X-Statix

X-Statix was the name of a fictional team of mutant superheroes in Marvel Comics, specifically designed to be media superstars. The team, created by Peter Milligan and Mike Allred, first appears in X-Force #116 and originally assumed the moniker X-Force, taking over for the more traditional superhero team after most of them are seemingly killed in an explosion.

In 2001, the X-Men family of titles were being revamped by the newly appointed Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, with the aim to make the titles more critically and commercially successful. Former Vertigo editor Axel Alonso hired writer Peter Milligan, best known for his surreal, post-modernist comics such as Rogan Gosh and Shade, the Changing Man, and Madman artist Mike Allred, as the new creative team for X-Force, starting with issue #116. X-Force prior to Millgan and Allred's first issue sold well but rarely had been the critical success Quesada wanted.

From their first issue of X-Force things were changed right away; gone was the previous team and replacing them were characters more like popstars or reality TV contestants than traditional superheroes. The title was laced with Milligan's satirical take on the superhero team as well as general cynicism toward the entire genre. Milligan and Allred would regularly play with killing off the title characters: In their first issue, they wiped out the entire team with only two exceptions.

The unused cover to X-Statix #15, showing Princess Diana as one of the team members. The cover would later be altered so Henrietta Hunter would take her place. Art by Mike Allred.

This dramatic revision of the series was not universally accepted. Many readers wanted "their" X-Force back, a complaint Milligan later parodied in the pages of the title. However, sales had increased and the title was receiving mainstream media coverage in the likes of Rolling Stone magazine.

X-Force was canceled with issue 129 in 2002 and re-named X-Statix; it restarted with a new issue #1. X-Statix carried on the same themes as X-Force, but with an increasingly satirical tone. Milligan planned to deploy Princess Diana as a character in a story-arc beginning in X-Statix #13: she was slated to return from the dead as a mutant superhero. However, when news of this leaked out to the media, a series of objections followed, most notably from the British tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail. Quesada and Marvel announced that they would alter the character, replacing her with a fictional pop star named Henrietta Hunter.

Although sales of the title peaked during this time, this effect was not to last long. After a story-arc that pitted X-Statix against The Avengers, low sales prompted the title's cancellation with issue #26, published in 2004. In the last issue Milligan and Allred killed off the entire team, serving up one one last parody of the superhero genre, while tying up the remaining plot threads.

Marvel Comics published X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl in 2006. In the 5 issue mini-series, Dead Girl teams with Doctor Strange to combat a group of villains who have returned from the dead. The series is written by Milligan, with covers by Allred. The storyline (which features the return of The Anarchist, The Orphan, and U-Go-Girl) parodies the manner in which creators in the industry handle death in comic books, with popular characters often brought back from the dead.

Detailed roster

The team was a group of colorfully dressed and emotionally immature young mutants put together and marketed to be superstars first by the mysterious Coach and later by media mogul Spike Freeman. Some of the members included:

• Anarchist, the team's self-proclaimed "token" Black Canadian, whose acid-like sweat enabled him to fire acidic energy bolts.
• Bloke, a mutant with the ability to change the color of his skin, like a chameleon; certain color changes would enhance his strength. He revealed himself to be gay shortly before his death, although his first appearance was laden with blatant references to his homosexuality.
• Dead Girl, a literal dead girl who could reform her body and control its parts when dismembered, and could "read" the memories of dead bodies.
• Doop, a green, floating spheroid creature of unknown origins who spoke in a "language" all his own (represented in text by a special font), and who served as X-Force's cameraman. It was hinted many times that he might have been manipulating the team or that he was trying to control them in some clandestine way but nothing was ever resolved or proven.
• El Guapo, a sexy male mutant with a flying skateboard that had a mind of its own.
• Henrietta Hunter, an inexplicably reanimated woman with enhanced physical abilities and empathy. Originally intended to be Princess Diana.
• Mysterious Fan Boy, the self-proclaimed greatest fan of X-Statix, he basically blackmailed his way into gaining team membership. When Orphan had had enough of him, he conscripted long-time ally Lacuna to inject him with a serum that would stop his heart. He had limited reality-warping powers and some of the acts he performed were illusion casting, animating dead bodies, rearranging items on a molecular level, creating explosions, and healing injuries.
• Orphan, aka Mister Sensitive, the team's de facto leader, a suicidal mutant with purple skin and two antennae protruding from his forehead who possessed heightened senses, superhuman speed, and the ability to levitate.
• Phat, an (eventually) openly gay Eminem pastiche who could harden, soften and increase the size of any part of his body by expanding his subcutaneous fat layer.
• Saint Anna, an Irish-Argentinian mutant with the ability to levitate and control the motion of objects as well as physically and mentally heal others.
• Spike, a controversial African American character who made fun of Anarchist for being white inside, even though his skin is black. He is capable of extending thin spikes from his body or launching them as projectiles.
• U-Go Girl, a blue-skinned, redhead, narcoleptic teleporter who was once romantically linked to Zeitgeist and then to Orphan.
• Venus Dee Milo, whose body was made entirely of crackling red energy that allowed her to teleport, project concussive blasts of energy, and heal minor wounds.
• Vivisector, a bookish scholar who could transform himself into a wolf-like creature with enhanced senses, speed, agility, and razor sharp fangs and claws, and who briefly became Phat's lover.

Mentors

• Coach, manipulative mentor of the team when it was still named X-Force. He has only one arm and red eyes. He was once called "The Arm" but it was never fully explained why. He had the second X-Force eradicated to start a new one. He had X-Statix capture a young mutant named Paco Perez to sell to Pharmaceutical companies but Orphan intervened and sent the boy away. He then tried to have Orphan killed but was eventually killed by a gunshot from U-Go Girl.
• Spike Freeman, is an amoral billionaire with an addiction to thrills (he once voluntarily played Russian roulette). He assists the team by auditioning new members and by doing the team's public relations. Orphan kills him after he advocates the murders of innocent people.

Allies

• Lacuna, a young girl named Woodstock who set out to prove that she was worthy of membership into the then X-force by playing pranks on the members with the help of her powers. Even though she was more than capable, Orphan rejected her but on occasion would call upon her for help. When Orphan finally came to her to offer her membership, she declined, preferring instead to take up a spot as a talk show host where she would expose the secrets of the stars. Her powers allow her to walk between the moments of time while everything else remains still.
• Professor X, mentor of the X-Men who assisted X-Statix on certain occasions. He constructed special suits to accommodate Orphan and Venus Dee Milo's mutations.
• Wolverine, an old friend of Doop who aided Orphan in taking down Coach and his back-up team. Wolverine also accompanied Doop in searching for the Pink Mink.

X-Force

In Milligan and Allred's first issue of X-Force, nearly the entire team was killed off in an incident called the Boyz 'R Us massacre. This precursory team, of which only U-Go Girl and Anarchist survived, also included:

• Battering Ram, who had superhuman strength, and durability as well as a thick skull which sported two ram-like horns and purple skin.
• Gin Genie, who could direct seismic energy from her body but only when she had consumed alcohol.
• La Nuit, a Frenchman who could generate a cloak of dark energy around him that would disperse light and control objects.
• Plazm, a living, lighter than air, liquid man who could control metabolic functions upon contact with another or through a spray from his hands.
• Sluk, who has a face composed of tentacles (he was actually dead before the Milligan run even began, but is seen on a videotape).
• Zeitgeist, the team leader who could vomit acidic ooze from his mouth. He conspired with Coach to have his teammates killed in the Boys R Us massacre, but he was caught in the crossfire and killed as well. He previously had a one-night stand with U-Go Girl.

Trade paperbacks

• X-Force vol. 1: New Beginnings (Marvel, 2001; issues #116-120)
• X-Force vol. 2: The Final Chapter (Marvel, 2002; issues #121-129)
• X-Statix vol. 1: Good Omens (Marvel, 2002; issues #1-5)
• X-Statix vol. 2: Good Guys & Bad Guys (Marvel, 2003; issues #6-10, Wolverine/Doop #1-2 and X-Men Unlimited #41)
• X-Statix vol. 3: Back From the Dead (Marvel, 2004; issues #11-18)
• X-Statix vol. 4: X-Statix vs. The Avengers (Marvel, 2004; issues #19-26)
• X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl (Marvel, 2006; issues #1-5)

Airboy

Airboy is a fictional aviator hero of an American comic book series initially published by Hillman Periodicals during the World War II-era time period that fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books. He was created by writer Charles Biro with scripter Dick Wood and artist Al Camy.

Publication history

Golden Age

Airboy originated in the second issue of Air Fighters Comics. The first issue of the title, cover-dated November 1941, had been a collection of aviation adventures. After that first issue sold poorly, the comic was retooled, and a year later vol. 1, #2 (Nov. 1942) introduced an entirely new set of heroes, including the cover-featured Airboy.

Airboy made Air Fighters Comics (renamed Airboy Comics with vol. 2, #11, Dec. 1945) a top seller through the 1940s. In the early issues, Biro wrote the scripts with Dave Wood and drew the covers, while Dan Barry and Fred Kida worked as main illustrators. The book also contained backup stories about other aviators, including Skywolf, Iron Ace, the Black Angel, the Bald Eagle, the Flying Dutchman, the Flying Fool, and the prototypical comic book swamp monster, The Heap. Airboy's most frequently recurring antagonist was the German aviatrix Valkyrie, who fought on the side of the Axis but then defected to the Allies.

Hillman went out of business in the 1950s. The first run of Airboy Comics' ended with vol. 10, #4 (May 1953).

Modern era

Reprints Air Fighters Comics Volume 2 no. 2, Nov. 1943; Air Fighters Comics Volume 2 no. 7; Airboy Comics Volume 2 no. 12; Airboy Comics Volume 2 no. 12; Airboy Comics Volume 3 no. 6; Airboy Comics Volume 3 no. 12 In 1986, Eclipse Comics published a new Airboy series, updated to the modern era, starring the son of the original character. The strip reintroduced many of the supporting characters from the old book, such as Valkyrie and a Japanese fighter pilot named Hirota, and guest-starred many of the characters who had appeared as backups in the original comics. Chuck Dixon scripted with the occasional assistance of Tim Truman, with Truman, Ron Randall and Stan Woch the main illustrators. The second Airboy series ended in 1989 after 50 issues. Eclipse ceased operations in the early 1990s, and its characters were acquired by Todd McFarlane.

Spin-offs from the Eclipse series include the one-shots Air Fighters Meet Sgt. Strike, Airboy-Mr. Monster Special, Airboy Meets the Prowler, Airboy Vs. the Airmaidens, Airmaidens Special (starring Black Angel, La Lupina, and Valkyrie), and Target: Airboy (also featuring Clint from Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters.) Three-issue miniseries were printed for Skywolf and two for Valkyrie - The Eternal and Prisoner of the Past. In addition, Misery and Zzed were villains in the Total Eclipse mini-series and its tie-in The Seraphim Objective. The Eternal was collected as a trade paperback, as were Airboy 1-5 entitled The Return of Valkyrie.

Starting in 1988, Eclipse also published Air Fighters Classics to reprint Golden Age stories of Airboy and his related cast of characters which ran bimonthly for six issues. In addition, two issues were reprinted in 1973 and a trade paperback entitled Valkyrie!: From the Pages of Air Fighters and the Airboy was published in 1982 with stories from Air Fighters Comics Volume 2 #2 and Volume 2 #7; Airboy Comics Volume 2 #12, Volume 2 #12, Volume 3 #6, and Volume 3 #12.

In 2007, Moonstone Books announced plans to revive the World War II character in new stories written by 1980s Airboy writer Dixon.

Fictional character biography

The first Airboy was David ("Davy") Nelson II, the son of an expert pilot and, despite his youth, a crack flyer himself. His friend, inventor and Franciscan monk Brother Francis Martier, had created a highly maneuverable prototype aircraft that flew by flapping its wings, like a bird. Martier, however, was killed while testing it, and Davy inherited both the plane and a uniform, which had apparently been in Martier's family since the French Revolution. Davy soon christened himself "Airboy", and in his seemingly sentient new plane, "Birdie", helped the Allies during World War II.

Airboy confronted such weird antagonists as intelligent rats, the mysterious Misery — whose Airtomb imprisoned the souls of dead pilots — and his cleavage-baring Nazi archnemesis, Valkyrie, a German aviatrix who later became his ally.

The second Airboy was his son, David Nelson III, who took on the costume and name after his father died.

Footnotes

1. ^ Comicon.com (June 6, 2007): "Moonstone Has Airboy with Dixon Scripting", by Jennifer M. Contino

References

• Don Markstein's Toonopedia
• The Grand Comic-Book Database
• International Catalogue of Superheroes: Airboy

Who are Superheroes??

A superhero (sometimes rendered super-hero or super hero) is a fictional character "of unprecedented physical prowess dedicated to acts of derring-do in the public interest". Since the debut of the prototypal superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas — have dominated American comic books and crossed over into other media. A female superhero is sometimes called a superheroine.

By most definitions, characters need not have actual superhuman powers to be deemed superheroes, although sometimes terms such as costumed crimefighters are used to refer to those without such powers who have many other common traits of superheroes.

The two-word version of the term is a trademark co-owned by DC Comics and Marvel Comics

In superhero role-playing games, such as Hero Games' Champions, Green Ronin Publishing's Mutants and Masterminds or Cryptic Studios' MMORPG City Of Heroes, superheroes are informally organized into categories or archetypes based on their skills and abilities. Since comic book and role-playing fandom often overlap, these labels have carried over into discussions of superheroes outside the context of games:

Plastic Man's shapeshifting abilities have often been used for humorous effect. Plastic Man #17 (May 1949). Cover art by Jack Cole.

• Armored Hero: A gadgeteer whose powers are derived from a suit of powered armor, e.g. Iron Man, Steel, Rocket Red.
• Blaster: A hero whose main power is a distance attack, usually an "energy blast" e.g., Cyclops, Starfire, Static.
• Brick/Tank: A character with a superhuman degree of strength and endurance and usually an oversized, muscular body, e.g., Robotman, Hercules, The Thing, The Hulk, Colossus, Mr. Incredible, and Savage Dragon. Almost every superhero team has one member of this variety, a fact X-Factor's Guido Carosella noted when he took the codename "Strong Guy" at a reporter's suggestion that was his role in the team.
• Dominus: A hero who controls a giant robot, a subtype common in Japanese superhero and science fiction media, e.g. Megas XLR, Big Guy,S.T.R.I.P.E. from the series Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. is a good example of an American comics Dominus.
• Elementalist: A hero who controls some natural element or part of the natural world, e.g., Storm (weather), Polaris (magnetism), Swamp Thing (vegetation), the Human Torch (fire).
• Gadgeteer: A hero who invents special equipment that often imitates superpowers, e.g., Nite Owl, Amazo.
• Healers: A hero who is able to quickly recover from serious injury e.g. Deadpool, Wolverine, Lobo, Xombi. Characters like Mr. Immortal possess a healing factor so advanced that they are truly immortal.
• Mage: A hero who is trained in the use of magic e.g., Doctor Fate, Doctor Strange, Zatanna, most Magical Girls.
• Marksman: A hero who uses projectile weapons, typically guns, bows and arrows or throwing blades, e.g., Punisher, Rose Tattoo, Green Arrow, Speedy, Hawkeye.
• Martial Artist: A hero whose physical abilities are mostly human rather than superhuman but whose hand-to-hand combat skills are phenomenal. Some of these characters are actually superhuman (Iron Fist and Daredevil), while others are human beings who are extremely skilled and athletic (Batman and related characters, Elektra, and Shang Chi).
• Mentalist: A hero who possesses psionic abilities, such as telekinesis, telepathy and extra-sensory perception, e.g., Professor X, Jean Grey, Saturn Girl.
• Possessed: A hero that harbors an entity inside of him/herself. e.g. The Spectre, Ghost Rider
• Shapeshifter: A hero who can manipulate his/her own body to suit his/her needs, such as stretching (Mister Fantastic, Plastic Man, Elongated Man), or disguise (Changeling, Mystique). Other such shapeshifters can transform into animals as a means of combat (Beast Boy). Characters like The Mask also share lots of these traits as well.
• Size changer: A shapeshifter who can alter his/her size, e.g., the Atom (shrinking only), Colossal Boy, Garganta (growth only), Hank Pym, Elasti-Girl (both).
• Slasher: A hero whose main power is some form of hand-to-hand cutting weapon, either devices, such as knives or swords (Zorro), Gladiator, or natural, such as claws (Wolverine).
• Speedster: A hero possessing superhuman speed and reflexes, e.g., The Flash, Quicksilver.

These categories often overlap. For instance, Batman is both a skilled martial artist and gadgeteer and Hellboy has the strength and durability of a brick and the and some mystic abilities or powers, as a mage. Wolverine also fits into a healing category. Very powerful characters, such as Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Dr. Manhattan and the Silver Surfer can be listed in many categories, and are sometimes in a category all their own, known as "original," as they were some of the earliest heroes in comics.