No you did not misread that.

“Di Another Day” is the name given to a five-part story that is soon to be published in an upcoming issue of Marvel Comics’ X-Statix comic book.

Diana Spencer, the late Princess of Wales, is coming back… to life… as a mutant superhero.

:::braincramp :::

It’s no secret that I am a fan of comic books (or for the more effete: “graphic novels”). Many of the movies that I have seen over the last few months have been comic book-related films. But, this… This is too much. Even for me.

Marvel Comics’ affectionate nickname is “The House of Ideas.” In their history, they have done a number of things – good and bad – that have rocked the comics world and the way that people think about comic books.

  • They have created characters with amazing powers and abilities…. and all too-human failings.
  • They have cut production of a number of titles that were selling well in order to consolidate their brand names and tidy up plots, subplots and story lines that had been running for years without any resolution in sight.
  • They hired creative teams to infuse fan-favorite characters with new life.
  • They broke with the Comics Magazine Association of America and the Comics Code Authority – organizations founded over fifty (50) years ago to oversee the content of comic books – to police and edit/censor their books on their own. In doing so, they instituted their own “ratings system” to identify the market to which given books were being aimed. (More information on this can be found here.)
  • They have almost single-handedly reinvented the comic book movie genre.
  • They have even – quietly – broken characters of their smoking habits in an effort to enhance the “role model” image of their characters.

Now this.

Diana was a special woman. She actually lived the fairy tale life: She was born an English commoner (don’t quibble on the details), she met and married the crown prince, she did great things not only for the U.K., but for people worldwide. She died a tragic and untimely death.

Let her rest in peace.

I really don’t understand this… thing. That’s really the only way that I can describe it. X-Statix is being called “…a spin off of The X-Men.” This is true and untrue. The book, while set in the Marvel Universe has a very tenuous connection to the X-Men. And to call it “tenuous” is being rather generous. Most people have at least a passing idea of whom the X-Men are. Marvel’s web site explains X-Statix in the following manner:

Fame. Money. Sex. Power. What happens when the blinding light of the media turns mutants into celebrities? When a group of costumed “freaks” – each with their own dark secrets — are gathered together and presented to society as the next group of pop culture stars, all bets are off!

When you add a high-profile figure… who happens to have been one of the most popular non-political/non-sports related figure in recent history AND who has been deceased for nearly six years… to the mixture, not only are “all bets off,” you have stepped into a morass of self-serving moral bankruptcy so deep and dark that one can only wonder how this idea not only germinated, but took root and was allowed to grow. How this made it past the desks of Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas – the head honchos at Marvel – also eludes me.

In an interview, Milligan said that Diana was “…tailor made for the series because she is someone famous for being famous. At a glance, Diana may not resemble the flying, teleporting, lethally oscillating characters that populate my comic, but the same power she exerts from beyond the grave certainly makes her a valid subject to explore. And, of course, she looks great in spandex!”

I wonder: Do you think that he ever considered what her family might think about this idea? Somehow, I doubt it.

Hmm… That makes me wonder: Did he really think about it at all?

Only he and his conscience knows.