X-Factor

An elite strike force of mutants with government backing, X-Factor is a team that protects government interests and democracy.

Mutants Team-up With the Feds

Following a conflict with the psychic Shadow King that drew an assemblage of mutants to Scotland’s Muir Island, Presidential Advisor on Mutant and Super Human Affairs Dr. Valerie “Val” Cooper asked several of them to reform the recently defunct Freedom Force, mutants operating as licensed federal agents. Though they rejected the name, since Freedom Force had primarily consisted of semi-reformed criminals, three signed up—the kinetic-energy absorbing Guido Carosella, duplicating James “Jamie” Madrox, AKA Multiple Man, and magnetic-manipulator Polaris. With another mutant group then on Muir, X-Factor, abandoning that moniker to rejoin Professor Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X’s X-Men, Val appropriated it for her new team. 

Seeking a team leader, Val enlisted plasma projector Alex Summers, AKA Havok, Polaris’ ex-boyfriend, then on Genosha, a nation built on systemized mutant slavery and now coming to terms with universal emancipation. Wolfsbane, a lupine shape-shifter who the old Genoshan regime had forcibly put through a “mutate” process that emotionally bonded her to Havok, also joined. However, Senator Steven Shaffron, secretly the mutant Johnny Gallo, AKA Ricochet, and able to cloud people’s thinking and manipulate events, sought to destroy the team for his own political gains even as it formed; thinking their goals in alignment, he allied himself with geneticist Nathaniel Essex, AKA Mister Sinister, and his Nasty Boys, one of whom was a renegade Madrox duplicate, unaware that Sinister actually wished to prevent Shaffron ever reaching the White House or endangering Havok and Polaris, whose survival was important to Sinister’s eugenics experiments. To erode the team’s confidence and tarnish their public image, they lured the abrasive speedster Pietro Maximoff, AKA Quicksilver, to join the group by convincing him that someone was turning his own powers against him, had the renegade Madrox accuse the real one of being an imposter at the team’s press launch, and then fooled X-Factor into letting the fake absorb the real Madrox, and humiliated Guido (now using the codename Strong Guy) by tricking him into destroying the Washington Monument. Sinister then betrayed Shaffron, imprisoning him and taking his place for a Senate debate on X-Factor’s funding. The real Madrox overcame his duplicate, and, now aware of everything the renegade knew, fled to warn the Senate, pursued by the Nasty Boys; X-Factor came to his assistance outside the Capitol, capturing the Nasty Boys, and Havok confronted “Shaffron,” who engaged in a public display of superhuman powers before fleeing, forever destroying Shaffron’s reputation.

While taking a break from heroics, Val calls the team to handle a hostage situation at the Latverian embassy in Washington DC, led by mutants who opposed Victor Von Doom, AKA Doctor Doom’s rule of their country. Guido and Madrox arrive first at the embassy as a distraction so that Wolfsbane could sneak inside but she faces a visage of her former tormentor, Reverend Craig, which leaves her transformed and in the fetal position. The image was a projection courtesy of the mutant Beltane, one of the mutants holding the place hostage. It ultimately triggers Rahne to unleash her wolf-side and attack Beltane, leaving her in the hospital. Meanwhile, Havok sent Quicksilver to collect Doom and once he arrived, he took on the group, while Havok let them escape, saving the people in the building.  

Government-Sponsored Squad

As a government-sponsored team, X-Factor reports to government liaison Dr. Val Cooper, but later when she keeps a Sentinel program from them, their relationship suffers and she puts mutant inventor Forge in charge of day-to-day responsibilities. The first iteration of the team is led by Havok and the teammates become close friends, though Quicksilver remains distant and eventually leaves the team. 

Hostiles

The team goes up against both mutants and anti-mutant hate groups that are a threat. Though being under the government’s thumb means that sometimes they go against what seems fair to mutantkind, but that doesn’t stop them from doing the right thing in the end. 

The Reality-295, Henry “Hank” McCoy, AKA Dark Beast, and mutant mercenary Marshall Stone, AKA Random, are persistent foes in the early days of X-Factor. Dark Beast has an obsession with Havok, capturing him and even brainwashing him at one point with Random’s help. Mister Sinister also has an obsession with Havok and Polaris as well, wanting them for his eugenics experiments. 

X-Factor also runs afoul of the Acolytes, mutant hunting Sentinel robots, and the cyborg Bastion.

Friendlies

Often composed of team members who were once foes, such as Frenzy and Pyro, X-Factor has to figure out how to work together amidst their histories.

They work alongside the X-Men on occasion and even help take on their allies, X-Force, when things seemingly go awry with that team.

Public Record

When United States ally nation Trans-Sabal was invaded by the paramilitary Pantheon and Bruce Banner, AKA Hulk, X-Factor was sent to stop them, but it rapidly became clear that Trans-Sabal’s ruler, Farnoq Sawalha Dahn, was an insane despot, and X-Factor ultimately sided with the Pantheon against him. Returning to the USA, X-Factor failed to stop the Mutant Liberation Front (MLF) from assassinating Dr. Tucker, who had developed methods to identify and remove mutant DNA from unborn fetuses, and Wolfsbane secretly destroyed Tucker’s research rather than let the government claim it. 

As time passed, most of the team became close friends, though Quicksilver maintained a certain distance for the most part. While the rest of the team protected federal witness Marilyn Maycroft, AKA Shrew, from her former teammates the Hell’s Belles and their mentor Silas Burr, AKA Cyber, Madrox and Quicksilver investigated a murder allegedly committed by mutant musician Rachel Argosy, AKA Rhapsody; Madrox fell in love with Rachel, but ultimately discovered she was guilty and let her be arrested. 

When a group of Genoshan mutant refugees, whom the press dubbed the X-Patriots, arrived in the USA, the government denied their asylum request, insisting that Genosha’s regime change meant they were no longer political refugees. X-Factor was sent to contain them, arriving in time to stop the Mortimer Toynbee, AKA Toad’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants attempt to recruit the newcomers, but, sympathetic to the X-Patriots’ plight, Havok offered to have X-Factor accompany them home to prove things had improved in Genosha. While the X-Patriots considered this, X-Factor arranged to chaperone the X-Patriots around New York City, letting the refugees take a break from the ship they had spent months stuck aboard, but the X-Patriots Taylor was brutally beaten by an anti-mutant mob. While he recovered in the hospital, X-Factor were sidetracked by an assassination attempt on Professor X, seemingly by X-Force’s leader Nathan Summers, AKA Cable. Working with the X-Men, X-Factor captured X-Force, but they soon realized that the MLF’s leader Stryfe (Cable’s clone) was the real shooter, and all three X-teams joined forces to capture the MLF, and ultimately defeated Stryfe, though not before he secretly unleashed the Legacy virus, a lethal disease that only infected mutants. 

The Acolytes, fanatical followers of Quicksilver’s father, Max Eisenhardt, AKA Magneto, then believed dead, began plotting to drive Quicksilver to join them. They secretly placed Val under their control, and sabotaged Quicksilver’s attempted reconciliation with his estranged wife, the Inhuman Crystalia Amaquelin Maximoff, AKA Crystal. Back on Earth the X-Patriots took over the hospital Taylor was recovering in, but after the mutant mercenary Marshall Stone, AKA Random, was sent in to subdue them, X-Factor defused the situation. The X-Patriots finally agreed to return with X-Factor to Genosha, where the team learned of a contagion (the as-yet-unidentified Legacy virus) spreading through the mutant population. When one quarantined victim, Mutate 24601, escaped, X-Factor pursued him to prevent Genoshan forces from killing him on sight. Finding 24601 collapsed and not breathing, Madrox risked mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, saving 24601’s life but becoming infected himself, a fact he hid from his teammates. 

After X-Factor returned to the USA, the Acolytes began a series of “genetic cleansing” attacks against humans; aware the government’s Project: Wideawake was developing mutant hunting Sentinel robots at Camp Hayden, the Acolytes let one of their number, Andrew Graves, AKA Spoor, be captured, so that he could identify the Camp as their next target. Secretly directed by the Acolytes, Val ordered X-Factor to stay behind, allegedly to avoid inflaming the situation, taking only Quicksilver, in the supposed hope that the Acolytes might listen to him, and Random, hired to protect her. Ignoring Val’s instruction, X-Factor followed anyway, learning the Camp’s secret moments before the Acolytes attacked; while the two groups battled, Acolyte leader Fabian Cortez tried to persuade Quicksilver to join them, but when he refused the Acolytes retreated, releasing Val from their control. 

The revelation that Val had known about Wideawake but kept it from them damaged her relationship with X-Factor, and though she officially remained their liaison, she handed over day-to-day responsibilities to the mutant inventor Forge. Meanwhile, Jamie became withdrawn as the virus took its toll, making his duplicates increasingly unpredictable; eventually he managed to duplicate so that only some of his bodies were infected, the healthy ones subconsciously resisting merging back with the diseased ones, but unaware of this, his depression mounted. Quicksilver took an extended leave of absence that turned into a permanent departure, and Wolfsbane left for Muir Island hoping that her foster mother, geneticist Moira MacTaggert, might be able to undo her mutate conditioning, but found to her distress that she could not be away from Havok for long enough to be treated. 

The psychic entity Malice, who had once possessed Polaris for Mister Sinister, learned that her former master intended to bond them permanently together; unwilling to let this happen, Malice took over Beatrice Connors, head of the top secret Department, and tasked her mutant-hating subordinate, Colonel Jefferson Malone, to slay X-Factor, beginning with Polaris. Malone hired Random to assassinate her, but Random, who had secretly taken a liking to his target during their previous encounters, held back, allowing Polaris to escape. Malone ordered Random’s murder and sent more agents after Polaris, but she was saved by mutant visionary Radha Dastoor, AKA Haven. However, Haven was also a wanted terrorist, planning to bring about an age of peace and harmony by killing 75% of the world’s population. Seeking their help against the Department’s assassins, Random came to X-Factor, and despite the team’s mistrust of him, Forge hired him to help them arrest Haven. Unaware that the healthy Madrox had remained behind in Washington, the team visited Haven’s Californian base, where Haven, trying to win them to her cause, reversed Wolfsbane’s mutate conditioning; however, most of X-Factor continued to oppose her, destroying a satellite she had intended to use to trigger fault lines worldwide. Making a last ditch attempt to convince them to support her, she tried unsuccessfully to heal Madrox, who died during her attempt; her faith in herself shaken, Haven fled, while in Washington, unknown to his teammates, the surviving Madrox was rendered amnesiac by the shock.

As X-Factor mourned their loss, Random turned down Forge’s offer to join the team permanently, and Havok, blaming himself for Madrox’s death, quit. Led to Malone by Random, X-Factor sought to arrest him, but he committed suicide rather than be taken; unaware of Malice’s involvement, Polaris accepted Connors’ subsequent disavowal of Malone. With X-Factor’s members taking some much needed down time, Polaris followed Havok’s trail to Hawaii. Unfortunately Malice, deciding to take a more active hand in eliminating Polaris, got to Havok first, and possessed him. Polaris got out a distress call to X-Factor, but Malice gained the upper hand while the team was still en route; however, Mister Sinister, having apparently been monitoring the situation, intervened to save Polaris’ life. Secretly preferring for Malice to be destroyed rather than disrupt his long-term plans for Havok and Polaris, Sinister ordered Malice to move from Havok’s body to Polaris’, but the two lovers, each trying to sacrifice themself to save the other, psychically tried to pull Malice into their own body; literally torn between them, Malice seemingly perished. 

With Havok rejoining the team, X-Factor battled the Phalanx alongside the X-Men, Excalibur, and X-Force, and began tracking the shape-shifter Raven Darkhölme, AKA Mystique after learning she was in Israel to kill David Haller, AKA Legion, Professor X’s son, whom she blamed for the death of her lover Irene Adler, AKA Destiny; they caught up with her in Legion’s hospital room, where he had been comatose since the Shadow King conflict, but he woke up, and teleported X-Factor to Madripoor, so they would not interfere while he pursued his own agenda, to alter the timelines and kill his father’s greatest foe, Magneto, years earlier; his actions resulted in a divergent timeline, Reality-295, and the subsequent arrival of some refugees from that timeline in Legion’s native one (Earth-616). X-Factor found Legion had dropped them in the middle of a confrontation between Guido’s old employer, interstellar thief Lila Cheney, and the K’lanti, who sought to retrieve a Harmonium she had taken and were prepared to blow up Madripoor if she did not comply. Unfortunately the Harmonium had been stolen in turn from Lila, but with X-Factor’s aid she recovered it in time; however, deciding to slay Lila anyway, the K’lanti left behind a bomb as they departed. Guido threw himself on it, absorbing the explosion’s energy, but it triggered a massive heart attack. 

With Guido comatose in hospital, Wolfsbane quit the team to go to Muir Island, where Moira MacTaggert had been diagnosed as the first human to catch the Legacy virus. In Washington, government agents recognized the amnesiac Jamie and took him into custody, ostensibly to help him recall his past, but actually hoping to turn him into a one-man secret agent army; even when his memories did return, they held him prisoner. Meanwhile, the cyborg Bastion convinced elements within the U.S. government to back his Operation: Zero Tolerance, dedicated to wiping out mutantkind. He turned captured mutants into Hounds, designed to track and kill other mutants, and helped anti-mutant bigot Graydon Creed, the son of Mystique and murderous feral mutant Victor Creed, AKA Sabretooth, gain political power until Graydon was in a position to run for president, unaware that Bastion planned to assassinate him mid-campaign, a martyr for the anti-mutant cause. Learning of part of this plot, Mystique decided to get herself assigned to X-Factor, anonymously tipping them off that she was going to blow up the Belle Fourche River dam. Bastion sent a prototype Hound to slay her, but contact with her unstable form disrupted its programming and it fled. X-Factor apprehended her moments later, but before they could take her in, Havok’s powers flared out of control, possibly a side effect of his recent possession. X-Factor raced him to the nearest post-human medical facility, Canada’s Department H, but while he was still unconscious Scarlett McKenzie, an agent of Reality-295’s Sugar Man, kidnapped him; en route to deliver him to Sugar Man in Genosha, Havok woke and forced Scarlett’s plane to land in Tokyo. X-Factor arrived in Tokyo soon after, their numbers supplemented by Mystique, being kept in line by a subcutaneous tracer Forge had implanted, and feral Canadian mutant Wild Child, on loan from Department H. Despite interference from Yakuza cyber-samurai and Fatale, an agent of Sugar Man’s Reality-295 rival, Henry “Hank” McCoy, AKA Dark Beast, who also sought to acquire Havok, X-Factor rescued Havok.

Wild Child elected to permanently join the team, and X-Factor relocated to their new base, Virginia’s Fall’s Edge compound. As a favor to X-Man Lucas Bishop, Forge repaired Bishop’s holographic matrix projector, which contained the essence of his late sister, Shard, and she began to interact with the team, befriending Wild Child. Still wanting to obtain Havok for his experiments, Dark Beast recruited Random with promises of fixing Random’s unstable protoplasm body; faking letters to make it look like Havok had left of his own choice, Random lured him into an ambush and delivered him to the Dark Beast. 

While X-Factor were fighting Forge’s old foe the Adversary, Bastion had his operative, Val Cooper’s boss Virgil Ellison, assign Sabretooth, now one of Zero Tolerance’s Hounds, to join X-Factor, his murderous ways seemingly restrained by an electro-shock collar. Though unaware of his true allegiances, both Val and the team railed against having a psychotic killer placed on the team, but were overruled. Even as he joined them, X-Factor stumbled one step closer to the truth, battling the Hound that had targeted Mystique and learning that he was part of a government project. Soon afterward the Hound stole Shard’s projector, delivering her to Area 51 for study; Wild Child, Bishop and Bishop’s teammate Ororo Munroe, AKA Storm, came to her rescue, and though the projector was destroyed, Shard survived as an independent photon-based life-form. 

Having brainwashed Havok to serve him, Dark Beast sent Random to spy on X-Factor, using the pretext of visiting Polaris, but when the psychic entity Onslaught (an amalgam of Professor X and Magneto’s dark sides) attacked him, Dark Beast bargained for his life by offering to retrieve a Sentinel Onslaught wanted from storage inside Fall’s Edge. Dark Beast also snatched Mystique and Sabretooth, hoping to recruit them to his cause; however, despite his deactivating their restraining devices, both elected to remain with X-Factor. 

Tracking the Sentinel, X-Factor discovered Havok’s true fate and Random’s betrayal, and captured Dark Beast and Fatale. However, Havok escaped, and though his conditioning gradually wore off, he elected to defend mutants more proactively, forming the Brotherhood and soon freeing Madrox. Declining to join Havok’s new team, Madrox went on the run; X-Factor was called in to hunt down the “fugitives” but instead hid him from the authorities after they discovered their quarry’s identity. Aware Graydon’s assassination was imminent, Mystique escaped during Madrox’s manhunt; wrongly thinking she was intending to kill Graydon, X-Factor was tasked with protecting him, unwittingly ensuring his demise by apprehending Mystique and her ally St. John Allerdyce, AKA Pyro. 

Aware that forces within the government were playing them, X-Factor quit, faked their own deaths, and simulated a bio-toxin outbreak at Fall’s Edge to get it quarantined, allowing them to continue using it undisturbed. Val, aware of the deception, informed Forge that Guido had finally woken up and that Madrox was planning to free him; X-Factor intervened, rescuing both former members as they were about to be captured, and Forge provided Guido with an implant that treated his heart problems. As Operation: Zero Tolerance started, Sabretooth showed his true colors, attacking the rest of X-Factor and leaving them for dead while he departed to hunt other mutants for his masters; alerted by other government operatives who disagreed with Bastion’s plan, Val reached X-Factor too late to warn them, but in time to get them to the hospital, saving their lives. Aware that Bastion’s agents would soon come for them, Val contacted Havok, who evacuated X-Factor to recover in safety in his group’s hideout. Other mutant groups soon ended Bastion’s campaign, and X-Factor’s recovering members disbanded. 

A few months later, Havok, having dismantled the Brotherhood, convinced Madrox, Shard, and Polaris to join a reformed X-Factor alongside the telekinetic Fixx and superstrong Devlin Greystone, AKA Greystone, two refugees from Shard and Bishop’s native timeline, Earth-1191; however, during their first meeting the unstable Greystone snapped, attacked Madrox, then tried to return to his own era using a makeshift time machine he had constructed. Realizing Greystone’s device was going to explode, Havok tried unsuccessfully to disable it, and was caught in the resultant blast; he survived and was transported to alternate Earth-1298, but to his watching teammates, it appeared that he had died, and X-Factor disbanded once more.

Following the fall of Krakoa, a mutant paradise, X-Factor was restarted under the U.S. government and Rodger Broderick, TV producer and sponsored by ClikClok, who promised them internet fame. Warren Worthington III, AKA Angel, led the new roster, which included Rusty Collins, AKA Firefist, Daniel Choi, AKA Xyber, Maria Callasantos, AKA Feral, and Cameo. At their team’s unveiling, the new X-Factor was booed by Refusenix, an underground mutant group that advocated for mutants to boycott human nation-states. When Broderick selected their first target, the headquarters of mutant mercenaries known as X-Term, the raid led to the deaths of several team members with others hanging on by a thread.

Broderick quickly restacked the team with veteran X-Factor leader Havok, the super-strong Joanna Cargill, AKA Frenzy, the flame-manipulating and former Brotherhood of Mutants member Pyro, the bio-field generating medic Dr. Cecilia Reyes, and immortality mutant Granny Smite with Xyber remaining on the team for a short time. Havok led the team through death-defying missions, which caused friction with his girlfriend Polaris, who wanted him to join the Mutant Underground–a band of mutants who were uncomfortable with the military exploitation of their people. When he joined her for one of their meetings, a schism within the organization left Polaris in the hands of a more militant faction within the Underground. 

Xyber left the team so Oskar, AKA Wintergeist, took his place, to Cecilia’s chagrin as Oskar was her ex. Though they made up quickly and rekindled their romance. When X-Factor’s military leader, General Mills, demanded that the team promote the Mutant Surveillance Act via ClikClok, the team refused. Just then, X-Term’s leader, Laynia Petrovna, AKA Darkstar, infiltrated their headquarters thanks to the man they had on the inside, McCloud, and captured X-Factor and General Mills. They sent Oskar to his death, to the horror of Cecilia and the team, as Polaris saved them thanks to Frenzy’s call for help. 

Mills dismissed Havok and Frenzy, and brought back Xyber and Angel. She also introduced their newest recruit, ForgetMeNot. She informed the team that Doctor Doom was taking over Earth as its Emperor.  As such, Mills gave them their next target: Gigosha, created by tech billionaire Ethan Farthing and formerly known as Genosha, was an algorithmic republic run by the most powerful quantum computer, which powered the Paperclip A.I. system, and ran the neural implants of its citizens. X-Factor joined forces with Chechen mutant-ops squad Black Wolf to destroy the supercomputer A.I. that could control an entire population. Once the team arrived, Xyber used his electromagnetic pulse to disable the A.I.’s control over Gigosha’s populace. Meanwhile, Black Wolf stole the computer and destroyed X-Factor’s jet. ForgetMeNot stole their ride in turn, picking up X-Factor who didn’t realize Black Wolf’s true intent.

Meanwhile, Havok and Frenzy teamed up to save Professor Xavier, going against government interests until they agreed to one last mission from Mills to prevent Doom from getting his hands on the quantum computer. So Havok and Xyber, Cecilia, and Granny Smite infiltrated Black Wolf’s base, destroyed the computer, and captured Black Wolf. Though the team of pirate mutants revealed that the rest of X-Factor captured Polaris, leader of the Mutant Underground. Angel suffered from ClikClok’s backlash as a result. Black Wolf’s leader then shattered his containment helmet, releasing poisonous gas. In a turn of events, they were saved by McCloud and they arrived at Mills’ base where they freed everyone in holding, including Polaris, with Angel’s help. X-Factor disbanded, leaving Mills and Broderick in the hands of the freed and not too happy Darkstar.