X-Factor #100: the Death of Multiple Man?!

 

Sure, this X-Factor #100 from March of  '94 has the flashy foil embossed cover, a not so subtle sign of the type of hubris prevalent during this time, but I like it  :)  I've enjoyed reading the thirty of so issues of  X-Factor spanning from 1986 to '96 I picked up this summer. The 90's team with Havok, Polaris, Strong Guy, Wolfsbane, & Multiple Man is both like X-Force and the X-Men. Alex fits the role of reluctant young leader that X-Force's Sam Guthrie was at the time, and shares his principled sense of responsibility (not unlike Alex's brother Scott, leader of the X-Men for that matter). Feral and Wolfsbane share obvious comparisons of course, Strong Guy shares physical might & comic relief with Beast, and Alex & Lorna share a similarly dysfunctional love that Scott & Jean do. Hey, why not publish another X-Book since the others seem to be making so much money, right- who could blame Marvel? Who else could replace all the original team members in a book and still be able to sell it- maybe that's what X-Factor needed, not unlike Len Wein & Dave Cockrum's 1975 revitalization of the X-Men with Giant-Size X-Men #1.

 

 

Haven was the best-selling author of a book about the new humanity that would be the result of humans and mutants evolving into one race. However, her true goal was to bring about this change by destroying three-quarters of the world in a Mahapralaya, or 'Great Destruction', as foretold in her Hindu teachings. In spite of X-Factor's opposition, Haven was able to sway Wolfsbane by curing her of the genetic engineering that had turned her into a mindless Genoshan mutate, allowing her to once again assume human form. Havok insisted the confused girl rejoin ranks, and when she refused all hell broke loose. After Haven sends the team into an interdimensional limbo in attempt to bend their will, X-Factor comes back slugging. Insiders Monsoon and Valerie Cooper alert the team to Haven's satellite, which only Havok & Polaris' combined powers at full tilt can eliminate, foiling her fanatical plan. SsshhaaaKOOM!

  

 

A final ploy to make X-Factor accept her maniacal delusions, Haven brings a deathly ill Jamie Madrox before them, revealing his until then hidden infection by the Legacy Virus- the viroid and was released by Stryfe which targets organism's mutant gene sequence. Something goes wrong however, and to the shock of both Haven and his teammates, our troubled hero dies ...!

 

 

As we all know, even a nasty case of death rarely keeps a Marvel hero down, and it would later be discovered that Madrox escaped the Virus by containing it in one of his duplicates, the shock of its death causing Madrox to lose his memory. Jaimie would later be found by and rejoin X-Factor, until the team's disbanding after the apparent death of its leader, Havok. But that's another story  :D

(Sources: Wikipedia, Marvel.com, X-Factor #100 Vol.1)

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