Celebrity posers, a famous mortality rate, and mutant satire: X-Statix, by Milligan and Allred

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Media manipulation, morally ambiguous celebrities, and white-hot death: when Brit Peter Milligan, who first followed Alan Moore on UK's Marvel Man, and later wrote challenging comics like Shade, The Changing Man, teamed up with day-glo retro indie artists Mike and Laura Allred to create a new X-Force title, they merged marketing cynicism into a story about a group of media-approved superheroes. I reviewed this on Goodreads, after devouring nearly the entire forty issue run in two days. Funny follow-up to Shakespearean plays, but obviously, I enjoyed it.
They're naked for religious reasons. I'll leave it to you to check out X-Statix #24. I can say, don't be taken in by Spider-Man's cover appearances: he was routinely abused by the new creators at Marvel who used him for money-making cameos.
X-Statix #1-12 really blew me away, especially U Go Girl's diary as read by Venus. I was reminded how brutal the road to fame was, even before the Telecommunications Act of 1996 led to even more corporate domination. This was the point where I went back to read U-Go Girl's appearances. She was not trying to be likeable, by her own account, but 'adored from afar...maybe envied.' Myles, with his lines inspired by American Lit studies, doesn't stand out much otherwise as The Vivisector (a clawing werewolf), but he and Phat experiment with the idea of letting the media think they're gay, to rather intriguing consequences. He has some nice lines-pretentious, if you will, but insightful. You go from not exactly liking anyone, to admiring some stand each makes. The back-and-forth between The Anarchist (the book begins with his induction) and his new 'blacker, younger, meaner' teammate, The Spike, is uncomfortable and really terrific! Things elevate beyond rhetoric, and in the field, our heroes must put up, or shut up.
If you're on a budget and want to read a sophisticated, often-hilarious, perpetually-awkward X-Tale, the X-Force part of the run is most recommended, and I frankly loved and couldn't predict what characters would do- not even the most-well-intentioned member, Guy Smith, aka Mr. Sensitive/ The Orphan- over the first year of X-Statix. From the Omnibus and Full Collections:
I went back, after reading X-Statix #1-12, to find the issues I'd missed with Paco; satisfying action story, with a good central paradox, about a little boy with a secret which could save the world, at the cost of his own life. It's wild, pairing the Allreds' style, and Darwyn Cooke, to depict morally ambiguous 'heroes.' I tried to read 'Back From the Dead' with its original intent, but I did find it less engaging. X-Statix stands as a precursor to, but not as blackly-cynical as, The Boys by Garth Ennis. In 2001, if all you knew was the X-Men movie, this was a much-more adult take on Marvel's mutants.

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