X-Factor #7
X-Factor searches for Siryn and gets more than they bargained for in X-Factor #7, by writer Leah Williams, artist David Baldeon, colorist Israel Silva, and letterer Joe Caramagna. Williams and company give readers the solution to Siryn's mystery while doing a lot with the characters in the book, but the book does get a little long-winded in places.
Speed, from the Young Avengers, reunites with Prodigy. He tells him that there's no way he could have died since he was posting pictures of them together that night. Daken and Aurora discuss his abilities and how they work before she asks him to kiss her. Northstar sends Daken out to search for Siryn. Later, he calls the team and tells them what he's found out, but Polaris hangs up on him and gives X-Factor wrong info because of Siryn's hypnotic compulsion. Northstar meets Speed as he's leaving, and Speed fangirls over Northstar's superior Speed and power. The team splits up and asks Siryn's friends on the island about her, but they don't find out much. Siryn confronts Daken and beats on him very hard, while Northstar's husband tells the group about how people in abusive relationships work. Eyeboy tells that Polaris has been lying, and Prestige uses her powers to break Siryn's hold over her. While she's in Polaris's mind, she sees that Morrigan, an Irish death goddess, has taken over Siryn again, and Polaris lets everyone know Daken's real location. Northstar is able to get him before he dies and brings him back to the Boneyard. Daken and Aurora share a romantic moment on his return, but things go very bad later in the night, as both Northstar, Polaris, and Aurora are dead and Siryn is hunting the rest of the team.
This is a good issue, and Williams gets across everything she needs to, and more, but she focuses a lot on dialogue. It's very good dialogue, and it serves the character, but it also slows the comic down immensely. In fact, the character drama is the main focus of the issue, with special attention being paid to Daken and Aurora. There's nothing wrong with this sort of thing; Chris Claremont was a master of this type of soap opera comic writing, but he also served the story's main plot. The main plot in this book doesn't really take up very much page space. Again, this isn't a bad thing, but it makes everything seem pretty easily taken care of.
Daken is one of the more interesting characters in this book. He's always had a rather large chip on his shoulder, something not seen in this book much. He's mouthy, but he's not as angry as he's been. His conversation with Aurora about his powers really illustrates how sad his powers really are- he can smell people's emotions and manipulate them with his pheromones, but he never knows just what they feel the way they do or if anything he's had is genuine. This just adds to the sadness of Daken's life; he's never known just how much the people in his life care about him, and that makes all his abandonment issues that much sadder.
Baldeon's art is at its usual excellence. The best part is the one page of Northstar's husband explaining abuse and Siryn beating on Daken. It's a two-page spread that uses a lot of panels, but the page never feels cluttered, and it looks great. Baldeon captures the emotion and the violence of the scene wonderfully.
X-Factor #7 is a good comic. Williams focuses a lot on the characters, but the issue is very slow-paced. It kind of makes the main plot feel unimportant in a lot of ways, almost like it's just incidental to everything else. The whole Siryn mystery is resolved rather quickly, but the end of the issue cliffhanger does a great job in making it feel more important than the rest of the story does and works very well. Baldeon's art is great, but that's pretty much his default setting at this point. X-Factor #7 works, but it doesn't balance the character drama with the main plot very well and almost fumbles the ball.