Marvel Comics – July, 2008 – $2.99 – 32pg. – Color
Writer: Peter David – Artist: Pablo Raimondi – Cover: Boo Cook
This one-shot focuses on Quicksilver, currently sitting in jail after attacking Layla Miller and almost killing her in Central Park (X-Factor #17-20). He has basically lost his mind and repeats the names of all the women in his life (including Layla) as well as that of his father’s codename Magneto. His breakdown escalates when he begins to see visions of these people, each attempting to convince him he isn’t the person he believes himself to be. Ultimately, Layla comes to him and relates a story of a philosopher who inferred that while he dreamed of being a butterfly, perhaps in his waking hours he was actually a butterfly dreaming to be a man. She questions Pietro if he is a human dreaming to be a mutant, or a mutant dreaming he is a human.
Pietro then looks out the window and witnesses a woman being beaten on a rooftop and then dragged and thrown off. He calls for the guards but they don’t listen, so he gets frustrated and declares he is a mutant, not a human. He begins to shake and suddenly finds that he is still in possession of his speed. He breaks the wall and saves the woman, telling her that his name is Quicksilver and he is a hero. He drops her off two hours away, telling her to leave her boyfriend, then continues to run around the world before losing control and hitting a plane, landing in the ocean where he is picked up by a cruise ship.
I think this could have worked fairly easily as epilogues or even as a solo issue inside the normal X-Factor series, but despite that, I really liked it. Not only does it give Pietro back his powers (albeit in a somewhat cheap way), it also sets him back on the path to being a good guy. Maybe he’ll realize the mistake he made during House of M (if you’ll remember, he’s the one who convinced his sister to remove all the mutants) and go find his sister and convince her to fix things for the mutant race, if that is even possible at this point. I also enjoyed seeing some Raimondi art again, been missing him on the normal series. Not sure why they asked Boo Cook to do the cover, I really didn’t like it. Should have just stuck with Raimondi.
Writing: 9 – Story: 9 – Art: 9 – Cover: 5
Overall: 8
