X-Force #117
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeX-Force #117 (titled 'Mister Sensitive,' cover-dated August 2001) serves as the essential second chapter of Peter Milligan and Mike Allred's audacious reinvention of the X-Force title, delivering the first appearances of Guy Smith (Mister Sensitive/The Orphan), Bloke, Phat, Saint Anna, Vivisector, and Spike Freeman — more new characters in a single issue than almost any other installment of the run. The issue also stages a meta-textual confrontation in which the original Cannonball-era X-Force team physically fights the new celebrity squad over the right to the 'X-Force' name, a moment that Milligan openly used to parody reader backlash to the creative overhaul. Together with #116, it established the template for what became X-Statix: a satirical, mortality-drenched deconstruction of superhero fame culture that critics at Entertainment Weekly (A rating, 2003) and IndieWire later identified as one of the sharpest media critiques in mainstream comics history. The issue's narrative engine — Guy Smith assuming the team-leader role over U-Go Girl's furious objection — launches the central romantic and power dynamic that would drive the entire Milligan-Allred run.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Former Vertigo editor Axel Alonso recruited writer Peter Milligan — known for surrealist British work including Shade, the Changing Man — and Madman artist Mike Allred (who worked consistently with colorist and wife Laura Allred) to completely reimagine X-Force beginning with issue #116, as part of Joe Quesada's broader 2001 revamp of the X-Men line. Allred later recalled that he began sketching the new characters during his very first phone call with Alonso about the project, and the pair described their collaborative goal as finding ways to 'push and push' the book into darker, stranger territory. The Elián González custody case of 2000 served as a real-world touchstone for the Paco Perez subplot that is set up in #117 — a topical grounding typical of Milligan's socially engaged writing approach.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Guy Smith (Mister Sensitive / The Orphan), the team's newly appointed leader, created by Peter Milligan and Mike Allred — his most prominent role throughout the entire X-Statix saga.
- First appearances of Bloke (Mickey Tork), Phat (Billy Bob Reilly), Saint Anna, Vivisector (Myles Alfred), and Spike Freeman, all joining the reformed X-Force roster in this single issue.
- The issue's title is 'Mister Sensitive,' released June 27, 2001, with a cover date of August 2001; it was edited by Axel Alonso, with lettering by Mike Allred and Blambot.
- The original X-Force strike team — Cannonball, Domino, Meltdown, and Warpath — appears to challenge the new celebrity squad over the use of the X-Force name, a self-aware narrative device that directly addressed the controversy the creative overhaul generated among established readers.
- U-Go Girl (Edie Sawyer) and Anarchist (Tike Alicar) are the only survivors from the Boyz R Us Massacre in #116 carried over; U-Go Girl's rage at being passed over for team leadership in favor of the Orphan is a central dramatic thread of this issue.
- The Paco Perez mission briefed in this issue — rescuing a powerful young mutant from the fictional nation of Bastrona — was loosely based on the real-world Elián González episode of 2000.
- The issue has been reprinted in: X-Force Vol. 1: New Beginnings TPB (2001, collecting #116–120); X-Force: Famous, Mutant & Mortal oversized hardcover (2003); the X-Statix Omnibus (2011); and X-Statix: The Complete Collection Vol. 1 (2020).
- Saint Anna's first appearance is confirmed by multiple sources as X-Force #117, though she is a relatively minor character compared to the Orphan, whose design Allred noted was conceptually related to a character from his own indie title The Atomics.
Cast · 6 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in X-Force #[1] (2001), X-Statix Omnibus #[nn] (2011), X-Statix: The Complete Collection #1 (2019)
Key issues in X-Force
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