Doctor Val Cooper used to have an important job in the government, which made her take some unpopular steps in the past. As she was friend of Raven Darkholme (or so did she think ...), she asked her to introduce Forge, and so, told Gyrich about one of his devices, a gun capable of stealing the powers from a mutant. She also supported his decision of using the gun against Rogue (although as it still hadn't been tried, it could result in the death of the girl), but the plot failed and instead it was Storm who lost her powers (see her file for the whole story). Val began to change her mind after being rescued from the space ghosts (typical enemies of ROM) by Rogue, who was looking for answers, and so, she supported the idea of sending help to the mutants trapped in New York while Kulan Gath had it enchanted, but still continued being a problem to the X Men (although thinking for herself she was serving her country) specially when she suggested recruiting the second Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and converting it into the Liberty Force.

Later, when X Factor became a government force, she was chosen to be the administrative chief (the leader would be Havok) and earned the trust of the members, even helping them in some tasks as a member of the team, revealing to be as good with guns as with bureaucracy. Unfortunately, the team discovered a link between her and a new project to build sentinels, and blamed her for the situation, leaving the group in the hands of Forge, but looking for their interest from the shadows.