Mutant Beach Party is a Marvel Comics story, written by Kurt Busiek for their parody series What The-?!. As the name suggests, it's a light-hearted take on the 80s exploits of Marvel's premier franchise at the time, the X-Men.
One day, as the Muties - that band of unlikely heroes sworn to protect a world that really hates them - and their associated hangers-on are minding their own business, recovering from fighting their foes and recounting their various backstories, they learn they're due an attack from an ominous consortium of their most deadly and most implacable enemies. Yes, that's right, they're in a Mutant Epic, as only the Muties know how! But who will live, who will die, and just who are these most deadly and most implacable enemies everyone's so worried about?
Mutant Beach Party provides examples of:
- Affectionate Parody: Of the various X-Men titles of the late 80s.
- Bolivian Army Ending: The story ends with the Muties coming face to face with their true enemies at last, a veritable horde bearing down on them. It's all the other Marvel heroes, looking to take the limelight back by force.
- The Cameo: Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver make a brief appearance in a gratuitous crossover, to warn the Muties of the incoming consortium.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The Mutie Wanna-Bes just disappear part way through part two, when they learn the fate of Non-Entity.
- Cliffhanger: The first part ends with the Muties confronted by the Living Humongous Menhir, who has discovered the catalyst for the S-Factor that generates the Muties's incredible sales. Namely, death! He then kicks them all over the edge of the cliff they were standing on.
- Conflict Ball: Confused over whether they're dead or not, the Muties settle the matter in the calm and rational discourse comic book characters are known for.
- The Corruption: Nightboomfer admits he's been feeling more and more evil lately. The other Muties realize he's finally starting to turn into Dark Night-Boomfer at last, and congratulate him.
- The Ghost: The Overgoddess Ragu, who saves all the Muties from being kicked off a cliff. The not-Dazzler explains she goes unseen because no-one was reading the British comics.
- Heroic Dog: The Mutie Wanna-Bes find a dog outside their hideout, and try to induct it. They figure if his parents were human and he's a dog, he must be a Mutant.
- Hostile Show Takeover: Attempted by the Fraternity of Honked-Off Muties, who wish to kill the Muties and become the new darlings of Marvel. Nightboomfer teleports them all away instead. Then the Readers do much the same. The true enemies are also trying to do this.
- Insane Troll Logic: At the beginning of part 2, the Muties come too after being kicked off a cliff. Sturm-und-Drang declares that since no-one could've survived that, they must be dead. Despite, y'know... the obvious. She gets very insistent on the matter, while Dusk Kitten tries pointing out she's obviously still alive.
- Kid from the Future: Kloenix II (Rachel Grey) suffers from near-terminal angst about how she's the daughter of Marble Girl's clone from a dystopian alternate future, so much so it futzes with her powers. Marble Girl's not too wild about it either, since she's not even married.
- Living Crash Pad: The Muties and the Mutie Wanna-Bes are all saved from death by landing on Non-Entity (Cypher), at the cost of his life.
- Loony Fan: The Readers, another of the red herring enemies the Muties must face, a group of readers who were corrupted by the Muties' adventures, and turned themselves into cyborgs. Repulsed by what they'd become, they swore to kill their former heroes.
- Medium Awareness: Everyone's aware they're fictional characters. What makes the Muties different is their S-Factor, which generates phenomenal sales. With it, they'd all be a bunch of regular comic book characters.
- Mythology Gag: The fight with the Readers is covered by a veritable mash-up of Chris Claremont's Author Catchphrases.
- Non-Indicative Name: As Halfshot tries pointing out, the first part does not actually take place on a beach at all.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The Muties get into a number of battles with a variety of bizarre foes in the second issue, with not-Captain Britain exclaiming readers will naturally want to get the miniseries depicting those events.
- Oh, Crap!: The Muties realize the final battle is truly upon them when they see the Watchit in the skies above them, and he's smirking at them.
- Previously on…: Spoofed. The second part starts with one, until the narrator remembers they don't do that in X-Men titles.
- Redshirt: Invoked, when the Hotrodders, whose job is to get rid of inconsequential characters, attack the Muties. They only manage to kill a bunch of absolute nobodies, and some Star Trek security guards.
- Running Gag: Rimshot's repeated attempts to get someone to explain just who the consortium of enemies really is.
- Start My Own: Fed up of hanging around "dead" people, Dusk Kitten takes a bunch of the Muties and splits off to form her own team, where they'll have wacky, lighthearted adventures, and not be dead. Kloenix goes with her, to try and get away from her angst.
- The Unintelligible: Regular Warlock's sometimes hard to follow syntax is represented here by him speaking in total gibberish.
- The Watson: Halfshot's role in the Muties, as the newest guy, is to ask stupid questions. At the very least, it gives him something to do.
