Everything’s coming up Marvel this week as John Carle returns with his special edition of The Pull List. Sal Loria is back next week so be sure and check in then, and every week, for brand new installments of The Pull List Comic Reviews. – Ed.

Pull Of the Week

X-Factor #50 – Marvel – $3.99
Writer: Peter David Artist: Valentine De Landro
Score: 8.5

X-Factor #50 is the issue where everything finally comes full circle for the events of this entire volume of X-Factor. Ever since the House of M, Layla Miller has been a question mark in the Marvel U. Is her mutant power really that she just “knows stuff”? This issue finally answers the question as Peter David concludes his story arc revolving around Jamie and Layla eighty years in the future dealing with the Summers Rebellion against a corrupt man trying to destroy all mutants using the technology of Doctor Doom and employing a corrupted dupe of Multiple Man who had been misplaced in time during the “Messiah Complex”.

How Peter David did it definitely took some planning as all of the events that spun out of the House of M and created Layla Miller tied up perfectly in this issue and how it happened is something this reviewer never would have guessed when the series first launched with X-Factor #1.

The issue also ends with a short story where X-Factor Investigations picks up a case in New York after finally deciding to leave Detroit. Their first case which will be tackled in the renumbered X-Factor #200 next month is given to them by Franklin and Valeria Richards, children of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, the latter of which has gone missing.

It is certainly an interesting coincidence that Marvel let X-Factor hit issue #50 before letting the next milestone number of issue #200 happen in next month’s renumbering the same way they did with Captain America #50 and Captain America #600. But much like Cap issues #50 and #600 were great issues, X-Factor is already going gangbusters so we can let it slide this time.

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This is the first part of John’s pull list comic reviews for the week. The second part follows tomorrow.

Pull of the Week:

New Avengers #52 – Marvel – $3.99
Score: 8.5

If there was ever a team book that could get away with next to no-action and still consistently be the best read of the week, it’s the New Avengers. Brian Bendis knows these characters and knows how to bring them to life. The amazing part is that he does it with brief action sequences and is able to dive into the personalities of the New Avengers by simply sitting them down at a dinner table and meet as a team.  Everyone fits a role whether it be a cool and collected leader, a partially insecure spaz, the quiet bad ass or the person everyone thought was dead but was actually only just abducted and replaced by a Skrull. The magic is that Bendis has such a grip on these characters that his conversations between these characters feels like they have known each other for years.

The story revolves around the team being filled in by Doctor Strange, the former Sorcerer Supreme, about the attack he suffered at the hands of the Hood. Mystical cameos seemingly abound in this issue, the New Avengers head south to find another magical character who may be the next Sorcerer Supreme (who wasn’t actually who the reader was suspecting from the clues given pages before).  Bendis exhibits great understanding of character building and does it in an entertaining way in this issue.

This truly is a book that could still be enjoyable to read even if no action took place much like Bendis’ control over the characters has proved time and time again. Also, like the last issue, the dual art teams give the book a feel all of its own. Having two art teams seems like it’d be disjointed in the story telling but by splitting the teams between the conflict of Strange and the Hood and the other team working on the rest of the book, it only helps the “magic” of storytelling.

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