We're so ugly, even the Morlocks don't want us! And we're contaminated...dying...only...we wanted to make our deaths count for something! 
Appearing in "Fall Out!"
Featured Characters:
- X-Factor/X-Terminators (First appearance as X-Terminators)
Supporting Characters:
- Vera Cantor
- Rusty Collins
- Cameron Hodge
- Artie Maddicks
- Skids (Sally Blevins) (First appearance)
- Patricia "Trish" Tilby (First appearance)
Adversaries:
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Marvel Universe
- United States of America
- San Diego, California
- San Diego International Airport
- New Jersey
- New York City, New York
- San Diego, California
- United States of America
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Fall Out!"
With their mutant hunter uniforms shredded in battle, X-Factor sneaks into a San Diego hangar to get their plane. Playing on a television is an interview with Tower in which he notes how the team and X-Factor mutant hunters tend to show up together. As the team opens their plane’s access hatch, Cyclops accidentally calls Marvel Girl by his wife’s name, fueling her suspicions. Hours later, X-Factor returns to Manhattan and finds a crowd of protesters gathered outside their headquarters. Beast spots his girlfriend Vera talking to reporter Trish Tilby and hurries Vera inside with the team. In a New Jersey landfill, mutants Bulk and Glow Worm scavenge for supplies until some mutant haters shoot at them. Glow Worm fends their assailants off with a blast of energy, and the pair flee into a sewer tunnel. Dying of radiation poisoning, both want their deaths to mean something. Glow Worm sees an X-Factor flyer and gets an idea. Back at the X-Factor Complex, Cyclops again fails to locate his wife while Marvel Girl figures out he is married during a training session with the rest of the team and storms out. Beneath the city, Bulk and Glow Worm try to enter the tunnels inhabited by the mutant Morlocks, but a force-field wielding girl named Skids turns them away. Later, Artie Maddicks warns X-Factor that Bulk and Glow Worm are terrorizing the protesters outside the building. The team debates how to intervene without blowing their cover as mutant hunters until Angel gets an idea. Cyclops, Beast, and Iceman exit through the sewers and appear to join Bulk and Glow Worm, loudly threatening X-Factor for the media cameras. Reporter Trish Tilby overhears and dubs them the “X-Terminators”. When Glow Worm reveals he and Bulk are radioactive, Iceman uses his powers to isolate them from the crowd. Angel, Marvel Girl, Vera, Rusty Collins, and Cameron Hodge come outside in mutant hunter uniforms and pretend to attack. Cyclops’s group feigns defeat, flees the scene with Bulk and Glow Worm, and escorts the pair back into the sewers. After returning to X-Factor headquarters, Cyclops congratulates Angel and Marvel Girl on their teamwork, but she angrily tells him they need to talk.
Notes
- This issue is reprinted in:
- Essential X-Factor vol. 1 trade paperback (2006);
- X-Factor Epic Collection vol. 1: Genesis and Apocalypse trade paperback (2017);
- X-Factor: The Original X-Men hardcover (2024);
- X-Men: Mutant Massacre Prelude hardcover (2024).
Trivia
- Up until this point, X-Factor referred to themselves as "X-Men" when operating in the uniforms when they were openly using their mutant powers. It is in this issue they begin to be referred to officially as the "X-Terminators" when they are overheard by Trish Tilby chanting "X-Terminate X-Factor!"
See Also
Recommended Reading
Links and References
- X-Factor at Wikipedia
- X-Factor at Marvel Subscriptions
- X-Factor series index at Comicbookdb.com
- X-Factor series index at Uncanny X-Men.net
- X-Factor series index at the Grand Comics Database Project
- The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators - accessed on 09/12/2010