"Happy happy, joy joy"

Hey! Welcome to another Mutant Monday. I apologize in advance for the shortness of this post, but I have to go out of town today; however, I didn't want you to think I had forgotten about you.

Today, I'm going to talk a little bit about one of my all-time favorite issues of X-Factor, Vol. 1 #86, "X-Animation." Now, I would normally not talk about this because it was written by Peter David, and I'm not too happy with him these days, but I have to admit that he wrote some stellar issues of X-Factor & The Incredible Hulk, and, damn it, I want to talk about some of those issues! So I'm putting my personal frustration with him aside and forging ahead.

This issue was about a year into David's run; in 1991, the team switched from the original X-Factor (starring the original X-Men team of Cyclops, Jean Grey/Marvel Girl, Iceman, Beast & Angel) to an all-new team of seemingly mismatched mutants. Havok (Alex Summers, Cyclops' brother) was the team leader, Val Cooper was their government liaison, and the team was comprised of Multiple Man/Jamie Madrox, Polaris/Lorna Dane, Strong Guy/Guido Carosella, Quicksilver/Pietro Maximoff & Wolfsbane/Rahne Sinclair.

I'm probably one of the few, but I really love the original David run of X-Factor. I think I'm the only Strong Guy fan in the world, and David really nailed the proper balance of his boisterous humor overcompensating for the pain he carried, both physical pain from his mutant power & emotional pain stemming from his childhood on. I also love the relationship between Strong Guy & Multiple Man; they were a great team with complimentary humors.

One of the few parts of this run I didn't like was how he handled Wolfsbane & Havoc. It seems at times that David forgot that Rahne was still a teenager, and I often find the way she lusts after Havoc (like sitting on the foot of his bed & staring at him while he sleeps) really unnerving and creepy. I know that's kind of the point, but it still skeeves me out. David's having the same problem in his current X-Factor run with the relationship between Madrox & Layla Miller (but that's a whole 'nother can of worms for another day).

So, back to issue 87. The whole premise of this issue is that a psychologist (we don't see his identity until the end, and I'm not gonna spoil it) has been brought in by Val Cooper to help the team through their problems and to analyze them for her use. I probably won't talk about every team member's stories in this issue, but I do want to talk a little about Wolfsbane, and then really discuss the segments on Madrox, Strong Guy & Quicksilver.

You're probably wondering what the title of this post has to do with this issue. Well, the issue opens with a cute little parody of Ren & Stimpy as Rahne is telling the pysch about her dreams. She keeps having a recurring dream called the Rahne & Simpy Show, starring herself & Feral (a member of X-Force, and another wolf/cat type of mutant; it was always a little uncertain to me exactly what Feral was).

She's having all kinds of weird dreams, parodies of Wayne's World & of Rain Man, and the doctor thinks she's having these dreams because she's trying to find an identity to latch on to. They talk about her relationship with Havok & her foster-father, Reverend Craig. Rahne seems to have the most simple conversation with the psychologist, and the most pleasant one, too.

Next up, Magneto's baby boy, Quicksilver. Pietro's got a big old problem: he suffers from what his teammates call (behind his back, of course) PMS: Pietro Maximoff Syndrome. They think he's snooty and insufferable. And he is, don't get me wrong. But there's an explanation to his supreme bitchiness:


And now for the two who broke my heart, Strong Guy and Multiple Man. Guido's got his appointment with the good doctor first.

Because Guido had warned Rahne about psychologists (something she mentioned in her session), the doctor wants to know why Guido had seen so many guidance counselors while he was in school. He was picked on a lot because he was a nerd, always getting perfect grades, and in self-defense, he became the class clown.

However, it backfired on him when he began to do it more and more to impress a girl he liked: her boyfriend beat the living crap out of Guido after the girl he liked winked at him. When Guido regained consciousness, he saw everyone laughing at him, and so he snapped and began attacking the bully, only to have the bully and his friends attacking him. Not good timing. His mutant powers kicked in right then:

That was the moment when I fully fell in love with Guido. He just broke my heart. I had no idea all his jokes and clowning around was hiding such a horrible past (and I could relate with my own childhood experiences with bullies).

Finally, Multiple Man, Jamie Madrox. The doctor cuts him off at the pass, telling him to take off the joy buzzer he has in his hand, and he asks Jamie to participate in some word association:

He asks Jamie if he truly believes what he said or if he was just trying for a reaction, and Jamie replies that he's honestly not sure. He explains that he likes getting reactions out of people because it reminds him that he's alive and gets people to notice him:

In all honesty, I prefer this Madrox to the one who is currently in X-Factor. Jamie's really rather an ass in the current book, and he just doesn't ring as true to me as in these older issues. I might go further into this, once I reread the current books.

Anyway, back to the story. It ends with Val Cooper talking to the psychologist, to see what he found out. Instead of telling her his findings, he asks her for her impressions of the team:

Ah, Val, you always were incredibly dense and clueless. . .

So, that's the main gist of the story. I highly recommend searching out this issue. It's worth the effort, and I think you can get it for a pretty reasonable price from online comic stores (or your LCS).

Tomorrow. . . well, I don't have plans for tomorrow. If I get back home early enough, I'll get a post up for you guys about something. Maybe we'll go through a What If? issue.