I’ve got a little bias and flamebait to get out of the way before I start. Most superhero comics, and in particular Marvel’s mutant books, are trash. They are the worst kind of escapism; power fantasies for the powerless and society substitutes for outcasts.
On the other hand -- damn that Wolverine is cool. It must be the claws.
What I enjoy is when the basic premise of the superhero is taken and twisted, a la Watchmen, The Maxx, or Enigma, also by Milligan, and that’s why I started reading X-Force when he took over.
The new X-Force is unconnected to the old, merely cashing in on the name, and I’m talking about the characters, not the comic. They’re a manufactured super team for the modern era, financed by a venture capitalist with licensing deals at heart, who only get set up against bad guys who lack special interest appeal. One of the team members, named Doop, is a lovably marketable floating green warty blob who films everything so that edited highlights of the team’s adventures can be sold on pay-per-view. They’re not quite the product endorsing heroes of Aberrant or the media darling killers of SLA Industries, but they’re close, and would make useful source material for both.
In the cleverest conceit of this satire, the heroes are all famous because of their spin doctors and agents, not because of their exploits. Characters are alcoholic, gay, black, and none of these things stop them from being adored by the media, just like the real world (or for that matter The Real World). And neither does being a mutant. People love them the way that real fanboys would love The X-Men if they showed up on E! tomorrow. All this adoration and excess inevitably corrupts them. U-Go Girl, the bitchy but cute blue-skinned teleporter, sums up the attitude:
“Money. Sex. Fame. Power. All this . . . isn’t that what it’s all about? The missions we go on . . . they’re just the sideshow we have to deal with . . . so we can have this life!”
This kind of satire wouldn’t work without humour, but Milligan manages that in spades. One of the characters explains away his conflict with the group because that’s what’s supposed to happen; there’s always a rough-around-the-edges-comes-good-in-the-end character or two to spar with the leader between missions. One team member is affluent and white, but the team’s image consultants market him as rough white trash, like Eminem with super powers. Issue 120 has Wolverine on the front cover saying: “Ya know, I’m only doin’ this to boost sales.”
As well as commentary on the nature of heroes and manufactured celebrity, X-Force takes shots at boy bands, the Elian controversy, the papparazi, and fashionable rehab. Very little is sacred, including the sensibilities of the readers, who are subjected to wonderful gore, blood, intestines, and popping eyeballs. The Comics Code Authority Seal is absent, which is apparently a bold step for Marvel. Issues 116 and 118 feature Mature Content warnings, but 119 and 120 are PG labelled. Oddly, $#*% is used in place of swearing, which seems jarring when compared to the otherwise conspicuously edgy nature of the story, priding itself on being very different from what has gone before in the series.
There’s always an amount of resistance to change in comics among the more obsessive fanboys, who love the characters regardless of how shitty everything else is and seem to fear good writing. Here are a few comments from the letters pages.
“I always had the refuge of this comic and could relate to the characters, such as Dani Moonstar or Cannonball. They are like close friends . . .”
“I admit it is harsh of me to judge this comic without having seen it, but from what I’ve read about it so far, I am calling for an all-out boycott! Thank you for your time and concern!”
“You should all be hung for destroying a perfectly good comic book.”
“You could say that I am just a fan that does not like change, but guess what? I don’t care!”
“The only good thing about this issue was the Wolverine cameo.”
To steal a line from Warren Ellis, these people are the enemy. They don’t want good comics, or even half-decent comics. They want fantasies so they don’t have to face up to living with their parents and never getting laid. Ignore their feeble whining. Their opinions are completely without value, and even I could kick their pasty arses.
Returning to the topic at hand, I have to say something about the art, which I’m never any good at. Allred doesn’t draw in any of the usual Marvel styles, and that’s a good thing. He uses elements of photo collage in the background, which is cool. He draws gore well, but not the acts of violence and mayhem that lead up to the gore. There’s a static quality to the action sequences that let them down, and the cover of issue 118 is particularly atrocious.
To conclude: Milligan has added something impressive to his resume, a third reinvention of the genre after turning Shade, The Changing Man into a dissociative psychedelic alien and having comic characters come to life and try to deal with the real world in Enigma. X-Force is just clever, subversive, original, and funny enough to justify buying a monthly from Marvel. I’ve heard they’re getting their arses into gear with trade paperback collections on some titles, but I’ll believe that when I see it.
And damn that Doop is cool. It must be the warts.
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(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)