purifier, who has all of Mutant Town rigged to explode if he dies and he just committed suicide by poison, ending the issue ominously with the empty glass hitting the floor.

The character moments helped sell this issue to me. If it was any other book, I'd have been fairly disappointed with the storyline, but this managed to have enough good stuff and wasn't dragged on too long, either. Still not up to pre-Messiah Complex standards, but it's a good X-Factor, nonetheless.

Verdict - Check It

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