X-Statix

X-Statix
Group publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	X-Force #116 (July 2001)
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	September 2002 – October 2004
Number of issues	26
Creator(s)	Peter Milligan (writer) Mike Allred (artist)
Collected editions
X-Force: Famous, Mutant & Mortal	ISBN 0-7851-1023-2
Good Omens	ISBN 0-7851-1059-3
Good Guys & Bad Guys	ISBN 0-7851-1139-5
Back From the Dead	ISBN 0-7851-1140-9
X-Statix vs. The Avengers	ISBN 0-7851-1537-4
X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl	ISBN 0-7851-2031-9

X-Statix are a team of mutant superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The team was specifically designed to be media superstars. The team, created by Peter Milligan and Mike Allred, first appears in X-Force #116 and originally assumed the moniker X-Force, taking the name of the more traditional superhero team, who appear in #117 (June 2001) claiming to be "the real X-Force".

Publication history

In 2001, the X-Men family of titles were being revamped by the newly appointed Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada. The aim was to make the titles more critically and commercially successful. Former Vertigo editor Axel Alonso hired writer Peter Milligan, best known for his surreal, post-modernist comics such as Rogan Gosh and Shade, the Changing Man, and Madman artist Mike Allred, as the new creative team for X-Force, starting with issue #116. Prior to Milligan and Allred's first issue, X-Force sold well, but had not been the critical success Quesada wanted.

Milligan and Allred completely revamped the series, designing a team more akin to popstars or reality TV contestants than the gritty, violent paramilitary group originally portrayed in the series. The title was laced with Milligan's satirical take on the superhero team as well as general cynicism toward the entire genre. Milligan wrote that he saw the characters' super powers as "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 later parodied in 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 like Rolling Stone.

X-Force #116 was the first Marvel Comics title since The Amazing Spider-Man #96–98 in 1971 to not have the Comics 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-Force was canceled with issue #129 in 2002 and renamed X-Statix; it restarted with a new issue #1. X-Statix carried on the same themes as X-Force, but with an increasingly satirical tone. Milligan planned to deploy Princess Diana as a character in a story-arc beginning in X-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 British tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail. A spokesperson for the British royal family called the planned story "appalling." Milligan responded to the controversy, writing in the British daily newspaper