#Maria Callasantos ~ Feral

[justdealingwithsomeissues]

Another of the top 10 stories... but the really important thing here is this drawing of Cable like holy shit... his shoulder pads are so big they have their own area codes..

[why-i-love-comics]

X-Factor #1 - "Red Carpet" (2024)

written by Mark Russell art by Bob Quinn & Jesus Aburtov

[wwprice1]

The new X-Factor lineup (at least to start)! Cover by Greg Land (Bob Quinn will do the interior art).

[comicwaren]

From Uncanny Spider-Man #004, “Slice and Dice”

Art by Lee Garbett and Matt Milla

Written by Si Spurrier

[nightjarwings]

all the dotty-eyed angels (and feral) from x-factor (2024)

[illyanarasputinfan]

X-Factor #1 (2024) Marvel Comics

It was fun. I laughed. I’ll definitely continue reading it. The “completely interchangeable”team concept is giving me “Exiles” vibes.

“Granny Smite” is the world’s oldest mutant. Her immortality power did not activate until she was already an elderly woman. She attempts to die on each mission. I already love her.

They did Feral DIRTY! Rest in peace, Maria.

[blisterthigh]

x-force (and kitty) at illyana's funeral (uncanny x-men #304)

[heckcareoxytwit]

Kurt Wagner and his mother, Mystique, find themselves hunted down by the new Hounds of Orchis. These Hounds are the mutants (and mutates like Cloak and Dagger) who are captured and brainwashed into Hounds by Director Vulture who used poor Warlock as a battery and an unwilling "puppet master" control them with Technarch lines.

Uncanny Spider-Man #3, 2023

[do-you-ship-this-comic-ship]

propaganda:

Marrow asked Feral to leave Krakoa, essentially mutant paradise, with her and Feral has said she doesn't care about anyone else, just Marrow. Also the second to last issue of their xmen infinity comic arc's ending made it really look like they were about to kiss and the writer has replied to people asking about them kissing, as well as the artist liking fanart of them and other creators bringing them up in couple related questions in articles. They fight all the time but they'll always drop everything for each other.

[summerstrash]

having complex feelings about the x-factor 2024 announcement.

pros:

Pyro and Frenzy are there. Be Gay Do Crimes Twink + The Giant Woman I Always Want To See = Good Shit.

The guy who's writing this book is well-known for his one-shot rewriting the Hanna-Barbera character Snagglepuss as a mid-century homosexual playwright. Considering that Pyro is here, this is promising.

Alex is no longer wearing the classic costume, which reduces the chances of him being forced into the Goblin Gown significantly, forcing his arc to rely less on his sexual objectification.

The solicit seems to imply that social media will act as either a framing device or a plot point, which I like the sound of.

Alex and Frenzy serving on a team together rockets her to the #1 spot on the list of Potential Alex Summers Sex Mistakes, since she's a slightly bitter Scott ex with BDSM inclinations.

My longtime Twitter mutual Gail Simone called it a gem of the line, and I'm inclined to trust her judgment on many things.

The writer specifically namedrops Alex and Frenzy as characters he's excited to write, which implies they'll see at least some focus.

The artist is Bob Quinn, a guy I quite like and who sent me free art once for my birthday when Knights of X was delayed.

As someone who hasn't read much X-Factor from the 90s due to my ongoing feud with a particular writer from that era (iykyk), I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what X-Factor as a government team is like, as opposed to X-Factor as an investigating body.

cons:

Alex in a leadership role is never a good sign. Bad things happen to Alex when he leads.

Not a huge fan of the fact that the current known roster includes three white guys and two WOC, with one of the WOC also being a visible mutant who has fur instead of human skin, and the other being a medium-to-dark-skinned black woman famous for being buff and angry, and the three white guys are all blondes, ranging from "dumpster twink" to "hunk"

Alex working for the U.S. government feels like a microagression against me personally, as I've been very vocal about thinking that Alex needs to finally come to terms with the fact that clinging to mainstream institutions and dominant social groups will only ever hurt him, and I was hoping the Hellions or Limbo could be that for him in the Krakoan Era

The marketing seems to imply a different tone and genre from the domestic/workplace horror-comedies Alex has been part of for the last five years, and I don't know how I feel about that yet.

Greg Land is doing the covers, and I hate that for me.

"Who will die?" Of the characters we have announced so far, Alex is the most expendable. He's one of three blond white guys, and while Warren seems to be taking center stage as the Face Of The Team, and St.John's movie counterpart is returning to theaters this summer in Deadpool & Wolverine, so I doubt they'd kill him off in comics at the moment, Alex feels kind of superfluous as a co-leader, and he also is just...less loved, I think.

"Who will fall in love?" Again, worried for Alex because one of his, like, three recurring stories is "gets picked up by the scruff of his neck by a girl way out of his league so she can use him to self-actualize while playing at transgressive forms of heterosexuality." We don't really have similar core recurring storylines for other announced characters.

"Who will be the first to sell out?" Honestly I feel like St.John might be the answer to this question. He's a novelist. Novelists have egos. He's worked for the U.S. government before, under Mystique. And I guess this kind of makes me sad.

The fact that the whole cast hasn't been announced yet fills me with fear that Lorna will be in this, mostly because a fair chunk of FTA seems to be focused on catering to nostalgia on some level, and Alex/Lorna is very 90s. And frankly Dr. Dane should be doing better for herself than the man that left her at the altar for a gay man's girlfriend.

So yeah, I have complex emotions about all of this and will be watching with a fair amount of suspicion as we draw closer to the release date.

[justdealingwithsomeissues]

X-Force talks a big game, but in the scheme of things, they are just teenagers, and they can not stand against the combined might of the X-Men and X-Factor...

[why-i-love-comics]

X-Factor #1 - "Red Carpet" (2024)

written by Mark Russell art by Bob Quinn & Jesus Aburtov

[pageofqueens]

[comicwaren]

From Uncanny Spider-Man #005, “Fade to Blue”

Art by Lee Garbett, Simone Buonfantino and Matt Milla

Written by Si Spurrier

[nitpickrider]

So some of my X-Peeps will have to fill me in, my knowledge of Cable is VANISHINGLY small. But is tranquilizing a teammate without warning and sewing trackers into their clothes without their consent how he generally conducts himself? Captain America 407

[tournament-of-x]

Alright, here's a question for the ToX team: What's your biggest regret about this whole thing? Format, roster, execution, etc.

Oh, that’s an easy one. It’s the inclusion of Fever Pitch in the bracket. In the time since the Tournament of X began, we’ve variously come across or remembered some 40-odd mutants (we made a list) who would have deserved a spot on the roster more than Fever Pitch*. We overlooked some mutants because the name they were listed under didn’t catch our eye (Strong Guy in particular is a nagging example), or because they simply didn’t show up in the lists we pulled from**. We’ve had a couple opportunities to include a snubbed character, like with Klara Prast and Feral, but Fever Pitch’s nothing presence in the bracket, essentially a waste of a slot in hindsight, has still stung—even Fenris contributed to the tournament by getting righteously demolished by Magneto. And there’s no rectifying it now, since Fever Pitch is already out of the running for good.

*For those curious, Challonge (the site we’re using to track the tournament) only allows up to 256 contestants in a tournament. And going any higher would have required a total of 512 contestants to ensure a clean bracket.

**Such lists included the Marvel Wikia’s list of Krakoa past, present, and possible residents, and Comic Vine’s list of (supposedly) all mutants.