At the turn of the century, Marvel Comics came close to resurrecting Lady Di as a mutant from the X-Men titles. Here is the story.
The story begins with the return from the death of Lady Di, continues with a mutant princess, continues with one of the biggest controversies in Marvel history, and ends with Henrietta Hunter.
In 2001, writer Peter Milligan and artist Mike Allred were appointed as the new creative team for X-Force, giving the title a twist and leaving behind its militaristic edge to achieve a psychedelic proposal that explored pop culture. Before long, the title was renamed X-Statix, and its creators had something in mind: reviving Diana of Wales as a dead princess who revived to discover that she was a mutant. However, the greatest enemy this nascent heroine would face was not in the pages of X-Statix, but in Buckingham Palace.
Lady Di the mutant princess revived
The arc called “Di Another Day” would consist of five numbers whose proposal did not go unnoticed by the press. In a 2003 note, the EW site collected:
“In real life, he fought AIDS and landmines; but in her other life, she will fight mutant trash in one of the X-Men titles. That’s what Marvel Comics is looking for, who has resurrected Princess Diana as a mutant heroine in an upcoming issue of the parodic X-Statix comic… a satire on celebrity culture starring media-savvy mutants formerly known as X-Force. “
Later, the same note refers to the following words that he attributes to Marvel and that incorporated Lady Di into the mythology of the X-Men: “Everyone’s favorite royal princess, Princess Diana, has returned from the dead and is in her comeback tour… and it’s up to X-Statix to keep her alive! ”, and shortly thereafter indicates that while her powers are not specified, she is attacked by“ a nasty group of mutant euro-trash determined to send it back to where it came from ”.
The motives of the wolf
For The Guardian, Milligan himself explained his motives: “Diana may not resemble the flying, lethal rocking characters that populate my comic, but the strange power she wields from beyond the grave certainly makes her a valid subject to explore. Plus, it looks great in spandex! ”
The writer recalls that while in a London bar in the days of Diana’s fateful accident, he made black broas with a friend, which upset the other patrons. There I notice the attraction that the princess exerted on people. That is why he wanted to recover it for his proposal of X-Statix, closer to a reality show that X-Force has:
“All my mutants have agents, negotiate fees for image rights, open mega-stores and live the dream. People die in my comic. We even have a character called Dead Girl… So I thought it was time we had a really dead girl on the team and clearly Diana was made for X-Statix: someone famous for being famous. In the world of the X-Men, mutants are feared and hated. At X-Statix, they’ve turned this around and become stars: glamorous, rich, and powerful. It seems to me that this is more or less what Diana did within the royal family ”.
The Empire Strikes Back
When the news broke, alarms soon sounded at Buckingham Palace, with the royal family spokesman telling the UK Daily Mail: “This is absolutely appalling… It appears to be a cheap attempt to cash in on Diana’s fame.” .
Added to this, the criticisms of Elton John and other celebrities made Marvel reconsider and eliminate Lady Di and replace her with Henrietta Hunter, a fictional pop star who was also resurrected and discovered a mutant.
As Creen Rant reads: “Obvious remnants of Lady Di’s presence in the comic include Henrietta’s body kept at Hawthorne House, an obvious substitute for Buckingham Palace, and repeated references to landmines, a theme of which the late princess spoke ”.
The story was renamed “Back From the Dead” and concluded at number 18 of the series, very close to the end of it, which occurred in issue 26.
Sources: Screen rant, The Guardian and EW
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The greatest warrior in the Marvel Universe returns to a world of death and destruction that he thought he had left behind!
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