After their huge time-traveling story with the big reveals about Layla Miller, the core group return to New York and their original series numbering. (Note: I’m keeping this series tagged as the one that started in 2006 because it’s just too hard to keep re-tagging series with all these various number changes.)
They throw up their “X-Factor Investigations” shingle, and are hired by Franklin and Valeria Richards to find their mother because The Invisible Woman has Vanished!
ScreenshotTheir first stop is the Baxter Building, where Reed Richards denies that his wife is missing and tells the investigators to leave, which leads to Thing vs Guido-and-Shatterstar fight because superheroes can never talk stuff out. Fun to read though. The fight ends when Shatterstar throws Thing off the roof.
While they’re fighting, Madrox finds a stray bobby-pin. Longshot does a psychic read on the object, which offers him a vision not of Susan but of Layla–in Latveria.
Layla reveals that Doctor Doom took Susan Richards, so the gang goes to Latveria to recover her–and Thing goes along because he still wants to fight.
Like I said, fun to read.
The mystery deepens as clues lead them to Reed Richards, who has been buried alive by an alternate-reality Doctor Doom who brain-switched with him. The team fights their way through Doombots and find Susan. The three Fantastic Four members and the X-Factor crew then finally track down Doom himself who is with…
ScreenshotLayla. She tells the team that she’s been living there now for a year, advising Doom.
The various turns of the mystery of the missing Susan Richards become clear and the tale ends with Layla and Shatterstar staying behind (due to a twist and trick–it wasn’t Shatterstar’s choice), while Madrox and the others return to New York.
Alongside that story is another: Someone else is missing, too. Valerie Cooper tells Monet that her father (who is a rich dude) has been kidnapped and the terrorists are demanding a trade: His life for Monet. That story will develop next.
Finally, in a back-up story to issue #200, Siryn visits the grave of her father, Banshee, and decides to take on his codename for herself.
English (US) · 