The X-Cellent vol. 1: New Blood, New World

The run of writer Peter Milligan and artist Michael Allred on “X-Force” and later “X-Statix” is something that shouldn’t have worked as well as it did.  Taking a hard swerve from the paramilitary mutant action of the former title and turning it into a satire of early 00’s celebrity should’ve been a huge turn-off to Marvel readers of the era.  To everyone’s surprise, however, the series turned out to be major critical and commercial successes that established the creators as bankable talents at the publisher.  Well, Allred, at least.  Milligan’s subsequent work at Marvel has been as erratic in quality as his overall track record would indicate.

Now the two are back with “The X-Cellent,” a proper follow-up to “X-Statix” and further evidence of a stealth line of retro comics at Marvel where creators revisit their most notable runs and the characters associated with them.  I’d tell you what it’s about… if doing so didn’t spoil the appearance of a new member who is also the relative of an old character, and the return of another who was long thought dead.  It’s the return of this character that drives the series as their megalomaniacal tendencies has led them to form a new team, the titular X-Cellent, in the hopes of sticking it to his successors.  As well as turning themselves into a living god, but sticking it to X-Statix is also a plus.

I doubt it’ll surprise anyone to hear that Allred effortlessly slips back into these characters and world with the same off-kilter style and energy that he brings to all of his work.  The big question is whether or not Milligan has shown up firing on all cylinders, and the indication is that most of them are.  His arch, deadpan sensibilities are fully intact and still pretty funny to behold after all these years.  The digs at modern-day celebrity do feel a bit formulaic, but the struggles of the characters on both sides of the conflict – the line between hero and villain has always been kind of blurry in every “X-Statix” story – are involving enough to make up for that.  Vol. 1 may end on a cliffhanger, but as someone who liked this volume I’m glad to know that the series’ second half will begin serialization this March.