Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Comic Books >

X-Statix #3

Matthew Fluxington

13:58 / 02.10.02

Well, the new issue is out today (10/2). It's Good Omens part three...here's a preview from Popcultureshock.

I love how Dead Girl always refers to everyone by their full name.

12:37 / 03.10.02

Zombies, baby. Oh yeah. I particularly liked this issue. The idea of Guy going in alone to encounter Arnie (was Miles and Doop making a joke about Arnold Schwarzenegger? I didn't have my Doop translator on me) was the saving grace of the last few issues for me. The shit post-Edie was slightly stale to me and Guy's comments about being judged clicked everything back into place. And the fact that his X-Statix cohorts watched with engaged sadness (the irony of them going about their own independent ways & watching their leader on the boob tube ironic in a way) was incredibly good. Loved this issue.

16:09 / 03.10.02

Yeah. I liked it, too. I always find myself obsessing over all of the symbols (X’s, O’s, stars).

And all of Allred’s details:
- Vivisector’s little drunk bubbles.
- How he draws in the powerlines just like R. Crumb does.
- Orphan w/ the ‘Madman’ logo on his tshirt.
- All the dead ‘Simpsons’ characters in the graveyard.
- Edie’s bedroom eyes in that picture that was sent to Arnie.
- That pleading look on Ocean’s face after Optiman or Omniman or whatever his name is leaves her to die.

- Vivisector and his metanarrative theories. Spending too much time hanging out w/ Umberto Eco, possibly?

- Also, I read through some issues of ‘Bad Company’ last night. There’s lots of crazy shit in that. Zombies, too (freakyscary WAR Zombies, mind you), and in the back there was this story that Milligan did called ‘Freaks’ that has a Doopesque creature called Cuddles (I think)...

The Natural Way

07:43 / 04.10.02

It rocked so hard.....

The sense of confusion - are they aren't they?

And the sustained feeling that Tike really is going doolally.

The Orphan parachuting into action.

Die, Ocean! Die!

yawn - thing's buddy

08:31 / 04.10.02

Tike is one of the best sperhero creations ever!

I love him so much.

And I heavily identify with Mr. Sensitive. He's such a sucker for the ladies, inny? Even the feeble Ocean girl (or whatever) zaps him!

15:45 / 05.10.02

Gosh yes. This is getting really rather good, very glad I started picking it up when I did. The "dangerous thoughts" passage is particularly good, if only for the phrase "multi-sexual cats in Shrodinger's (sic) box". Oh, and Billy-Bob's family living in a trailer in the garden of the house he bought them.

Oh, and Tike's shaggy green jacket is great.

uncle retrospective

16:23 / 05.10.02

I'm glad to see that X-Statix is back up to speed after a bit of flagging, I was loosing interest over the last few issues but this one sparkled. I’m surprised no one has noticed that Arnie is Bart from the Simpsons Halloween ep. Hence the gravestones.

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:47 / 05.10.02

"Gay-slash-not gay".

As if we needed another reason to love Peter Milligan...he respects the slash. This rocks exceptioanlly hard. I look forward to Doop/Vivisector slash, plus the inevitable Tike/Guy.

Incidentally, is anyone surprised a) that Phat now seems to be an actual poor white trash boy, rather than the middle-class kid he seemed to be when he set off and b) that Myles is still alive, given his incredibly shit superhero name, usually a very good sign of impending death?

00:18 / 06.10.02

doopspeak
page 3 "now that's what i call adolescent angst"
page 6 "hey! you pencil necked monkey boy!"

i have to say that i'm all excited about this title again, i don't know how long pretty Allred pix would keep me on if i started to hate it, prolly till a current story arc wraps, but i had hope and finally felt like it's been delivered... man this episode was rad... the "death and anarchy roadshow" reminded me of a side show at Vans Warped tour a lot... was a bit confused at Phat's family being in the trailer and all now, hrm... oh well... and Myles just being drunk all the time this issue was really weird to me, not that it's odd for his character, but it reminded me almost TOO MUCH of myself when things fall apart all i do is get drunk and act to what i think is witty for days on end, much to the annoyence of my friends and roommate... also started to consider X-Force as the comic in the X-Statix comic... does that make sence? i mean in X-Statix and in X-Force they had issues of X-Force, maybe one is the comic they sell in that reality... um i don't know, i've not thought this all the way through

01:49 / 06.10.02

Does anybody know if the X-Force comic has continued past the point of our motley crew's departure into their own title? Are they resurrecting the old trite team of Domino, et al?

09:16 / 06.10.02

nope, x force as a comic is dead...

And the reason you see muliple issues of x-force in solomon's office was because he was a big x-force fan (as was arnie) - as borne out by o-force being a carbon copyof x-force (even down to their first mission being virtually identical)

The marketing division of xstatix is prolly churning out comics and stuff, but at the moment the media seem more interested in the new (ie o-force) rather than those ex-x-force has-beens

yawn - thing's buddy

09:45 / 07.10.02

sa good point about phat's family - he was a middle classer weren't he?

Murray Hamhandler

21:08 / 07.10.02

I wondered about Phat's family, too. Maybe they're trying to live up to the hype, what with the attention directed their way. Live up to public perception, as it were.

07:48 / 08.10.02

Oh, and surely the greatest Allred detail we haven't mentioned yet - Guy parachuting in from the back of a FedEx plane. Well, how would YOU get delivered somewhere privately?

20:40 / 08.10.02

I'd say this was the first great issue of X-Statix. The first two were just ok. This though....

I like the way the team is falling apart (especially since at some point in the future, someone can say "I'm getting the old team back together."). I like the idea of Tyke's freakshow becoming a religion, and his idea that it's superheroes jobs to entertain (it seems so obvious now that he says it).

I love Guy again. Going to the enemy for help, then going it alone. It was great.

The only thing I didn't like was Phat's family. I didn't buy their rationale for staying in the trailer. If they didn't want to take something they hadn't worked for, then why did they move the trailer to the yard of the house they turned down? It was more cutesy than funny....