The Original 5 X-Men were brought to the present during the Marvel NOW era, allowing both the team to get a look at their modern selves and readers to get a chance to experience the team working together again. But that wasn't the first time the Original 5 were gathered together. In 1986, Marvel got the idea to put the team together on a single roster as a companion title to the X-Men.
This story happened as the anti-mutant sentiment in the world was on the rise, and the original X-Men believed it was their responsibility to help other mutants. The team began posing as the X-Terminators, mutant hunters that would collect the nuisances known as mutants for humanity, while secretly training them on how to use their abilities. This expanded the roster of their team, consisting of both the original team and new heroes as well.
10 Caliban
Caliban joined up with X-Factor not long after the Marauders attacked them. He worked with the team to help them save Rictor, and in the process was welcomed onto the team. He joined the X-Terminators, and would also help fight against the Horsemen in the X-Factor’s first battle against Apocalypse.
However, this didn’t last very long, as Caliban was unable to accept his own weakness and wound up working with Apocalypse in exchange for a power boost.
9 Firefist
Rusty Collins had a tough life, handed off from one relative to another until he wound up working with his Uncle. His uncle’s frustrations with Rusty led to him being placed in the navy, where his powers nearly hurt a young woman when they turned on for the first time.
This led to him being placed in prison for some time, but he was forced to escape after his captives attempted to kill him. X-Factor shut down Rusty to keep him from causing anyone more harm, then invited him to their group where he could learn how to use his powers.
8 Skids
Another mutant introduced in X-Factor, Sally Blevins was a member of the Morlocks originally. She didn’t fit in with the group because of her beauty, but after the Morlocks had to deal with the Marauders, she wound up going with X-Factor along with Rusty, who she developed a crush on.
Initially, she had trouble fitting in, but together both she and Rusty learned how to control their powers and began a budding romance while working with X-Factor.
7 Boom-Boom
Tabitha Smith was a teenaged brat who kept getting into it with her folks because of her power and rebellious nature. Eventually, she tried to join the X-Men, but things never quite lined up for her to become a part of their team.
Instead, she found her way to X-Factor and began receiving training from that team after they helped her take down the Vanisher, who recruited her to his group of thieves.
6 Beast
Hank McCoy attempted to get Warren to continue being a hero alongside Iceman, but when he was unable to convince Warren, he chose to get out of the hero business as well. With that in mind, he began to make attempts to enter the world of medical research.
Unfortunately though, with anti-mutant sentiment on the rise, he was rejected by Harvard Medical School. After this being the fifteenth such rejection, he chose to abandon the world of human science and would go on to become part of X-Factor.
5 Angel
Warren Worthington III was both the first person to choose not to be a hero, and the first person to come back to create X-Factor. After the failure of the Defenders, Warren believed there was no place for him as a superhero. But when Jean Grey was revealed to have actually been alive and it was actually the Phoenix they believed dead, Jean inspired Warren to start X-Factor for the sake of saving mutants from humanity’s mistrust.
He certainly got an update in fashion, but this was the worst decision for him above any other member of the team, as it eventually resulted in him being transformed into Archangel.
4 Cyclops
Scott Summers was probably the one member of the X-Men that shouldn’t have joined X-Factor. His life and role had changed, having left behind the X-Men to marry Madelyne Pryor, with who he would even eventually have a child.
But with mutantkind in trouble, the character couldn’t help but feel the call to return to life as a hero. But it was when he learned that Jean was alive again that he wound up returning, leaving his wife behind to become a superhero again.
3 Iceman
Unlike Hank, Bobby didn’t have nearly as much trouble figuring out a job after he stopped being a hero. He took up a position at an accounting firm where he was an auditor.
Of course, Bobby never wanted to give up on the adventurer’s lifestyle, to begin with, so when he was given a call by Warren he was all too quick to throw his job as an accountant right out the window to become Iceman once again.
2 Jean Grey
Jean Grey is the reason X-Factor ever existed at all. Though she didn’t come up with the name or the funding, it was her idea that the X-Men needed to do something.
The first issue shows her having recently survived the cocoon the Phoenix placed her in to recover, and during that time she spent her time researching what was happening with mutantkind and their mistreatment by humans. Jean Grey’s impassioned speech to the other original X-Men inspired Warren to try and do something to help others for once.
1 Rictor
Rictor, certainly one of the more fashionable heroes given his many costumes, started out serving time with his father thanks to his family’s illegal arms deals. But at a time of unique stress, his abilities developed, showing his ability to cause seismic waves. Rictor’s powers would cause him to get kidnapped by an anti-mutant group, and it was only X-Factor that was able to save him.
After this, Rictor was invited to join the team and was even the first to notice that the X-Factor PR man was actually in charge of the anti-mutant group that kidnapped him, The Right.