News broke this week from Peter David himself (haven't seen word from Marvel officially yet but the horse's mouth seems good enough for this one) that ALL-NEW X-FACTOR will be cancelled with issue 20. David writes on his blog that, though this was reported by Bleeding Cool, their report was almost entirely inaccurate except for the crucial detail of "this book is being cancelled." I guess Bleeding Cool (a terrible news site that no one should visit or give positive recognition to because it's often just rumor printed as fact) said that the book was cancelled with issue 19 and that it had to do with Quicksilver being brought back to the Avengers. Instead, David says on his blog, it's cancelled with issue 20 simply for poor sales, leading to some observations from David about the way comic sales are calculated, about Gambit's trouble heading up a book, and about how terrible Bleeding Cool is.
This doesn't necessarily come as a surprise but it still elicited a frown from me. I haven't been a huge supporter of this book in the way that I liked David's old X-FACTOR but it's certainly had its moments, showing that David can still craft a good story with compelling characters who have very specific and interesting dynamics. I thought the book tripped over itself occasionally and had the tonal issues of a book that wanted to infuse humor maybe a little too often, sometimes leading to ham-fisted jokes and references. Regardless, it certainly isn't the worst book out there right now, probably not even in the lower ten percent. Unfortunately, "middling with potential" doesn't tend to stick around.
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