3 out of 5

Should I be kind and rate this higher as a comparatively good X-Statix arc, or continue to promote my shruggy disdain for the title and rate it accordingly?  Oh, the latter, you silly goose.

Milligan stirs some potential in the first titular outing of his rebranded team – which has been true throughout the run – but then either dismisses it shallowly, hits it on the nose with “satire,” or pretends like it will have ramifications, which really will eventually mean one of the first two options.  Welcome to X-Static, and if Millie’s brand of self-aware soap opera has previously appealed, this is a good arc, with more consistent characterization and, uh, relatively subtle plotting than in the title’s other, lesser moments.  But if your reception lies on my side of the line, where all of this is clever in concept but never passes the mark into clever execution (like observing the joke is the same as creating and telling it), then it’s the same as it ever was, just a tad less eye-rolly.

I’ll further extend my negative bias to artist Mike Allred, whose never-changing 60s pastiche style and static panels will never look like the right for anything but Madman.  Here, the combination with Milligan’s cheeky dialogue would seem to sync, but the timing is still off.  When Paul Pope steps in for issue 5, the difference is clear: Pope’s more exacerbated style adds some extra motion that helps to sell the humor, and timing and camera angles assist in smoothing out the purposefully overblown dialogue.

…The story wavers between X-Statix vetting new member Venus de Milo; Guy stressing over comparing her to Edie; Phat and Vivisector’s further gay revelations; rival superstar hero group O-Town; and a super-powered and destructive teen, Arnie, whom the group temporarily chills with in order to curb the use of his powers.

The Arnie storyline is satisfyingly dark and flippant and concludes perfectly, even if I suspect it’s a plotthreaded ball to be dropped too soon.  Milligan also starts to slowly corral his misfits into a begrudging team, which is a pleasing development; the bickering doth get old quick.

An over-sized “first” issue under a new title may not actually indicate any change, and that’s either a good or “meh” thing depending on your feelings towards the series thus far.