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Though his name doesn’t appear anywhere in the credits of the book, writer Peter David looms large over X-Factor Epic Collection: Afterlives. Back in 1991, while Chris Claremont and Jim Lee were busy launching the best-selling comic book of all time, David took an eclectic group of also-ran, never-were, and cast-off mutants–Havok and Polaris from the X-Men, former New Mutant Wolfsbane, former Fantastic Four villain and Moira MacTaggert lab assistant Jamie Madrox the Multiple Man and, uh, Lila Cheney’s bodyguard, Guido Carosella as the on-the-nose Strong Guy–and launched the “all new, all different” X-Factor in which the mutant heroes became agents of the US government.

It was a series with its tongue planted firmly in cheek, playing to David’s predilection for puns and off-beat pop culture references. Paired with the unique and stylistic pencils of Larry Stroman (inked by the always-steady Al Milgrom), the “ANAD X-Factor” played up its differences from the rest of the line. At a time when future Image Comics co-founders Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Rob Liefeld and Marc Silvestri were breaking sales records with high-octane action-adventure stories, the David/Stroman X-Factor’s more lighthearted, humorand-character-first approach to storytelling offered, like the whimsical and fantastical stories of Alan Davis’ contemporary Excalibur run, an alternative to the sturm-und-drang that characterized the other X-books.

Peter David’s run lasted until X-Factor #89, when he left the book mid-story over the need to interrupt his storyline for a crossover (1993’s “X-Cutioner’s Song”). After a few fill-in issues by Scott Lobdell, writer J.M DeMatteis took over as the new X-Factor writer with issue #93. Like Peter David, DeMatteis is a writer known for centering the characters in his stories, and building out stories from their various interactions with one another. But where David’s point of entry into that style was often humor, DeMatteis is more psychologically driven, striving to get inside character’s heads and deconstruct them for readers. Suitably, the signature storyline of his tenure on X-Factor features Haven, a super-powered New Age healer who wants to save humanity by purging the planet of 90% of its population.

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[cover by Russell Dauterman and Matthew Wilson]

Spoilers abound.

Despite the horrendous torment Magneto is subjected to on this issue’s typically beautiful Dauterman cover, Mags actually has a much more sublime showing in the Circle Perilous; Tarn never even had a chance—fortunately for everyone. But A+ for misdirection!

And A+ for content! X-Men: Red remains the top Krakoa title alongside Immortal X-Men, which is maybe unfortunate in showing how lacking the other titles are right now, except for New Mutants and Sabretooth, which are both doing deep work on the periphery of the overall Krakoan narrative (a good place to be when there’s at least two core books carrying this unwieldy era forward).

Perceptive readers will be quick to realize that this issue’s title, “Loss,” refers most concretely to the Seat of Loss, which has Tarn occupied for who knows how long, on Arakko’s Great Ring. It forms a triumvirate with the Seats of Victory and Stalemate and, also according to S.W.O.R.D. #8, its occupant is “consulted in dark times of humiliation and pain, when the world has fallen.”

In other words, it’s absolutely ideal for the Fisher King’s new glum buddy, Max.

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