After years of editing them, Louise Simonson turned to writing Marvel’s merry mutants. Her run on X-Factor would bring significant change to the X-Universe, such as the return of the furry Beast (X-Factor #33), the introduction of Archangel (#24), Apocalypse (#5) and his Four Horsemen (#15), The Right (#17), Nanny (#30) and the Orphan-Maker (#31), N'astirh (#32), and plenty more in her 58 issues and two annuals.
dNow, Marvel’s giving her another crack at them, as she will be picking up where she left off with X-Factor Forever, an alternate universe where nothing past Simonson’s last issue of X-Factor has been chronicled yet, until now.
We had the chance recently to catch up with Simonson to talk about the upcoming mini.
With Chris Claremont’s return to the X-Men with X-Men Forever, it was picking up unfinished business, resuming with a storyline he had always intended to write had the situation between him and Bob Harras not deteriorated, forcing Claremont off the book. With your return, do you too feel as if you had unfinished business with these characters?
It had been a looooong time since I’d done X-Factor. And, once I leave a book, I rarely think about what I would have done had I stayed. There’s just no point. So I simply erased the whole thing from my mind and moved on to Superman.
When Mark approached me about doing X-Factor Forever, I knew I had to go back and re-read the old issues. I honestly didn’t know if there was a story left for me to tell. But once I read the old run, it was pretty obvious that, right after Inferno, I had begun to set up a major storyline involving Apocalypse and the Celestials.
That’s the story I’m now telling in the X-Factor Forever miniseries.
Without trying to get into the “who created Cable” discussion, my understanding is that one area both you and Rob Liefeld are in agreement on is that neither of you ever intended Cable to be Nathan Summers, yet that is essentially what happened in the first storyline after your departure. Was this in any way part of the reason you left the series?
Nope. It happened after I was gone. The X-Factor characters were no longer mine to play with. Once I heard about it, I thought it was a pretty cool idea. Solved the baby-being-in-the-way problem very neatly. However, my X-Factor Forever miniseries will take Christopher in a different direction.
In looking back at your run on the series, you had worked hard to show the characters as both completely unique in their abilities yet also still very human, giving Bobby, Hank, and Warren relationships with regular, everyday people. Now, the characters have removed themselves from the society around them, with most living on their own island that isolates and “protects” them from humanity. Do you feel this is a mistake, and what is it about the relationships that your three characters had with average people that added to the characters?
Actually, I’m glad the regular series has moved in that direction since my take on whom the characters are and how they interact with the world around them is so different. Makes “Forever” feel more like an alternate timeline, and that’s a good thing.
The characters I’m doing are publically known mutants, living openly in New York. In fact, it’s hard to miss their big ship looming over lower Manhattan.
Jean, Scott, Warren, Bobby, and Hank are people with unusual abilities. Because of this, many of their experiences have been extraordinary. But their human needs aren’t so different from yours and mine.
I think the contrast between who X-Factor are – and what they are – adds to the dynamic tension of the stories. And I think this is underlined and advanced by their human relationships. I think their interactions with ordinary people help keep them real. It underscores why they do what they do.
When you first introduced Apocalypse back in X-Factor #5, did you always intend him to become the significant player he would be later in the series?
Yep. But a writer can intend lots of things that never actually happen.
Apocalypse has a fun motivation – he doesn’t see himself as a villain but as humanity’s savior. He has a cool power, and neat toys, but Jackson Guice made him look GOOOOOD! And when Walter began to draw the book, he put Apocalypse on steroids!
So I got lucky and Apocalypse caught on, as I hoped me would.
Since I’m playing all the time with other folks’ creations, it’s pretty gratifying to add to the character pool and create a villain that other people want to use.
You collaborated with many high-prolife talents during your first run on the series, such as Art Adams, Whilce Portacio, Paul Smith, and even Rob Liefeld did an issue, but none of the collaborations were as long, and some would say as popular, as the ones you did with your husband. What was it like having Walter pencil your scripts in the same house you were writing them?
Very fun. Walter is the master of dynamic action. His pages just shout power! No wonder his run was popular.
Also it was very convenient, since we were working Marvel-style, but in an odd sort of way. I’d give him a plot. He’d do thumbnails, and I’d script from the thumbnails, which were sort of action scribbles inside rough panels. So it was useful to be able to run down to the studio and ask, “Is that a person or a helicopter?” Because of our proximity we were able to turn in art and script simultaneously, too, which saved time – always at a premium on a monthly book.
