X-FACTOR #77-78 (1992)

Issue #77 opens in a clinic, where doctors have isolated the “mutant gene” and test pregnant mothers for it, offering them abortions to prevent the spread of mutant children.

This story is woven in with Mister Sinister’s nasty boys fighting the X-Factor team.  We learn that Sinister’s Boys and Stryfe’s Mutant Liberation Force have teamed up against the persecution and imprisonment of mutants, which forms a nice parallel to the abortion story.

Perhaps in recognition of the growingly unwieldy number of mutant teams in the Marvel Universe, MLF is confused and thinks X-Factor is X-Force with a new lineup (when, in actuality, X-Force emerged–at least in part–from young mutants who were part of X-Factor).

The two stories converge when X-Factor is tasked by their government handler, Valerie Cooper, to protect the clinic (I don’t really understand why they accept this mission), and MLF tries to blow it up.

One (among several) funny scene: While escaping, Reaper of the MLF is told to “shake a leg” and jump through the portal, which then closes on–and cuts off–his leg.

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