X-Factor

A comic book published by Marvel Comics until the late 90s. Originally, it stared the five original X-Men pretending to be humans specializing in the neutralization and capture of dangerous mutants. After a while, they dropped the mutant-hunter act and revealed themselves as mutants themselves. They had helped save New York City and were heroes for a few years.

After a while, the five members rejoined the X-Men and the team name passed on to a new group -- Havok, Polaris, Multiple Man, Quicksilver, Wolfsbane, and Strong Guy -- who were employed by the United States Government to protect the nation and generally be poster boys for mutants everywhere. Peter David created and wrote this team for a few years, doing a spectacular job until he got fed up with the constant deluge of editorially-imposed crossovers and left the book. The title went downhill from there, finally passing into Marvel limbo while Havok was transported to an alternate universe as "Mutant X". The storywriting still hasn't improved.

The Kubicki Ex-Factor is such a cool bass. I've wanted one of these things ever since I saw Stu Hamm playing it with Satriani. They are pretty nice basses for funk, rock, and even metal. They are nice for slapping, tapping, and just about anything you wanna do on it. The Ex-Factor has a drop D tuner which gives you two extra frets, a D# and an E, and you don't have to do any transposing because the E string extends to 36 inches as opposed to the other string which are 32 or so. The tuners are also at the bridge, as opposed to the headstock which makes for a more balanced bass. Because there are no tuners at the headstock to counteract the weight of the vibrating strings, Phil Kubicki used a 44 laminate neck for support. This bass also comes in fretless, and with tuners on the headstock.

In sport, there are many ingredients to success.

There is natural talent, good technique, physiological fitness, and the right equipment. The ineffable, unquantifiable quantity is X-factor. X-factor is a psychological intensity, an edge that propels one athlete ahead of five equally trained, equally talented competitors in the final push to the line.