Editor's Note: X-Factor #45 arrives in stores tomorrow, June 24.

Plot: Peter David teases about more details about the mysterious Cortex (both in the past and the present), while in the future Madrox, Layla, and Ruby meet a certain Latverian monarch who just happens to roll in post apocalyptic Detroit. Oh – and that last page…

Comments: Hyperbole's a hell of a thing. If you tell someone that Peter David is writing one of the best comics on shelves today, you run the risk of overstating the case. Well, let me try to present the case for why every month I think X-Factor represents one of the best books being written today and why, hopefully you'll be reading it in the comings months.

First, it straddles a fine line between being a mainstream title while existing away from the events of the wider Marvel U. As David writes it, he's telling the stories beneath and behind the stories of the X-Men franchise. The repercussions of M-Day, the mutant child, and the overall implications of the classic "Days of Future Past" storyline are at their core what the book is about right now, but not slavishly so, never really asking the reader to draw on some lost piece of continuity.

I'd also like to note that this book has some of the most well-defined characters among any books on the shelves right now. Some titles fall into the trap of having their characters repeat the same patterns over and over again, with their writers believing that this endless stasis represents fidelity to the character. Instead, these characters in amber remind the reader that they are reading a corporately-owned property instead of a story.

Mr. David doesn't fall into this trap, giving us characters who are flawed, changing, (and sometimes changed), charged, and charming. Look back at Madrox from the beginning of this book and where he is now. Or Rictor for that matter… or Layla Miller (once upon a time singled out as one of the worst elements to come out of House of M). Even an elderly Doctor Doom has a moment of definition at the hands of Mr. David who uses two sequences, one real and one imagined, to establish the essential truth of Victor Von Doom. What he's doing in Detroit is anyone's guess, but I'm sure an answer is forthcoming.

As readers we know what these characters want, but we don't know where they're going. By flinging some into the past and by having others confront the threats of the present, the writer has left us blind but not confused.

As to the villain – he remains, like many of the villains Peter David writes, an enigma from the start. It's in this issue that we learn that he's connected to the goings-on in the future but not to any extent what that connection is exactly. He remains interesting, however, and that's the most important part.

Then there's the last page which – if any of you actually read this book – will be the subject of much discussion. Yes, I think it's the right move for those characters, and yes I like how it's handled. I won't say too much beyond hoping that the characters aren't defined in the future solely by this moment when handled by other writers.

Final Word: Consistently one of the best titles on the shelves, X-Factor - OH MY GOD, YOU NEED TO BE READING THIS BOOK!

If you liked this review, be sure to check out more of the author’s work at Monster In Your Veins

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