Deadgirl

A while back, I was up for a gig writing an X-Men spinoff.  The gig didn’t happen, but I spent a year researching the X-Men universe anyway.

My favorite tributary of the X-Men river was X-Statix, which managed to have an involving story, evocative characters, biting satire and high-spirited parody all at the same time.  And one of the many, many great characters from X-Statix was Deadgirl.  Both utterly ridiculous and unexpectedly moving, Deadgirl brought the whole title to a new level.

Now she has her own graphic novel, X-Statix presents Deadgirl, in which she teams up with Dr. Strange to defeat a team of killed-off Marvel characters (including lame-os like Mysterio and Kraven) who keep coming back from hell to wreak havoc on Earth.

Again, the artistic team hits the pitch-perfect balance of silliness, adventure, drama and parody, creating an effect not unlike that of The Venture Bros.  In fact, Venture Bros came to mind almost immediately as we are introduced to Dr. Strange, who is found in his study simultaneously conjuring the netherworld and complaining about his hemorroids, all in the ultra-po-faced style of Mike and Laura Allred’s illustrations.  I immediately thought of Dr. Orpheus, and another brick in the Venture Bros wall of cultural influences fell into place.  It made me wonder if the Deadgirl team had seen the last season of VB and decided to take the idea back to its source.

Anyway, the book’s a hoot.