From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: The Canonical X-Factor Dangling Plotlines List
Reply-To: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 05:48:48 GMT

Most of the danglers lists may be in limbo somewhere, but _this_ one is not.
I would dearly like to see the X-Men dangler lists in some form, but until
then, you have this one to peruse.

Like lots of Marvel comics, this comic has had a number of dumb things happen
in it.  These do go in the list, forevermore remembered until someone decides
to do a fix.

[Last modified 10/4/92]
[Last posted 10/4/92]
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Solved or Irrelevant:

Fantastic Four #286: Jean senses Rachel in the crystal (page 27) but immediate-
ly collapses.  She never follows up on it.  [Answered in Annual #5]

Jean loses her telepathy, which she begins to regain in #36 page 9. [fully
regained in #65]

#7: What _happened_ to Bulk and Glowworm?  [Answered in New Mutants Annual
#4.]

#8: (Page 6) Vera shows up for the final time.  Where did she go, and does she
know that Hank now has another girlfriend?  [Answered in #55.]

Annual #1: What happened to the priest, and the other Russian mutants shown
here?  [Most of them reappeared in Soviet Super-Soldiers (special) #1.]

Amazing Spiderman #282: Robbie refuses to participate in a Jameson expose on
X-Factor.  Now that they have enough material to do a real one, will they?
[X-Factor is now publically known and has no secrets to be exposed, and no
longer has its old members.]

Annual #4: It's claimed that AIM caused Inferno.  This _should_ logically get
AIM very angry at X-Factor.  [in Captain America #???, AIM goes legit.
Potential lawsuits aren't enough fodder for dangler lists.  I hope some
reader can send me the issue number and date.]

#42: Will those trolls ever get changed back?  [Although they haven't been
changed back, the trolls and kid did reappear in Excalibur #57.  This is now
an Excalibur dangler.  Furthermore, since several good guys got turned to gold
too, there will probably be a reversal process in #58.]

#50: Professor X is back.  [Resolved in X-Men, starting with #275.]

#71: Pietro's power is killing him.  [Resolved as mind control by Senator
Shaffran.]

#72: Jamie doesn't remember having angsted over duplicates being real people
in the Fallen Angels limited series.  [Resolved as mind control by Senator
Shaffran.  A copout, IMHO.]

#74: A national landmark gets destroyed.  [In Annual #7, Val Cooper refers to
Damage Control repairing it.]

Guido's last name remains unknown.  [Revealed as Carosella in #82.]
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Miscellaneous subplots:

(From early, pre-Claremont X-Men): What the heck happened to Ted Roberts?
(Inferno): Exactly what are the ramifications of Jean having Maddie's memories?
Does she remember things as though she did them, complete with emotional
reactions, etc...?  Does she remember the wedding, pregnancy, etc... as though
they happened to her?  If she has Maddie's memories, doesn't that mean that
she and Maddie have essentially been (re)combined into one person? [what
distinguishes a person from other people, aside from the total of their
experiences and memories?]  Can she become Anodyne?  (perhaps healing Scott's
eyes for good)  And how did Maddie become Anodyne, considering that being a
clone of Jean meant she had mutant genes and Loki's fountain only worked on
people without them?  For that matter, can Jean's change in personality between
X-Men #137 and Fantastic Four #286 be explained as her having lost the portion
of her personality/soul which was in Madelyne?

#1: Here X-Factor begins the much-derided practice of pretending to be mutant
hunters.  This is thankfully long gone, but is anyone going to sue them for
fraud?

#6: On page 19, Scott sees a Phoenix aura around Jean.  (1) This happens in a
battle and cannot be one of what is later explained as holograms planted by
Hodge.  [No-prize explanation: the particular shape of the Phoenix comes from
Jean's mind, so she manifests it when she gains lots of power, even if not
from the Phoenix force].

#8: (Page 1) You can't get rid of radioactivity by vaporizing it.

Annual #1: Dr. Heinreich manages to escape.

#9: X-Factor still thinks Magneto a villain. (2).  It seems Marvel does too, so
this is unlikely to be resolved soon.

#12: We still don't know what happened to Sara Grey yet. (3)

#14: Bob Ingersoll had a column in CBG which proved that it was illegal to
remove Angel's wings over his objections.  Also, why the fake Maddie?  Why
would Mr. Sinister wipe out her records so there's no trace of her existing,
then provide a fake corpse which has the side effect of showing that she _did_
exist?

#20: (Page 4): What did Rictor mean about Mexico (actually a NM subplot)?
(There was an earthquake in Mexico RL at the time, but are we readers supposed
to seriously believe that in the Marvel Universe, this earthquake was caused by
Rictor?)

Annual #2: At the end, Jean agrees to visit the place Phoenix died.  What was
her reaction?  Did anything unusual happen?  (Especially with the revelation
that Jean was Phoenix after all)

#21: Since Warren is alive, the will that gives his assets to Hodge is no good.
So when is anyone going to do anything about it?  (4)  (I'm not a regular
post-Claremont X-Men reader, but I picked up #294.  Warren apparently lost
"most of his fortune", but has enough left to go around riding in limousines.
I'm going to leave this as dangling until it's cleared up a bit more.)

(?, my issues are in New Jersey): We first see the reference to Angel's wings as
having their own desire to cause mayhem.  When will Angel be cured of this?  (5)

#28: Apocalypse has Caliban, who later becomes a villain.  When will Caliban
be made normal?  (6)

#33: Nanny and Orphan Maker.  Did they ever get caught?  (Before anyone says
it, no they were _not_ killed in X-Men. (7)

#34: Candy dies.  But not only are deaths in comics rarely final, this one was
awfully abrupt.

#38: It's explained that Maddie didn't ask Roma to take her to her son since
all she had was hate.  This is clearly not so from reading the actual stories.
For instance, she freely gave her life to save everyone from the Adversary,
not knowing at the time that she would not die, after all. (8)

X-Men #242: Rogue kisses Angel -- and "tastes" Apocalypses's persona real
heavy, so much so that she has to let go.  "Subordinate consciousness --
blurred in with Angel's!" (9)

#39: Why didn't Mr. Sinister just combine Jean's and Scott's genes in a test
tube?

How can Cyclops be controlled so that his optic blast (which is said in the
same issue to be uncontrollable) won't fire?

How did Sinister discover that Cyclops' optic blast was (seemingly) the one
thing that had an effect on him since he didn't appear to know this while he
actually had Scott in his clutches? And after discovering this, and after the
kid was born, why didn't he just drop a nuke on Scott to eliminate him?

#42: (Page 19) There is no such thing as molecules of gold.  What happens if
the kid creates some U-235?  If he creates stuff by atomic mass and doesn't
know that the "atomic mass" given in a book is an average which doesn't apply
per-atom, is he going to screw up and actually try to create the element using
the atomic mass given in the book, thus not only nuking London but also arousing
the ire of the Christic Institute? :-)

#43: (Page 3) Jean _should_ be able to breathe in space by holding in air with
her force field.  As pointed out by Connie Hirsch, she could in X-Men #100.
(When I originally posted this, it threatened to re-start a tired thread about
survivability in vacuum.  To make this short, let me point out that vacuum is
an insulator and she would not freeze to death.)

#47: What's going to happen to the mutants uncovered in this issue? (10)

#48: Exactly what _are_ Christopher's powers?  Just spherical force fields?
At least he has the perfect power to keep safe when his parents are in
battles! (11)  Another question: how old is he?  He already seems to be aging
too fast relative to others in the Marvel universe.  (No, I'm sorry, "killing"
him doesn't solve things.  Especially if he turns out to be Cable or Mister
Sinister or whatever.)

#54: (Page 19) Why does Beast doubt the existence of vampires?  This is the
Marvel universe, you know.  The X-Men must have a file a mile long on them,
and the new X-Men even fought Dracula twice (though Beast was not a member
then, there's no reason he wouldn't have the information).  Not to mention the
Avengers and Defenders, which Beast was also a member of.

(Page 29) Beast says he's going to try contact the X-Men about Colossus.  When
does this happen?  (Failing that, when does he discover the X-Men already
know?) (12)

#55: (Page 30) Infectia is still loose. (13)

Annual #5: Why does Cyclops not know who Rachel is, when he seemingly figured
it out at the end of the X-Men/Alpha Flight limited series?

X-Factor: Prisoner of Love: (Page 6) Why can Beast not have any children?  He
has a girlfriend in normal continuity, and presumably his anatomy works.  Is
he sterile?  (This one is probably a failed attempt to make an analogy to homo-
phobia, since he refers to non-mutants as "straights", but the analogy falls
flat.  I.e., more crappy writing.)

#60: How does Opal get on board a ship that only allows mutants on?  (They
even say in the letter column "there's a story there".  But I can think of
half a dozen ways for an intelligent ship to get around such a command.  "Oh,
my analysis reveals that #34567 of the 1000000 bacteria on your skin is a
mutant.  Go ahead, come in."  Or "Every human has some unusual genetic quality
in them, so everyone is a mutant, so you can come in".  Or "I am not actually
letting you in, I'm just allowing you to walk up so close to the door that I
can't put up a force field in time to stop you if you _did_ try to enter."
followed with "oops, I said I can't let non-mutants in, but nobody said I have
to kick them out once they're here....")

This all became academic in #66, page 17, where it's dismissed with the simple
answer that someone must have switched off the barrier--except the ship can't
do that itself and the "virus" causing it to malfunction wasn't introduced
until #65, leaving the earlier incident unexplained.

#62: (Page 31) Warlock's ashes get placed on Doug Ramsey's grave.  This is
blatantly a setup for resurrection, possibly of both in a combined form....
(14)

#66: The mutant woman from the future, in an X-Men uniform, shows up and
refers to Lord Nathan (Nathan is also both Mr. Sinister's and Cable's name),
refers to "our father" and calls him "little brother" (so she is probably a
child of Scott in some future) and has mental powers and a Phoenix symbol on
her head (suggesting she's a child of Jean).  She also refers to "the chosen's
family" instead of her own, implying she is _not_ related, contradicting
the other hints.  Clearly she is not from _Rachel's_ future (Nathan never
existed in that future, for one).  (15)  Note: she is _not_ redheaded (check
the color carefully).

Note: Christopher's father was savaged by Mr. Sinister, not by Apocalypse as
Askani states.  Is this a difference in timelines, and does Mr. Sinister even
exist in her timeline?  On the other hand, it could mean that Scott was
"savaged" by Apocalypse in a future that is in Askani's past, but which is in
X-Factor's future.

#67: The future city on page 6 looks like it's much farther advanced than
just one generation from now, thus further complicating the question of
who Askani is.  Also, _what_ was the event that caused this future to be a
dead end?  (What destroyed the world?)  (16)

Page 29: What happened to Sebastian Shaw?  (You don't honestly think
he's dead, do you?)  As pointed out by netters, an explosion is kinetic
energy, and Shaw's power is to absorb kinetic energy.  (17)

#68: Is Nathan blah blah Summers really dead?  (Does the Phoenix saga rip-off
page with the Watcher mean that he's really going to show up alive again,
say as Cable or as Mr. Sinister?)  In this connection, check out page 19 of
#69: Professor X says that he is sorry he never had an opportunity to meet
Nathan, where Scott replies that with the X-Men, anything is possible!

#70: Why is there no Shi'ar technology that can let Professor X walk again?
Why can't Forge use one of his devices (such as the ones he used to fix Jean
and Banshee a while back in X-Men)?  [Of course we know the real answer is
editorial interference.]

#71: (Page 6): Why is Lorna trying to open the jar with magnetism?  Even if
the jar wasn't gimmicked, this would have no effect; only the lid, not the jar,
has metal in it.

(Page 26): The usual problem with all-powerful devices in comics: why are they
never used for anything after their original creation?  (In this case, Jamie
could use his indestructible jar material to make, say, the walls of the
X-Factor headquarters.)

#72: How come Alex shows up on television?  (18)

#73: Since the limit on duplicates isn't a power of two, what happens if, say,
there's one left that can be made and two try to split?  Is it merely the first
one that gets to do it?  (For powers of two, each could be able to split the
same number of times.)

We are first introduced to the Genetically Challenged name here.  It's cute as
a joke, but doesn't really make sense otherwise; ____ Challenged is only used
in referring to conditions which are objectively undesirable.  Nobody calls
blacks "reflectively challenged" or gays "sexually challenged".  Why are
people using the phrase as though it's real?

#74: Rahne and Alex.  This is unresolved both in the sense that it's a sticky
situation that's not finished, and in the sense that we're not given any
explanation for it.  (though "puberty" is implied)

(Page 8): It's fun watching a strong hero mess up and destroy something, but
does this _really_ mean that he's unable to control his own strength?  Nobody
else is watching [except the readers], and the ball isn't even his, so it
doesn't make sense that he'd smash it as a joke.  (And why didn't the ball
immediately smash when Strong Guy hit it with the racket, since he had to hit
it as hard as it hit the wall?)

(Page 9): The Senator tells Mr. Sinister that the future is an open book to
him, to which he sort of agrees.  This suggests Mr. Sinister is from the
future.  (19)

#75: (Page 41): Mr. Sinister's "personal reasons" for not wanting Alex and
Lorna dead.  (Is he related to them, like, a nephew?) (20)

#77: Why does the doctor seem not to know about the Laura Dean/Goblyn case of
aborting mutants that was in Alpha Flight a few years back?  [Any Usenetters
have an issue number for this?]

#78: We on the net all know how the story was changed because higher-ups
didn't want an abortion story.  And the story makes less sense as a result.
Basically, the "dangler" here is something like "when will someone make some
sense out of the nonsensical parts?".  It will probably take as long to get
resolved as did the Northstar-is-gay one (retconned away in Alpha Flight #50,
not resolved until #106), but I'm listing it here.

Annual #7: The retcon of Spiral as being Ricochet Rita.  This may not
technically be a dangler, but is hardly resolved, either.

#83: Quicksilver just commits robbery.  I'm sorry; superheroes just _don't_
commit robbery and get away with it, and "he was going to spend the money
anyway" doesn't cut it in a court of law.  If I was a mutant hater who got
robbed by a mutant for calling him names, the first thing I'd do would be to
call the police.  (No, fear of retaliation won't do.)  (21)

Is Taylor alive?  (22)
--
"Sometimes it seems that in mutant heaven, there are no pearly gates, but
 instead revolving doors."  --X-Factor #70, page 23

Kenneth Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
    INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.xbooks