In Your Face Jam: The X-Men Need Multiple Man

[Lccf]

the x-men do not "need" jamie. he turned into a very resentful mutant who was ashamed of his own people very often. he can stay on the farm and milk cows for all i care.

What are you talking about ? I've read the whole series, and I don't remember Jamie being ashamed of mutants. He didn't trust the self-proclaimed figureheads of mutantkind, like Cyclops or Wolverine, and disapproved some of their décisions, like concealing M-Day's real reasons, but other than that ... Do you have any specific examples ?
Oh, and are mutants even "his own people" ? Peter David classified him as a "crop-killer" (IIRC) .... is it considered as a branch of mutantkind, or something completely different ?

[RLAAMJR.]

Lemire should add Multiple Man in Extraordinary X-men.

I also want Multiple Man to have an ongoing solo.

[Spartak87]

What are you talking about ? I've read the whole series, and I don't remember Jamie being ashamed of mutants. He didn't trust the self-proclaimed figureheads of mutantkind, like Cyclops or Wolverine, and disapproved some of their décisions, like concealing M-Day's real reasons, but other than that ... Do you have any specific examples ?
Oh, and are mutants even "his own people" ? Peter David classified him as a "crop-killer" (IIRC) .... is it considered as a branch of mutantkind, or something completely different ?

From what I remember Jamie as a "killcrop" I think it is, is like the first step from humans to mutants. If humans are "1" and mutants are "2" than Jamie is a "1.5" or something.

[j9ac9k]

Great article. X-Factor ( the earlier years, anyway ) gave us indeed a more "down to Earth" perspective on mutants, something too few writers do.

Which "early days?" - do you mean when the original 5 were pretending to be mutant hunters?

I lost interest in the title when it became the "Layla show." All that stuff definitely took us away from "down to earth" for me. I hadn't even known that he and Layne went to a farm until very recently. I see no reason why he can't be brought back, but I do hope it's in a story that's about him rather than just having him pop up as fodder in some X-book with a million cast members.

Btw, One of his dupes had a fun guest spot in "She-Hulk" awhile back. (which I only just got around to reading) He's a totally Hollywood lawyer and claimed that Jamie lets him do his thing since he channels half his earnings back to Jamie on the farm.

[LocoSteve]

the x-men do not "need" jamie. he turned into a very resentful mutant who was ashamed of his own people very often. he can stay on the farm and milk cows for all i care.

Care to explain how he turned into a "resentful mutant"?

[Lccf]

Which "early days?" - do you mean when the original 5 were pretending to be mutant hunters?

I lost interest in the title when it became the "Layla show." All that stuff definitely took us away from "down to earth" for me. I hadn't even known that he and Layne went to a farm until very recently. I see no reason why he can't be brought back, but I do hope it's in a story that's about him rather than just having him pop up as fodder in some X-book with a million cast members.

Btw, One of his dupes had a fun guest spot in "She-Hulk" awhile back. (which I only just got around to reading) He's a totally Hollywood lawyer and claimed that Jamie lets him do his thing since he channels half his earnings back to Jamie on the farm.

I wouldn't blame Layla, but I didn't like the direction the book ultimately took either , with all the supernatural stuff, Hell monsters and so on. I liked it better when they were just Mutant Town's go-to detective agency and Tryp was the weirdest enemy they had.

[Purplevit]

Awesome article!
I miss Madrox. He is my 2nd favourite.

I would love Madrox Noir solo by PAD or relaunched old X-Factor.

[Spartak87]

I wouldn't blame Layla, but I didn't like the direction the book ultimately took either , with all the supernatural stuff, Hell monsters and so on. I liked it better when they were just Mutant Town's go-to detective agency and Tryp was the weirdest enemy they had.

One thing I did like that was a supernatural thing was how Layla's resurrection powers worked. Since that person would be brought back without a soul, it changed the whole dynamic of someone coming back and everything is just dandy and like it was just back to normal. It showed that there are consequences to messing with the "natural order" and I think her bringing back Strong Guy and his evolution in the short time left in the series was pretty interesting.

[Dupe1979]

One of my favourite takeaways from PAD's X-Factor Investigations run was Jaime's envious/antagonistic relationship with Cyclops. On one hand Jaime would love to genuinely have Scott's ability to lead and his ability to garner the respect of his peers, but it conflicts with Jaime's natural ability to empathize with multiple sides of complex issues which creates for Jaime difficulties with authority figures. The way Jaime interacts with Scott when the Astonishing X-Men came to Mutant town for Quicksilver and when X-Factor visits Utopia in the Nation X one-shot are priceless. I would love to see these two characters through circumstances out of their control be forced to co-exist on a team together, they would have a great buddy-cop odd-couple sort of relationship.

Part of it would probably stem from the fact that unlike 95% of the X-Men whom were students of Scott's or subordinate to him in a chain of command, Jaime never has been. They were both mature teenagers and adults in the same generation and Scott has to deal with Jaime as an equal.