X-Statix

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.

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.

[3] On July 10, 2003, Marvel announced that they would remove Princess Diana from the story, replacing her with a fictional pop star named Henrietta Hunter.

In the last issue Milligan and Allred killed off the entire team, serving up one last parody of the superhero genre, while tying up the remaining plot threads.

The storyline (which features the returns 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.

The title showcased a new version of the team consisting of the new U Go-Girl, Doop, Vivisector, Mister Sensitive, The A, and Phatty as well as a new team the X-Cellent with its members being Zeitgeist, Hurt John, Mirror Girl, and Uno and alumni/former members of X-Force like Plazm, the Anarchist, La Nuit, Battering Ram, and Gin Genie.

[14] IGN wrote that the frequency with which characters were killed off "lent the book an air of danger and unpredictability rare to mainstream superhero titles.

"[13] In 2012, Entertainment Weekly included X-Statix in a list of "15 Comic Books We Want to See as Movies", saying that the work "has never looked more timely.

"[16] Fumettologica praised the subtlety of the metatextuality in its satire, mentioning the character Anarchist's fear that people won't support adding a second African American to the team.