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X-Factor is the name of several teams of comic book superheroes owned and published by Marvel Comics that were featured in an eponymous series, which ran from 1985 to 1998. X-Factor was one of many spin-offs of the highly popular X-Men franchise. Like its parent title, the team's membership consisted of mutants born with various superhuman powers who fought against those who would exploit or oppress both mutants and ordinary humans.
The first group to called themselves X-Factor consisted of the same members as the original team of X-Men. The second group called X-Factor, formed in 1991, was a U.S. government-sponsored team that incorporated many secondary and tertiary characters from the X-Men mythos and other corners of the Marvel Universe.
The line-up of the original X-Factor all debuted in X-Men #1 ( 1963) as the original X-Men, teenaged students of the telepathicTelepathy from the Greek , tele "distant", and , patheia "feeling", is the supposed ability to communicate information from one mind to another, and is one form of extra-sensory perception or anomalous cognition. This information is generally reported as Professor XProfessor X (full name Charles Francis Xavier is a comic book character in the Marvel Comics universe. He is the founder, mentor and sometime leader of the team of mutant superheroes the X-Men. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, he first appeared in X-Me. By the time X-Factor #1 was published in 1985, all of the original X-Men had entered adulthood and each had developed a unique history. They included:
The founding of X-Factor hinged upon the reunion of the original X-Men. This necessitated the return of Jean Grey, a decision that was highly controversial at the time. Her death in the seminal "Dark Phoenix Saga" ( 1980) was one of the defining points of the X-Men's history at that point. Furthermore, Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter had laid down an edict stating that Jean Grey could not be brought back unless she were held accountable for the genocide of a sentient alien species that she had committed as the Dark Phoenix.
Future Marvel writer Kurt Busiek suggested a solution to this problem: Jean Grey had never actually been the Phoenix, as had been stated in the original "Phoenix Saga" ( 1976). Instead, the Phoenix entity copied Grey's identity and form, keeping her safe in a cocoon-like structure at the bottom of the Hudson River. Busiek related the idea to Roger Stern, who in turn related it to John Byrne. Byrne wrote and illustrated Fantastic Four #286 ( 1985), in which Jean was discovered and the truth revealed. In order to reunite the rest of the original X-Men, The Defenders was cancelled to free up Iceman, Beast and Angel, who were at that point members of that team, and Cyclops abruptly walked out on his wife and son in favor of reuniting with his friends and his first love.
The team debuted under the guise mutant-hunters for hire, the "X-Terminators", headquartered in downtown New York City, who as X-Factor secretly helped the mutants they captured control their powers and reintegrate into society. This rather unlikely move had been suggested to them by Cameron Hodge , Angel's employee and family friend, who was secretly an anti-mutant bigot himself and who manipulated public opinion of mutants through the activities of the "X-Terminators". Through their "mutant-hunting" they recruited a group of young wards:
Leech and Artie were the only two young children in X-Factor's junior division, the rest being teenagers.
X-Factor #6 ( 1986) introduced X-Factor's arch-nemesis Apocalypse, a 2,000-year old mutant who had been worshipped as a god of death in several ancient mythologies. He was determined to remake the world to fit his mad Darwinist philosophy. Apocalypse operated out of Ship , a huge, floating fortress run by a sentient computer.
Bob Layton and Butch Guise wrote and illustrated, respectively, the first few issues of X-Factor. They soon turned over creative duties to married collaborators Louise Simonson (writer) and Walt Simonson (artist). During the first two years of X-Factor, the Simonsons crafted a plotline that had a significant effect on Angel. In X-Factor #10, part of the "Mutant Massacre", the Marauders, a group of savage mutant mercenaries, severely injured Angel's wings to the degree that they were later amputated. Despondent, Angel attempted to commit suicide by crashing his airliner, but Apocalypse rescued him from the wreckage and transformed him into Death, one his "four horsemen". Death was a fearsome creature, loyal to Apocalypse, who possessed metal wings and blue skin. Angel escaped Apocalypse's control, but the physical changes to his body remained. He became known as Archangel and became a much darker character. At the same time, Beast convinced Apocalypse's Ship to abandon its master; the fortress subsequently served as the headquarters to, and an important ally of, X-Factor.In the 1989 crossover "Inferno," Madelyne Pryor was revealed to be a clone of Jean Grey created by the nefarious mutant geneticist Mister Sinister. As the Goblin Queen, Madelyne allied herself with a group of demons and planned to sacfrice Nathan to open an interdimensional portal. X-Factor teamed up with the X-Men to defeat Goblin Queen and rescue Nathan.
During "Inferno", X-Factor's teenage wards starred in the X-Terminators miniseries, and shortly after, most of them joined the cast of the X-Men's junior team, the New Mutants.
In the last major storyline of the first X-Factor, published in early 1991 and illustrated by Whilce Portacio , Apocalypse kidnapped Nathan Summers, sensing that he would grow up to be a powerful mutant and possible threat. X-Factor rescued Nathan from Apocalypse's lunar base, but found him infected with a "techno-organic" virus that could not be treated in the present time. A clan of rebels from the future, known as the Askani , sent a representative to the present time to bring Nathan 2,000 years into the future to be treated. Fully grown, he would return to the 20th Century as the anti-hero Cable.
Shortly after this, X-Factor teamed up with the X-Men and a number of minor characters to fight the telepathic Shadow King. Afterwards, the members of X-Factor rejoined the X-Men, and several of the minor characters became founding members of the all-new X-Factor.