X-Statix Omnibus

My wife is awesome and gifted to me the X-Statix Omnibus for our fourth wedding anniversary. I just wanted to thank her profusely for this. My only complaint is that it didn't come with a forklift.

This thing measures at an oversized 7.25" wide, 11" tall and an absurd 2.5" thick.  Its page count clocks in at 1200, which is almost 500 pages longer than any Deathly Hallow I've ever seen, and weighs in at a meaty 8.2 pounds. I dropped it on one of my fingers and have yet to regain feeling in said extremity. I think we're going to have to amputate. I word to the people likely to read the introduction written by Mike Allred; it has spoilers. Not that I think the people shelling out the cash for this thing haven't read the full series in single issue format, but people die and it's all right there in the foreword. I haven't read one page of any of the books contained in the omnibus, so it's all new to me.

The price tag may scare some people, but I think it's well worth it. It's all of the related X-Force/X-Statix/Tie-In materials in one volume. It stands alone as a complete work. Peter Milligan is a masterful scribe, and Mike and Laura Allred are the perfect artistic team for this work. Not to mention that when when the Allreds take the day off, their seats are filled by none other than Darwyn Cooke. This hefty tome is an encyclopedia of stylistic pulp comics. It is really a tribute to the way comics looked in their prime, mixed with the way comics are written in the modern day.

For those not familiar with exactly what this story is about, it's basically a team of mutants that takes the name of the clandestine team X-Force and is sponsored by a producer of a reality show about mutant superheroes that stars the team. It's all from the point of view, literally, of a floating green blob named Doop who speaks in an alien tongue and carries the teams recording equipment in his belly.

Since this is a television show with ratings and such, when people get bored of certain characters, like any other TV dramas, those characters are killed off, except this is a reality show, so the living characters actually die. It's interesting and this was written before I had seen any other fiction that functioned as a commentary for reality television. I know Battle Royale was a similar idea and predates this, but it's not ripping it off the way that Hunger Games has been accused of.

The retail price of this beast is at a steep $125.00, but I think it's well worth that price. Discount Comic Book Service has it for a mere $75.00, and my wife got it from Barnes & Noble's website for $65.00. For those prices it's thievery. I give the X-Statix Omnibus two enthusiastic Gin Genies up.