general overview

Move Marvel's X-Men out of the cushy confines of Westchester, Massachusetts and drop them off in Hollywood. Give them television contracts and get a camera guy to follow them everywhere. Hook them up with talent agencies, makeup consultants, publicists, and fashion designers. Oh, and make it so they aren't feared and despised by the general public.

X-Force originally started in the early 1980s as The New Mutants, a book about young mutants learning to use their abilities to benefit mankind. It eventually evolved into X-Force in 1991, a paramilitary operation led by a mutant named Cable.

As Joe Quesada took over at Marvel as the editor in chief, huge changes were in store. As well as paring down the X-Men comic line by concluding several titles deemed as redundant (among them: X-Man, Generation X, Excalibur), new creative teams were introduced on the remaining titles.

It's the car. Chicks dig the car, right?

The first of the Marvel books to be not approved by the Comics Code Authority (which dictates the level of acceptable content in a comic book), X-Force does not pull any punches.

Heroes eliminate the bad guys with brutal efficiency and even the heroes themselves are not immune. In the first issue, several members were killed during a botched hostage rescue attempt. In the new X-Force, all members get their fifteen minutes of fame. Literally.

This is the extreme opposite of anti-mutant prejudice. Now they have their own theme restaurants, agents, and publicists. Paparazzi follow them everywhere. One can buy merchandise bearing their likenesses. On top of that, a software trillionaire is their financial backer.

The world of X-Force is a world more familiar to us today, a world where people are willingly humiliated on live public television for the sake of stardom, a world where image is everything and public perception can make your career or break you in half.

So what does happen when Professor X's dream of unity between humans and mutants comes to fruition? The results are not as pleasant as one is led to believe.

When you're at the top, everyone wants to knock you down.
X-Force, X-Men and all related characters are trademarked and copyrighted 2001 by Marvel Characters Inc.
In a distinctly different take on the X-Men mythos, writer Peter Milligan and artist Mike Allred give Marvel Comics and their readers something completely new. Gone is the "anti-mutant hysteria" prevalent in the other titles, where the X-Men are outlawed while mutants are persecuted and feared because of what makes them different.