The latest in X: Friends in need are friends indeed

[superboyprime]

From X-Factor #10 and Cable #11:

X-Factor #10...










Cable #11...

Comments

[super_fly]

Perfect opportunity to write "Get in the War Wagon, loser"

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Yeah, that disappointed me, too.

[viridian5]

I was expecting that but no.

[iamrman]

I see baby sacrificing runs in the family.

[dan_ingram]

It's a clone thing, actually ;)

[scorntx]

Stryfe gets it from both sides.
Guy never had a chance.

[donnblake]

Good for Eye-Boy, I guess, but I'm always a little disappointed when someone with a not-particularly combat focused power gets it upgraded to make them another blaster or master martial artist or what have you.

Should I be reading anything into the fact that his tattoos keep changing?

Edit: According to an online Krakoan cipher I found, the tattoos in the close-up where he's folding his hands read, in order, "Aum, Pam, Ram, Rag." I'm not sure what to do with that, unless he's working his way towards "Ray?"

Edit again: With a slightly more compelte alphabet, I think it's Aum, Vam, Ram, Rag. Still no greater insight.

[mindsweeper]

I agree with you. I like the development of Eye Boy from joke to highly useful and powerful in his own lane, being able to see everything.

I don't think he's more interesting with an offensive upgrade.

[zachbeacon]

Yeah, making Eye Boy an investigator was kind of perfect.

Not ... whatever this is.

On the flip side, this killer must be really impressive to have taken out someone with the (nonpowered) combat skills of nearly every mutant and a lot of other notable fighters. Either that or Prodigy got nerfed hard.

[bruinsfan]

Mutants (or superheroes in general) who can point their fingers at something and make a zap are a dime a dozen. Eye Boy's powers were... not exactly unique, but distinctive, apparently far more versatile and refined than others with vision powers, and very useful as an investigator.

[lordultimus]

Did Prodigy really need this hanging over him?

Also, wait, are Daken and Aurora flirting while carrying Prodigy's corpse?

[silverhammerman]

I've seen some Discourse floating around about what happens to Prodigy here (which has of course immediately been twisted into harassment of the writer, leading to a bunch of fandom in-fighting) and while I'm not in a position to offer judgement, I have to admit that this does give me a bit of pause. Having Prodigy be, to be clear, raped and murdered, even if he doesn't remember it happening, is one hell of a choice. Northstar and Aurora getting hornt up over threatening to kill Prodigy's killer? Also a weird look.

Adult Cable is back in Cable though, and they're going for the best of both worlds approach, cool! Still slightly disappointed that no one's ever questioned the underlying ideas of Krakoan resurrection (Cable is pointedly the guy who's Not A Clone! That's part of the whole beef with Stryfe!) but I guess at this point the most we're ever going to see is that Empyre one-shot where the guy meets his own zombie.

[onsokumaru]

So, those are the X-Factor pages that prompted some of the usual toxic fans to insult and threaten Williams on twitter.
The only terrible thing here is that she obviously planed for several character arcs, but had to stuff David's, Eyeboy's and possibly Aurora's in a single issue. To the point that everything is rushed and raise too many question like:
1) "where do Eye Boy's new powers come from"
2) "how could somebody like Prodigy be killed by some serial killer with no special powers or skills"
3) "why did Prodigy believe that he was killed during a attack at Xavier's when it seems from those scans that he was killed after mutants et up in Krakoa"

[donnblake]

Now, while I've expressed my dislike for Eye Boy's power upgrade on aesthetic grounds ahead, I don't have a hard time seeing (a-heh) where it comes from. There's only so much that even a whole bunch of eyeballs can do as passive receptors of light- for something like X-ray vision he's got to be able to send radiation out to have it bounce back to him. Given the range and flexibility of his vision based powers, he can probably do this with a fair amount of precision over a range of frequencies. With comic book physics, he's only a minor power up away from being a blaster.

I have no answers for points 2 and 3. And certainly no one should be threatening Williams on Twitter.

[onsokumaru]

This... makes sense in a Cypher way I guess.
I wish this could have been explored.

[shadowpsykie]

honestly, if it was set up ahead of time that Prodigy was doing this, (setting out on his own crime fighting, or something like this) and made it more a A plot than a rushed B plot, there would be less complaints. on the other hand... The only real issue i see here is that it was rushed, and i don't think it's the writer's fault. i think it's the company's fault for ending the series too soon. you could say that if that was the case, they shouldn't have added the subplot at all, but maybe it was too late to change....