It’s a slow week for me when it comes to new comics, and having not picked anything up that has arrived yet, I thought it’d be fun to share something I picked up from Southampton Comics last week.

‘My’ era of Marvel is undoubtedly the late 80s and very early 90s, before the superstar (soon to be Image) artists and gimmicks took hold. I was deep into the contemporary status quo of the Marvel Universe at the time, and the 33rd issue of X-Factor was released at the time I was absolutely obsessed with Marvel.

Thanks to a big box of comics, which were from the late 70s to the late 80s, that were donated to me by a friend of my Dad, I had piles of reading material I was always immersed in, and it’s his fault that I was so heavily into Marvel almost to the exclusion of anything else. That box had a handful of DC comics and an absolute ton of Marvel, so that’s where my obsession was born.

Anyway, this issue sees a dangerously injured Beast being looked over by Cyclops and their jet’s AI. Beast, aka Hank McCoy, is fluctuating between human and beast form, and looks like he may not recover. Meanwhile, a young group of mutants being looked after by the OG team (now X-Factor, rather than the X-Men; the latter of which have a much more modern and popular cast at this point) are caught up in an attack by the Alliance of Evil in the wake of the Mutant Registration Act.

I always found it silly, even as a kid, that the bad guys would give themselves a name including the word ‘Evil’. Magneto did it with his ‘Brotherhood of Evil Mutants’, and these third rate bad guys do it with their ‘Alliance of Evil’. If you think you’re justified and in the right, why would you refer to yourself as evil?

Yes I know it’s a comic aimed at kids. And really, it’s all part of the campy charm of this era. Though it’s all a bit overwrought and melodramatic (I mean, that’s the X-Men in the 80s for you), there’s a few interesting points here about the overreach of the authorities in terms of them wanting to keep tabs on mutants.

The Beast subplot is very much in the background throughout the action and fighting on the ground, at least until a dramatic development occurs. It’s all good fun, and the cool thing is that, despite being in the middle of a big storyline and plenty of world shattering events, I was never lost or confused.

Comics these days just aren’t written with the same recaps or expository information built in, so it’s really difficult to just pick up a single issue in the middle of a run and become invested. Sometimes they even launch new #1 issues in the midst of big things going on, exacerbating the accessibility problem even more!

Though I appreciate how far the medium has come over the decades, and how much comics now offer for readers of all types and tastes, part of me does miss being able to just pick up a single issue like this and dive in to an adventure that, while not self-contained, is an enjoyable, satisfying and accessible experience without having to do a ton of homework.

I also miss them being so affordable; that said, thanks to Southampton Comics having an amazing bargain box selection, I actually bought this for its original UK cover price. Not bad, considering it’s now nearly 40 years after it was published!

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