I don't understand Marvel's publishing strategy sometimes. 

Over the last couple of years, they've started plugging the gaps in late-running series by running spin-off one-shots, instead of the more traditional fill-in issues.  This makes some sense; it's essentially a fill-in issue under another name, but it avoids the awkwardness of splicing stories into the middle of the regular creative team's storylines.

But now we have X-Factor: The Quick and the Dead.  This isn't a fill-in issue; it's by regular X-Factor writer Peter David.  Granted, X-Factor aren't in it, but it does star Quicksilver, who's in the regular cast.  And, crucially, this is a major turning point in Quicksilver's storyline. 

To all intents and purposes, this is an issue of X-Factor.  But for some inexplicable reason, Marvel have chosen to label it as a one-shot, which traditionally results in lower sales.  I don't understand that decision at all.

Anyway, this is a story about Quicksilver hitting rock bottom after years of misery, and finally turning things around.  To go much further than that, and to talk about the wider implications, I'm going to have to spoil the plot, so don't say I didn't warn you.

The first half of the story is Quicksilver lingering in a jail cell and hallucinating about people from his past.  And then, when he spots a murder in progress through the cell window, and wants to help, his powers suddenly come back.  Most of the rest of issue is Quicksilver racing around celebrating the fact that suddenly, and inexplicably, he's himself again.  It's rather joyful.

This ought to be a pretty big deal for the X-books generally, because this makes Quicksilver the first mutant to spontaneously recover from M-Day.  It's arguably more significant in plot terms than the baby from "Messiah Complex."  But this issue ignores all that in favour of playing up the significance to Quicksilver's personal story arc.  And even though the M-Day storyline has tended to be meandering and directionless, Peter David and Pablo Raimondi really make this scene work, in an "all is right with the world again" way.

Now, with the best will in the world, this story is not a self-contained one-shot.  It's the turning point in a wider storyline that's been going for years, and dramatically, it depends on those earlier issues to work.  Yes, it's all explained; yes, new readers should be able to follow it without any problems.  But it's still only the middle chapter of a longer story, not a true story in itself.  It ought to be an issue of X-Factor, not a one-shot.

But judging it as an issue of X-Factor, it's a winner.  It's a happy little story that finally starts to lighten things up again.

Rating: A-

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