Everyone and their mom has been talking about the new Marvel Comics online initiative and how it will and won’t change the industry forever. There’s a lot of interesting discussion out there right now, but you don’t really give a shit about that. You want to know if there are any comics on the site that are worth your 10 ( or 5 ) dollars this month.
The answer is an incredible yes. Among the 2500 and growing digital books, there is a bunch of stuff worth more than 10 dollars, and Marvel’s online only solution may be the only way to read them a chunk of them.
This week, I want to spotlight one of my most beloved series, Peter Milligan and Mike Allred’s X-Statix. The oft-ignored sister book to Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, was a child of the Jemas Marvel Era where a thousand ideas were flung at a wall until something stuck. This book ended up being one of the best example of why people still look to that era with fondness.
The premise is pure Milligan. The X-Statix team is made of mutants who complete dangerous missions that are broadcast to viewers on PPV. They spend their downtime like rock stars knowing that their next mission could be their last. Milligan uses this backdrop to discuss race, sex, politics, and the way celebrity effects culture in the united states. In between these heavy topics are some insanely fun stories involving a mutant princess di, Professor X’s designer sex suits and one of the greatest superhero fanboy fight of all time.
Helping Milligan in this manic combination of the wacky and the incredibly serious is Mike “Doc” Allred. Allred’s style can be described as pop gory comics. Characters meet their ends in horrific ways and Allred does a great job of not only rendering the team member’s death but also of the gruesome way they kill their opponents. The fill in artists throughout the series have similar styles that mesh well enough with Allred’s art that you don’t lose anything by the switch and Laura Allred coloring the entire ensemble helps.
Quality : One of the best books Marvel has done in the last 5 years. X-Statix vs. The Avengers, the final story arc to the series, is one of the funniest things I have read. The Iron Man vs. Orphan/ Mr. Sensitive is in my top 10 fights ever. The juxtaposition of the traditional superheroic Avengers and the fame obsessed X-Statix works in a way that takes away from neither and adds to both. In the preceding and slightly less exciting arcs, Milligan juggles tons of characters, giving each of them their own voices and personality. You get to know them well and do miss them when a character does meet their demise.
Ease of accessing offline : It is pretty difficult to find a complete run in single issues due to a low print run. Most of the trades however are out of print and scarce. I can’t fathom someone finding all 4 trades easily or cheaply.I’ve seen the third one go for more than 60.
Value of your 10 or 5 bucks : 26 rocking issues, nearly impossible to find any where else? This is definitely worth 10 bucks.
You can view it online only here.