Warning: all spoilers for the First-Episode Twist are unmarked on this page.
"The best seat in the house. Money. Sex. Fame. Power. All this... isn't that what it's all about?
The missions we go on...
They're just the sideshow we have to deal with... so we can have this life."
The missions we go on...
They're just the sideshow we have to deal with... so we can have this life."
— U-Go Girl, X-Force #116
Peter Milligan and Mike Allred's run on Marvel Comics's 1991 X-Force comic book series, starting with issue #116, was an In Name Only sequel to everything that had gone before.
Set in the shared Marvel Universe, X-Force was part of the wider X-Men franchise, initially a Darker and Edgier book about a team of heroic mutants who acted more like soldiers than superheroes.
As part of a wider revival of the X-Men line, Marvel's new editor-in-chief Joe Quesada recruited Milligan and Allred to take over X-Force – and they agreed as long as they were free to do absolutely anything they wanted. The result was a cast of entirely new characters, a for-profit team of publicity-hungry superhumans who'd blatantly stolen the X-Force codename name from the original team. The tone was cynical and satirical, swiftly establishing that Anyone Can Die and offering a commentary on Reality TV and the nature of fame.
The run, and the X-Force series as a whole, ended with #129. Milligan and Allred continued their story in X-Statix, a Sequel Series, whereas X-Force was revived in 2004 with a return to its original cast and style.
The entire run was later collected as X-Force: Famous, Mutant and Mortal.
The Milligan and Allred run on X-Force (1991) provides examples of the following tropes:
- Addiction-Powered: Gin Genie was an alcoholic mutant who gained the ability to create earthquakes whenever she drank.
- An Arm and a Leg: The Coach was previously 'The Arm', and his mutant powers were somehow focused via his left arm. It's implied that when he lost the arm, long before the first issue of the run, he lost some or all of his powers as well.
- Anyone Can Die: The First-Episode Twist leaves most of the initial team dead, and several of their replacements are also killed off swiftly. The members of X-Force are very aware of the team's mortality rate.
- Attractive Zombie: Dead Girl, the Revenant Zombie superhero, initially looks a little mummified, but quickly becomes Progressively Prettier and has a sexual relationship with living teammate Anarchist.
- Banana Republic: The new team's first mission takes them to the People's Republic of Bastrona, a corrupt fictional nation in Central America. There are brightly costume parades, untrustworthy contacts, military death squads and posters of the glorious leader on the walls.
- Combat Tentacles: Sluk, who's killed before the first issue and only seen in mission footage, was a squid-faced mutant who used his facial tentacles to deadly effect.
- Cthulhumanoid: Sluk is a humanoid mutant with a bald head, bulging eyes and a face that's just a mass of deadly Combat Tentacles. After Sluk's death, team leader Zeitgeist comments that he prefers his mutants to look more human.
- Decoy Protagonist: Zeitgeist is the main character of the first issue, then ends the issue dying in Edie's arms as Half the Man He Used to Be after the attack that kills most of the team.
- Dream Intro: The first issue opens with Zeitgeist's Flashback Nightmare. Axel's fourteen, he's with a thirteen year-old girl he thinks he loves, they're drunk, they're alone on the beach, and they're about to get physical. At which point his mutant power manifests for the first time and adolescent Power Incontinence means that she gets a face full of his acidic Super Spit. The comic cuts to the older Axel waking up in a chair, watching footage of himself as Zeitgeist on a mission, using his powers to deliberately kill and maim.
- Drunken Master: Gin Genie's seismic powers were fueled by her alcoholic consumption.
- Eastward Endeavor: Part of Guy Smith's backstory. He traveled to the East in pursuit of ways to control his severely-heightened sense of touch.
- Fantastic Medicinal Bodily Product: The team is deployed to Central America to kidnap Paco Perez, a young boy whose mutant powers supposedly make him a living bomb - but is actually a living pharmacy. Mr. Sensitive revolts against the team's financial backers after learning that they intend to harvest the kid's organs and bodily fluids to make new drugs.
- First-Episode Twist: The mission to rescue 'Boyz R Us' from their kidnappers goes horribly wrong. X-Force subdue the gunmen, and then Zeitgeist spots the helicopter gunship that's hovering near the skyscraper. The barrage that follows kills everyone on the team except U-Go Girl, Doop and new recruit the Anarchist.
- Fixing the Game: The Anarchist's powers let him cheat when rolling dice, fixing the side they land on. He keeps the ability fairly quiet, but has used it to win in casinos - and also to make a Heroic Sacrifice when Someone Has to Die and dice are being used to choose who lives.
- In Name Only: The new X-Force team are completely different to their predecessors, as is the tone and style of the series. There are no continuing plot threads from the previous creative teams. This is lampshaded a little when some of the previous X-Force team members do appear - and they're very unhappy that the new team has stolen their name.
- Killed Off for Real:
- Sluk is killed just before the first issue's mission. La Nuit, Gin Genie, Battering Ram and Plazm die in the first issue.
- The Coach is killed after trying to arrange Guy's death and assaulting Edie.
- Bloke is killed on his first mission.
- The Merch: The first issue features one of the many X-Force cafes, which also sell Doop beanies and other merchandise. A replica of Sluk has also been installed as a gimmick, following his death, and will emit a mild electronic pulse if patrons pay $20.
- Not Now, Kiddo: In the first issue Zeitgeist repeatedly brushes off Battering Ram's attempts to talk to him about his role in the group. And no, he doesn't get heard out before everybody dies.
- One-Steve Limit: At one point the team features the Spike - and Spike Freeman is funding it. Spike Freeman lampshades this a little.
- Power Incontinence: Zeitgeist's powers first manifested during an underaged drunken beach make-out session; his acid vomit maimed the girl. (He wonders whether "the doctors ever managed to give her back her pretty face.")
- Publicity Stunt Relationship: In this reality TV-esque comic, Vivisector and Phat decide to pretend to be in a gay relationship because of fears that they're less popular than the other team members. After some mutual confusion, they eventually decide that they both genuinely are gay, but they aren't each others' type.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: Before he was rescued by X-Statix, Paco Perez's body was being harvested of its various fluids in order to turn his native Bastrona into a pharmaceutical-based economic powerhouse.
- Retronym: When the entire run was collected in a single volume, a subtitle was added and it became X-Force: Famous, Mutant and Mortal, to help disambiguate it.
- The Reveal:
- Edie's 'little sister' is actually her daughter.
- Zeitgeist and The Coach planned the whole 'Boys R Us' massacre of the initial team, although Zeitgeist didn’t expect to be one of the victims.
- Sacrificial Lamb: Zeitgeist's team includes a whole flock of sacrificial lambs who don't survive the First-Episode Twist. Plazm, Battering Ram, Gin Genie and La Nuit are all killed in the last few pages. Zeitgeist himself is a Decoy Protagonist and ends up Half the Man He Used to Be in the same attack.
- Scenery Censor: Prior to his first mission, the Anarchist is interviewed while naked and taking a bath in a hotel suite. After he blows the roof off the hotel and a police helicopter responds, he casually lies back in the bath with his hands behind his head. When we see him from the police perspective, his crotch is neatly obscured by one of the two women he's in the bath with.
- Tonight, Someone Dies: The cover of #125 depitcs the Spectre of Death pointing its finger at either Anarchist, Mister Sensitive, or U-Go Girl. This culminates in #128, literally called "Someone Dies." Though it looks like Anarchist performs a Heroic Sacrifice, he manages to survive only for U-Go Girl to be killed by a stray spike.
- We Hardly Knew Ye:
- Sluk's death is shown on the third page of the first issue, when Zeitgeist is reviewing mission footage. He gets no dialogue or backstory prior to this.
- Zeitgeist, Plazm, Battering Ram, Gin Genie and La Nuit are all dead by the end of the first issue.
- Bloke is introduced when he's promoted to the team after the 'Boyz R Us' massacre, then promptly killed on his first mission in the next issue.
- Wolverine Publicity: Invoked with the cover for #120, Wolverine's guest appearance. The cover image shows him sitting on a pool table, claws extended, with none of the usual X-Force members visible. The speech bubble claims he's only there to increase sales - although the story itself treats him as a normal guest star.Wolverine: Ya know, I'm only doin' this to boost sales.
