X-Statix

X-Statixare a team ofmutantsuperheroesappearing inAmerican comic bookspublished byMarvel Comics.The team was specifically designed to be media superstars. The team, created byPeter MilliganandMike Allred,first appears inX-Force#116 and originally assumed the monikerX-Force,taking the name of the more traditional superhero team, who appear in #117 (June 2001) claiming to be "the real X-Force".

X-Statix
Group publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	X-Force#116 (July2001)
Created by	Peter Milligan(writer) Mike Allred(artist)
In-story information
Type of organization	Team
Agent(s)	Anarchist Bloke Coach Dead Girl Doop Spike Freeman El Guapo Henrietta Hunter Mysterious Fan Boy Lacuna Orphan/Mr. Sensitive Phat Saint Anna Spike U-Go Girl Venus Dee Milo Vivisector
Roster
See:List of members
X-Statix
Series publication information
Schedule	Monthly
Format	Ongoing series
Genre	Superhero
Publication date	September2002– October2004
Number of issues	26
Creator(s)	Peter Milligan(writer) Mike Allred(artist)
Collected editions
X-Force: Famous, Mutant & Mortal	ISBN0-7851-1023-2
Good Omens	ISBN0-7851-1059-3
Good Guys & Bad Guys	ISBN0-7851-1139-5
Back From the Dead	ISBN0-7851-1140-9
X-Statix vs. The Avengers	ISBN0-7851-1537-4
X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl	ISBN0-7851-2031-9

Publication history

In 2001, theX-Menfamily of titles were being revamped by the newly appointedMarvel Comicseditor-in-chiefJoe Quesada.The aim was to make the titles more critically and commercially successful. FormerVertigoeditorAxel Alonsohired writerPeter Milligan,best known for hissurreal,post-modernistcomics such asRogan GoshandShade, the Changing Man,andMadmanartistMike Allred,as the new creative team forX-Force,starting with issue #116. Prior to Milligan and Allred's first issue,X-Forcesold well,but had not been the critical success Quesada wanted.

Milligan and Allred completely revamped the series, designing a team more akin topopstarsorreality TVcontestants than the gritty, violent paramilitary group originally portrayed in the series. The title was laced with Milligan'ssatiricaltake on the superhero team as well as generalcynicismtoward the entire genre. Milligan wrote that he saw the characters'super powersas "vehicles for exploring our celebrity and fame-obsessed society."

"My mutants all have agents, negotiate fees for image rights, open megastores and live the dream. People die in my comic. We even have a character called Dead Girl."

Milligan and Allred would regularly play with killing off the title characters: In their first issue, they wiped out the entire team, with only two exceptions. This dramatic revision of the series was not universally accepted. Many readers wanted "their" X-Force back, a complaint Milligan laterparodiedin the pages of the title.Alonso described the series as "a hostile takeover of the X-Men paradigm."However, the title was receiving mainstream media coverage in titles likeRolling Stone.

X-Force#116 was the first Marvel Comics title sinceThe Amazing Spider-Man#96–98 in 1971 to not have theComics Code Authority(CCA) approval seal, due to the violence depicted in the issue. The CCA, which governed the content of American comic books, rejected the issue, requiring that changes be made. Instead, Marvel simply stopped submitting comics to the CCA.

X-Forcewas canceled with issue #129 in 2002 and renamedX-Statix;it restarted with a new issue #1.X-Statixcarried on the same themes asX-Force,but with an increasingly satirical tone. Milligan planned to deployPrincess Dianaas a character in a story-arc beginning inX-Statix#13: she was slated to return from the dead as a mutant superhero. However, when news of this leaked out to the media, a series of objections followed, most notably from the Britishtabloid newspaperThe Daily Mail.A spokesperson for theBritish royal familycalled the planned story "appalling."Milligan responded to the controversy, writing in the British daily newspaperThe Guardianthat Diana fit in well with X-Statix as someone "famous for being famous" and that he would like to write a story whereDavid Beckhamjoined the team, if he could convince Marvel to let him.On July 10, 2003, Marvel announced that they would remove Princess Diana from the story, replacing her with a fictional pop star named Henrietta Hunter.

Although sales of the title during this time were moderate, they soon began to decline drastically. After a story-arc that pitted X-Statix against TheAvengers,low sales prompted the title's cancellation with issue #26, published in 2004. In the last issue Milligan and Allred killed off the entire team, serving up one last parody of the superhero genre, while tying up the remaining plot threads.

In 2006, Marvel Comics published the five-issue miniseriesX-Statix Presents: Dead Girl,which featured Dead Girl teaming up withDoctor Strangeto combat a group of villains who have returned from the dead. The series is written by Milligan, with covers by Allred. The storyline (which features the returns of the Anarchist, the Orphan, and U-Go Girl) parodies the manner in which creators in the industry handle death in comic books, with popular characters often brought back from the dead.

In 2019,Giant Sized X-Statixwas published and written by Peter Milligan and Mike Allred the original creators of X-Statix. The title showcased a new version of the team consisting of the new U Go-Girl, Doop, Vivisector, Mister Sensitive, The A, and Phatty as well as a new team the X-Cellent with its members being Zeitgeist, Hurt John, Mirror Girl, and Uno and alumni/former members ofX-Forcelike Plazm, the Anarchist, La Nuit, Battering Ram, and Gin Genie. In 2020,The X-Cellentwas announced as a successor toX-Statix.

Members

X-Statix is a team of colorfully dressed and emotionally immature youngmutants.They are assembled and marketed as superstars, first by the mysterious Coach, and later by media mogul Spike Freeman.

Team

Cover ofX-Force#116, by Mike Allred.

• Anarchist / Tike Alicar,the team's self-proclaimed "token"Black Canadian,whoseacidicsweatenables him to fire energy bolts.
• Bloke / Mickey Tork,a mutant with the ability to change the color of his skin, like achameleon.
• Dead Girl / Moonbeam,a mixture ofghostandzombie.Her civilian name has never been fully revealed, but she admitted after some cajoling that her first name is/was "Moonbeam". Dead Girl's mutant gene allows her to return to semi-life after dying; she is also able to becomeintangibleand communicate with other dead people.
• Doop,a green, floating spheroid creature of unknown origin, who speaks in a "language" all his own (represented in text by a specialfont), and serves as the team'scameraman.
• Katie Sawyer / U-Go Girl II / Gone Gal,daughter of U-Go Girl and has the power of teleportation.
• El Guapo / Roberto "Robbie" Rodriguez,a sexy male mutant with a sentient flying skateboard.
• Henrietta Hunter,a female pop star who is inexplicably reanimated with enhanced physical abilities and empathy (This character was originally written asDiana, Princess of Wales,but Marvel decided to rewrite her when news of this plan caused controversy.)
• Mysterious Fan Boy / Arnie Lundberg,the self-proclaimed greatest fan of the X-Statix team. He is placed on the team so that his reality-warping powers and unstable personality can be monitored and controlled.
• Orphan / Mister Sensitive / Guy Smith,the team'sde factoleader, and a mutant with purple skin and twoantennaeprotruding from his forehead. He possesses heightened senses, superhuman speed, and the ability to levitate, and must wear a special suit to protect his highly irritated skin.
• Phat / William Robert Reilly,a gay white man who can harden, soften, and increase the size of any part of his body by expanding hissubcutaneousfat layer.
• Saint Anna,an Irish-Argentinian mutant with the ability to levitate and control the motion of objects as well as physically and mentally heal others.
• The Spike / Darian Elliot,an African American character who is capable of extending thin spikes from his body or launching them as projectiles.
• U-Go Girl / Edith Sawyer,a blue-skinned, redheaded,narcolepticteleporter who was once romantically linked to Zeitgeist and then to Orphan.
• Venus Dee Milo / De Milo,whose body was made entirely of crackling red energy that allowed her to teleport, project concussive blasts of energy, and heal minor wounds.
• Vivisector / Myles Alfred,a bookish, gay scholar who can transform himself into awolf-like creature with enhanced senses, speed, agility, and razor-sharp fangs and claws.

Mentors

• Coach,the manipulative mentor of the team while it was still operating as X-Force. He has only one arm and red eyes, hence nickname "The Arm".Coach has the second X-Force team eradicated in order to start a new one.
• Spike Freeman,an amoral, 34 year old thrill-seeking billionaire/trillionaire, he assists the team by auditioning new members, and by managing its public relations.

Allies

• Lacuna / Woodstock Schumaker,a young girl named Woodstock who seeks to join the team, she has the power of time manipulation.
• Professor X,the mentor of the X-Men who assists X-Statix on some occasions. He constructs special suits to accommodate Orphan and Venus Dee Milo's mutations.
• Wolverine,an old friend of Doop's who helps Orphan take down Coach and his back-up team.
• O-Force,a mutant superhero team. Consisting of Overkill, Obituary, Ocean, Ocelot, Ooze and Orbit. Candidates include Ozone, Orchid, Optoman, Oink, Oracle and Orifice.

X-Force

In Milligan and Allred's first issue ofX-Force,nearly the entire team is killed off in an incident called the Boyz R Us Massacre. This precursory team, of which only U-Go Girl, Doop, and Anarchist survive, also included:

• Battering Ram,who has superhuman strength and durability as well as a thick skull which sported two ram-like horns and purple skin.
• Gin Genie / Beckah Parker,who can directseismicenergy from her body if she had consumed alcohol.
• La Nuit,aFrenchmanwho can generate a cloak of dark energy around him that disperses light and controls objects.
• Plazm,a living, lighter-than-air, liquid man who can control metabolic functions upon contact with another or through a spray from his hands.
• Sluk / Byron Spencer,who has a face composed of tentacles.
• Zeitgeist / Axel Cluney,the team leader, who can vomit acidic ooze from his mouth. He conspires with Coach to have his teammates killed, but is caught in the crossfire and killed as well. He previously had aone-night standwith U-Go Girl.

X-Cellent

• Rosa Lemper,East Germanmutant made of concrete.
• Jenny Spiegel / The Mirror Girl,a blue skinned mutant.
• Whoosh / Billy McMullen,teleporter but killed by Zeitgeist.
• Fluff,capable of creating clouds of chest hair. Killed by Zeitgeist.
• Hurt John,able to read people's worst fears.
• Uno,giant eyeball capable of blasts.
• Toodle Pip / Artemis Boleynblogger/teleporter, forced by Zeitgeist to join after killing Whoosh.
• Joe Bomb,explosion creating mutant, died by his own power.

Collected editions

X-Statix's appearances have been collected into the followingtrade paperbacks:

• X-Force:Famous, Mutant & Mortal(hardcover, 288 pages, July 2003,ISBN0-7851-1023-2) collects:
  • Volume 1: New Beginnings(collectsX-Force#116–120, 128 pages, November 2001,ISBN0-7851-0819-X)
  • Volume 2: Final Chapter(collectsX-Force#121–129, 224 pages, November 2002,ISBN0-7851-1088-7)
• X-Statix:
  • Volume 1: Good Omens(collectsX-Statix#1–5, Marvel, 2002,ISBN0-7851-1059-3)
  • Volume 2: Good Guys & Bad Guys(collectsX-Statix#6–10,Wolverine/Doop#1–2 andX-Men Unlimited#41, Marvel, 2003,ISBN0-7851-1139-5)
  • Volume 3: Back From the Dead(collectsX-Statix#11–18, Marvel, 2004,ISBN0-7851-1140-9)
  • Volume 4: X-Statix vs. The Avengers(collectsX-Statix#19–26, Marvel, 2004,ISBN0-7851-1537-4)
• X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl(collects 5-issue limited series, Marvel, 2006,ISBN0-7851-2031-9)

The entire run ofX-Statixis collected in a hardcoverMarvel Omnibus,which collects:X-Force#116–129;Brotherhood#9;X-Statix#1–26;Dead Girl#1–5;Wolverine/Doop#1–2; and material fromX-Men Unlimited#41;I ♥ Marvel: My Mutant HeartandNation X#4. (Marvel, 2011,ISBN0-7851-5844-8)

Reception

Despite receiving condemnation from the British royal family,X-Statixreceived critical acclaim, if not high popularity among readers.In namingX-Statixas one of "5 Marvel Properties That, Even After ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ Are Still Too Weird for the Big Screen",IndieWirewrote thatX-Statix"viciously deconstructed every phony bit of comic-book artifice", put "fame-whoring media culture on trial", and confronted issues of race, class, and sexuality.IGN wrote that the frequency with which characters were killed off "lent the book an air of danger and unpredictability rare to mainstream superhero titles."In 2012,Entertainment WeeklyincludedX-Statixin a list of "15 Comic Books We Want to See as Movies", saying that the work "has never looked more timely."Previously, in 2003, the magazine had given the series an A rating, calling it a "razor-sharp media critique with hyperbolic dialogue."Fumettologicapraised the subtlety of themetatextualityin its satire, mentioning the character Anarchist's fear that people won't support adding a second African American to the team.

In other media

• Phat appears inX-Men: The Last Stand,portrayed by Via Saleaumua in his "large mode" and Richard Yee in his "small mode". This version is a member of theOmegas,who join theBrotherhood of Mutantsin opposing amutantcure, only to be killed byIceman.Furthermore, he is naturally large and has the ability to shrink in size.
• Zeitgeist appears inDeadpool 2,portrayed byBill Skarsgård.This version is a member ofX-Forcewho is killed on his first mission after crosswinds blow him into a woodchipper.

External links

• X-Statixat the Comic Book DB (archived fromthe original)
• The X-Titles revampas discussed inThe Comics JournalNo. 262