Super Spoilers! All-New X-Factor #5

All-New X-Factor #05. Written by Peter David; art by Carmine di Giandomenico; colors by Lee Loughridge. (Sponsored by Serval Industries.)

Right. So. Like I mentioned with the Preview: this page is weird, right? But also, kinda cool.

And we do have Danger added, as I mentioned we might on last issue’s commentary.

On the opening page, we learn Gambit sleeps in the nude. With his cats from issue 3.

We also learn Danger is hilarious. She explains how the kiss from last issue snapped her out of whatever Nil did to her by providing “direct organic counterprogramming”, which reset her basic parameters. But she needs “further interaction” to reestablish all of her parts. Brown chicken, brown cow!

Cut to Serval Industries CEO Harrison Snow‘s suite, where he kindly asks his receptionist Linda Kwan to get dressed and leave his bed before his wife gets home. If you were wondering if anyone would be out-Scumbagging Gambit in this series, there’s your answer!

Back to All-New X-Factor‘s all new apartment, where Polaris is telekinetically cooking eggs for her brother Quicksilver. Quicksilver is doing some morning reading and learns Hades named his pet dog “Spot”. Polaris doesn’t find that funny at all.

Gambit joins the siblings and lets them know Danger (the robot, not the noun) is in his bedroom. Some witty banter, and then this:

Awww, come on Remy! You couldn’t throw the robot a bone (heh)?

Also, can someone explain Gambit’s coffee mug to me?

Apparently this is a thing? Does Gambit fish now? Or maybe it’s a Peter David in-joke? Either way, I don’t get it. Moving on….

Mr. Snow drops by the All-New X-Apartment and asks the team to come to a pure business meeting with ~~the Tolkien Dragon~~ Lemar Smaug.

Is it just me, or are these scenes with the team chillin’ in their apartment, Lorna cooking breakfast with her mind powers, Pietro wisecracking at the breakfast table, and Remy drinking coffee in his bathrobe pure gold? I think I could read an entire comic with just these elements. Heck, I’d watch an entire HBO TV series with just these things.

Quicksilver steps out from brushing his teeth to report in to Havok, whose motives don’t seem too sinister… he just wants to keep up to date with his crazy ex.

“Aaaaand, he’s gone.”

Danger calls Quicksilver out, noticing that his pulse and heart rate are accelerated. He pretty much calls her a liar, which she doesn’t seem to like too much.

Serval Industries. Mr. Snow greets Mr. Smaug at his limmo. Mr Smaug doesn’t get the Doctor Who reference.

Linda Kwan shows All-New X-Factor to the meeting room. Danger calls her out for having Harrison Snow’s DNA on her “in a manner that could only have put it there” if they were “intimate”. Oh, snap!

Linda denies it. Danger seems slightly peeved that people keep calling her a liar.

At the meeting, Snow wants to buy out Smaug and Smaug wants to buy out Snow. Smaug seems impressed when Snow introduces him to the All-New X-Factor.

Danger shows up and calls out Smaug for not being remotely human. Smaug is outraged.

Danger, having reached the end of her rope and tired of being told she’s wrong, straight-up punches Smaug’s guts out through his back. It’s pretty awesome. The team is shocked.

Smaug gets pissed. Turns out he’s actually The Magus: ruler of an outer-space race called the Technarchy; Warlock‘s father; and very, very nasty.

Polaris pyscho-blasts The Magus out the window, quickly explains who this giant robot monster is, and tells Snow to get his people to safety.

In a chivalrous move that makes me hope their budding romance isn’t completely out of the question, Gambit helps Danger to her feet.

Danger dives out the window after The Magus. Gambit tells her to wait, she says she never waits, then realizes she should’ve waited when The Magus smashes her into a nearby skyscraper, slaughtering untold thousands of innocent businessmen and women (off panel).

Danger then turns into an even gianter robot face and eats The Magus. ROBOT FIIIIIGHT!!!!!

Quicksilver tries to help, but gets knocked back by Warlock!

Gambit slides down the hundred or so stories of the Serval Industries skyscraper with his bo staff, no problem. ‘Cuz dude’s a beast like that!

The Magus and Warlock disappear.

Polaris tells the team they need answers to this whole new The Magus/Warlock problem, and to get them, they’re going to need to see the person who knows Warlock better than anyone in the world… Cypher!