Notes from the peanut gallery: We had no idea how spoiled we were at the time. There was certainly some instinctual caution poking at us. But Joe Quesada was throwing a party and it was a blast to be invited! We'd heard all the warnings, so when promises for creative freedom and amped up incentives were made, we took it all with a grain of salt. But Joe, Axel, and Marvel at large stood with us, we killed the "Paper Tiger" Comics Code Authority, and we were let loose to run wild. They even let me create the logo (I've created almost all of the logos for my comics). Pals like Dar Cooke and Paul Pope would swing by to join in the fun! And now Peter, Laura, and I are doing it again with THE X-CELLENT 10-issue maxi (The success of DEADPOOL 2 was the main incentive to resurrect Zeitgeist). One of our most fond and significant "pinch me" eras, doing these comics. Important to remember Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely launched NEW X-MEN at the same time, so we were cheering each other on. Of course, they had the greater burden of being the "commercial entity". We were The Ramones waiting for noise complaints to get our power cut off. But to our surprise, enough people sang along to keep us going for a very satisfying run.
The comic that brought me back after I quit big two, and the only series I stuck with all the way through all X Statix and the spinoff minis. Peter Milligan is such an underrated, satisfying writer.
The relaunch, X-Cellent, was great. Milligan hasn't missed a beat with the writing, and the Allreds always deliver. Their X-Force/X-Statix run is an all-time Marvel run.
One of my favorite series. It's so funny! And great art. I've got this in a ginormous hardcover. Good stuff. Also, really looking forward to Ed's 2nd Red Room series & Jim's Hulk Grand Design! Everyone I know has Jim's Hulk books on their list.
The new series is called X-cellent, and the first issue came out just yesterday. I'd recommend looking into Dan Slott and Mike Allred's run on the Silver Silver from a few years ago. Allred's take on the cosmic side of Marvel was wonderfully trippy.
Allred always gives my nice "Jack Kirby" chills. His art is different but at the same time has the same feeling of freshness and excitement and wonder. Especially wonder. You never know what crazy stuff will happen the next page. He excels the King in drawing and creating female characters.
ive been reading comics since i was a kid in 70's. started out w superheroes. went back and read the greats from the 60's. got heavily into clowes, charles burns, yummy fur and all the indie stuff in the 90's. to me, allred's x-force is the absolute pinnacle of comics.
I love this run! It's what really got my younger brother excited about comics too. That Vertigo Visions: The Geeks one shot at Vertigo written by Rachel Pollack was Mike (and Laura) Allred's first credits at DC, although DC must have forgotten since it's not listed on their official site. They asked Mike for sample pages and he told them they'd have to pay him for those and they did. I'm not sure if it was DC or Rachel herself that paid for it, but he was paid for them. If either of you haven't checked it out, it's a great read. Wild stuff. You get a cult of women in the woods covered in blood called the Pack of Menstrual Savages or P.M.S., Dr. Abuse as the villain whose power is basically to gaslight people, and Mike and Laura just go to town drawing off the wall stuff.
I was a lapsed comics fan before randomly picking up X-Force 117 and New X-Men 115 (the second Morrisson issue) from a 7-11 spinner rack and for better or worse both those books got me back into monthly comics. Such a breath of fresh air after checking out in the mid-90s.
Thanks for this! I have been curious about this for a while now, and was trying to decide if I should pull the trigger on the Omnibus. Think I will, based on what I am seeing!
Another new one for me, thanks for the exploration guys, this looks dope and seems fun. Gonna have to get my hands on some of these issues! You guys are the best!
This run got my attention. It was everything I wanted the X titles to be and what Youngblood said it was. I really like Allred's style and I wish it had all been received better. I honestly would love a Youngblood mini series that got this treatment. Like retelling the original run with Allred and writing it this way.
Peter Milligan is coming from the first wave of Uk invasion writters ( with Morrison, Delano and Gaiman) . His first work for Berger was Skreemer and after that, Shade the Changing Man.
Milligan, Morrison, Delano and Gaiman were actually part of the second wave of the UK invasion in 1988/1989. The first wave was in 1982/1983 with Bolland, Gibbons and Moore.
This re-launch (?), plus New X-Men, MK Punisher and to some degree Bruce Jones' run on Hulk made me realise how I'd been a victim of sunk cost fallacy through the latter half of the 90s. Nu-Marvel took some big swings and I think Joss Whedon on Astonishing X-Men was when it all ended.
I dont normally support ripping off ideas from other companies but this book was among many examples of why I thought Marvel should've started an imprint much like DC's Vertigo
This is the only issue I need to complete the run. I guess I’ll just go eBay. Looked at every shop I’ve been in for about a year and haven’t seen a copy for sale. I did, however pick up every issue of X-Statix, and the 5 issue Dead Girl mini, for $1/ea. 116 seems to be the only one with a sale price higher than a buck
Love Mike Allred and Peter Milligan, either separately or together. I've picked just about everything those two have ever done and I'm not stopping now.
I love Milligans X-Force/X-Statix. You gotta love that Allred art. Interesting story too. So different from what marvel was doing. Nice to chuck the comics code in the trash and actually push some boundaries. Laura Allred's colors are always solid as well. I think she often falls into Michael's shadow but they're really both a part of that "Allred look"
an extra layer of fun in these books is the Doop language. It's a replacement alphabet, pretty easy to crack the code... and once you do, there's a whole new layer of dialogue for your re-read
About 2/3 through the video there's a Marvel solicit that shows other weird artist/property pairings. Sean Chen on Wolverine? Charles Adlard on Thunderbolts? Also, I loved the kayfabe of "who is writer X?!" Marvel was putting on for that Brotherhood comic.
There's also a couple of nice Duncan Fegredo issues, too. I read this by literally blind-buying the omnibus collection. It's a phenomenal run, very funny and sardonic about show-business, politics, the military-industrial complex (X-force in this incarnation is sort of like Blackwater by way of reality TV). It gives you the impression, as Ed says, that anyone in the book can get killed at any time, and yet they still manage to pull some genuine pathos out of these often entirely unsympathetic characters and their situations. This one has a decent silent issue--not on the level of the Grant Morrison X-men silent issue, but...it would be really interesting to see you guys dissect the Marvel silent issues from this era, that month where all the books had to have no dialogue? My impression is that most of them are bad comics, but some of them are interesting, and I think the X-men issue really works well, while making fun of the concept at the same time. I think for Milligan and Allred it's an exploration into the non-verbal cameraman character, Doop.
I love the art, character designs, the colors.. everything.. but storywise, this is where the post modernism sorta devoured itself. What a great setup! and then.. that's..thats it?
I love Mike Allred! I haven't tracked with comics for almost 2 decades but, man, does his and Laura's work hold up. It's deceptively simple. Great, solid construction, near perfect layouts, simple colours in interesting schemes. It's almost showing off in how un-show-offy it is! The Allred's were anti 90s comic art for me. Marvel and Image were all about showing off with terrible figure work; polished turds as we'd say. Well, time to get caught up on the Allred's work. Thanks guys!
This era of comics has an ugliness to it that I just don’t like. It reminds me of South Park, or those BattleTanx commercials where they blew up the Snuggle Bear. “What if we took something cute and then FUCKIN’ BLEW IT UP DUDE!” The 1990’s, with all its “extreme” cheesiness, still had a kind of innocence to it. The 2000’s were the “cynical” age.
Notes from the peanut gallery: We had no idea how spoiled we were at the time. There was certainly some instinctual caution poking at us. But Joe Quesada was throwing a party and it was a blast to be invited! We'd heard all the warnings, so when promises for creative freedom and amped up incentives were made, we took it all with a grain of salt. But Joe, Axel, and Marvel at large stood with us, we killed the "Paper Tiger" Comics Code Authority, and we were let loose to run wild. They even let me create the logo (I've created almost all of the logos for my comics). Pals like Dar Cooke and Paul Pope would swing by to join in the fun! And now Peter, Laura, and I are doing it again with THE X-CELLENT 10-issue maxi (The success of DEADPOOL 2 was the main incentive to resurrect Zeitgeist). One of our most fond and significant "pinch me" eras, doing these comics.
Important to remember Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely launched NEW X-MEN at the same time, so we were cheering each other on. Of course, they had the greater burden of being the "commercial entity". We were The Ramones waiting for noise complaints to get our power cut off. But to our surprise, enough people sang along to keep us going for a very satisfying run.
The comic that brought me back after I quit big two, and the only series I stuck with all the way through all X Statix and the spinoff minis. Peter Milligan is such an underrated, satisfying writer.
Mike Allred's style is like a weird combination of Jack Kirby and Gary Panter or Charles Burns.
The relaunch, X-Cellent, was great. Milligan hasn't missed a beat with the writing, and the Allreds always deliver. Their X-Force/X-Statix run is an all-time Marvel run.
I JUST LOVE IT!!!
Paul Pope did an issue of X-Statix, forget the number. That's an issue worth diving into.
I would love to check that out
Love this run. You should look at the Wolverine/Doop mini with Darwyn Cooke on art, that's great.
One of my favorite series. It's so funny!
And great art. I've got this in a ginormous hardcover. Good stuff.
Also, really looking forward to Ed's 2nd Red Room series & Jim's Hulk Grand Design!
Everyone I know has Jim's Hulk books on their list.
The new series is called X-cellent, and the first issue came out just yesterday.
I'd recommend looking into Dan Slott and Mike Allred's run on the Silver Silver from a few years ago. Allred's take on the cosmic side of Marvel was wonderfully trippy.
I wish they'd reprint that omnibus. I love that series. Also Fraction and Allred's FF is some of my favorite books ever
Too bad it's Dan on writing.
I'm in the love it camp. I hadn't bought an X-Men book in literally decades until this came out.
Looks like Cyclops sitting in the X-Force Cafe. Also peep Wolverine checking out the Doop plush.
Allred always gives my nice "Jack Kirby" chills. His art is different but at the same time has the same feeling of freshness and excitement and wonder. Especially wonder. You never know what crazy stuff will happen the next page. He excels the King in drawing and creating female characters.
ive been reading comics since i was a kid in 70's. started out w superheroes. went back and read the greats from the 60's. got heavily into clowes, charles burns, yummy fur and all the indie stuff in the 90's. to me, allred's x-force is the absolute pinnacle of comics.
I love this run! It's what really got my younger brother excited about comics too.
That Vertigo Visions: The Geeks one shot at Vertigo written by Rachel Pollack was Mike (and Laura) Allred's first credits at DC, although DC must have forgotten since it's not listed on their official site. They asked Mike for sample pages and he told them they'd have to pay him for those and they did. I'm not sure if it was DC or Rachel herself that paid for it, but he was paid for them.
If either of you haven't checked it out, it's a great read. Wild stuff. You get a cult of women in the woods covered in blood called the Pack of Menstrual Savages or P.M.S., Dr. Abuse as the villain whose power is basically to gaslight people, and Mike and Laura just go to town drawing off the wall stuff.
Great Allred material! He’s always amazing. Would love to see an Allred shoot interview with Mike or Laura, but most of all both of them.
I was a lapsed comics fan before randomly picking up X-Force 117 and New X-Men 115 (the second Morrisson issue) from a 7-11 spinner rack and for better or worse both those books got me back into monthly comics. Such a breath of fresh air after checking out in the mid-90s.
this was such a revelation to me as a youngster, thank you so much for covering it!
"Hey kids Look, No Code!"
That King logo was from King Features comics that put out Flash Gordon stuff in the 1960s.
This is one of the few omnibus I have. THIS IS AN AWESOME RUN !!!
Thanks for this! I have been curious about this for a while now, and was trying to decide if I should pull the trigger on the Omnibus. Think I will, based on what I am seeing!
Another new one for me, thanks for the exploration guys, this looks dope and seems fun. Gonna have to get my hands on some of these issues!
You guys are the best!
X-Cellent #1 out now.
Oh, and I have the X-STATIX omnibus which contains the X-Force material as well. One of the GREATEST runs.
The new X-Statix, the X-Cellent, just came out yesterday. Peter Milligan + Mike Laura Allred back at it.
Totally loved this run, one of the best from that decade!
Allred interview 😉
These are some great issues but my favourite Allred at Marvel is his Silver Surfer series, some of the best mainstream comics of the last 10 years.
This run got my attention. It was everything I wanted the X titles to be and what Youngblood said it was. I really like Allred's style and I wish it had all been received better. I honestly would love a Youngblood mini series that got this treatment. Like retelling the original run with Allred and writing it this way.
Milligan wrote Bad Company - one of the best 2000Ad stories. I never read an X-Force book before this. Perfection!
1,000,000% love!
Peter Milligan is coming from the first wave of Uk invasion writters ( with Morrison, Delano and Gaiman) . His first work for Berger was Skreemer and after that, Shade the Changing Man.
Milligan, Morrison, Delano and Gaiman were actually part of the second wave of the UK invasion in 1988/1989. The first wave was in 1982/1983 with Bolland, Gibbons and Moore.
The omnibus is excellent. Includes all the mini-series' too so it is the whole package. Cooke did the Wolverine/Doop 2 issue as well
This re-launch (?), plus New X-Men, MK Punisher and to some degree Bruce Jones' run on Hulk made me realise how I'd been a victim of sunk cost fallacy through the latter half of the 90s. Nu-Marvel took some big swings and I think Joss Whedon on Astonishing X-Men was when it all ended.
It’s so crazy that this is the issue you picked today because I just bought this book yesterday
I love this book. It's just something that really went beyond the Satire. UGO Girl is one of Marvel's best.
Ive always wondered if this run influenced the art in invincible. Hope you guys do a shoot with Mike, madman rules.
I dont normally support ripping off ideas from other companies but this book was among many examples of why I thought Marvel should've started an imprint much like DC's Vertigo
Love Mike Allred's work,. I had a Madman T/shirt that I rocked til it was almost transparent!
I absolutely loved this series. X-Statix, New X-Men, and Weapon X brought me back after I took a few years off from the X-books in the late 90s
This is the only issue I need to complete the run. I guess I’ll just go eBay. Looked at every shop I’ve been in for about a year and haven’t seen a copy for sale. I did, however pick up every issue of X-Statix, and the 5 issue Dead Girl mini, for $1/ea. 116 seems to be the only one with a sale price higher than a buck
I was a person who hated on the book in the beginning because of ignorance, but it ended up being my favorite series
The one channel I can watch on a daily basis 🤙
Loved this series. Was on board from the jump. So many fan boys hated it. Hah. There was also the Giant Sized X Statix recently in 2019
just started to read this run!
Love Mike Allred and Peter Milligan, either separately or together. I've picked just about everything those two have ever done and I'm not stopping now.
Yeah, the letter columns in the original issues were wild, peppered with complaints about the new direction. Assume they're reprinted in the omnibus.
I love Milligans X-Force/X-Statix. You gotta love that Allred art. Interesting story too. So different from what marvel was doing. Nice to chuck the comics code in the trash and actually push some boundaries.
Laura Allred's colors are always solid as well. I think she often falls into Michael's shadow but they're really both a part of that "Allred look"
an extra layer of fun in these books is the Doop language. It's a replacement alphabet, pretty easy to crack the code... and once you do, there's a whole new layer of dialogue for your re-read
What a great period of output for Marvel. I was a huge fan of the Milligan/Allred run.
allred, cooke and pope. I was all in for x-statix. One of the few comics I bought around that time period.
Just looked at these books in my collection last night and thought I wonder what the Cartoonist Kayfabe guys think of them.
About 2/3 through the video there's a Marvel solicit that shows other weird artist/property pairings. Sean Chen on Wolverine? Charles Adlard on Thunderbolts? Also, I loved the kayfabe of "who is writer X?!" Marvel was putting on for that Brotherhood comic.
Madman : Atomic Comics #3 needs a review! if only because i need my hand held / walked through all the technique Mike puts on display.
Love allred
the last regular marvel series i bought, monthly :)
I adore this run.
There's also a couple of nice Duncan Fegredo issues, too. I read this by literally blind-buying the omnibus collection. It's a phenomenal run, very funny and sardonic about show-business, politics, the military-industrial complex (X-force in this incarnation is sort of like Blackwater by way of reality TV). It gives you the impression, as Ed says, that anyone in the book can get killed at any time, and yet they still manage to pull some genuine pathos out of these often entirely unsympathetic characters and their situations. This one has a decent silent issue--not on the level of the Grant Morrison X-men silent issue, but...it would be really interesting to see you guys dissect the Marvel silent issues from this era, that month where all the books had to have no dialogue? My impression is that most of them are bad comics, but some of them are interesting, and I think the X-men issue really works well, while making fun of the concept at the same time. I think for Milligan and Allred it's an exploration into the non-verbal cameraman character, Doop.
I didn't realize that this comic was not well-liked. I thought it was fucking great. Obvi - mainstream comic readers just didn't get it.
Jim Woodring did a four issue Jabba the Hutt comic that is hilarious. You should hunt it down and do an episode on those.
The greatest x-force run ever aside from maybe the Remender run. This was WAY more fun tho (and prettier)!
I love the art, character designs, the colors.. everything.. but storywise, this is where the post modernism sorta devoured itself. What a great setup! and then.. that's..thats it?
I love it, but I didn't get into comics until way after the bubble had bust, so I didn't have any history with the previous X-Force.
I love it.
Looooove it.
✌
They should've just launched it as X-Statix instead of trolling the X-Force fans
I love Mike Allred! I haven't tracked with comics for almost 2 decades but, man, does his and Laura's work hold up. It's deceptively simple. Great, solid construction, near perfect layouts, simple colours in interesting schemes. It's almost showing off in how un-show-offy it is! The Allred's were anti 90s comic art for me. Marvel and Image were all about showing off with terrible figure work; polished turds as we'd say.
Well, time to get caught up on the Allred's work. Thanks guys!
This era of comics has an ugliness to it that I just don’t like. It reminds me of South Park, or those BattleTanx commercials where they blew up the Snuggle Bear. “What if we took something cute and then FUCKIN’ BLEW IT UP DUDE!” The 1990’s, with all its “extreme” cheesiness, still had a kind of innocence to it. The 2000’s were the “cynical” age.
I hated this with a passion