Real people are often given guest appearances in the pages of Marvel comics. The cast of Marc Maron. Typically these appearances are either fun crossovers or touching tributes, but one attempt to add a real person to the Marvel Universe proved so controversial that the House of Ideas changed it at the last minute. Six years after her death, Princess Diana of Wales was going to be the focal point of a five-part storyline for the mutant team X-Statix.
Originally starting off as an X-Force book before being rebranded, X-Statix is a creation of writer Peter Milligan and artist Mike Allred. Instead of being about oppressed groups like most X-Men titles, or even being a straight-up action focussed comic like X-Force usually is, X-Statix is a satire of early 2000's celebrity culture. The group's exploits are all filmed, have sponsorship deals, and the group has an in-universe fanbase. Another unique feature of the team was its high mortality rate forcing new on the team at regular intervals.
Issue thirteen of X-Statix was supposed to start a five-part arc titled Di Another Day which would have focussed on a resurrected Princess Diana learning that she's a mutant and ing the X-Statix. Marvel had initially approved Milligan's scripts for the storyline, and production on the five issues progressed to the point that even the artwork for the first few issues was mostly complete. The first issue of Di Another Day was set to release in September of 2003 when covers and descriptions for the storyline were revealed in June of that year. As soon as the story was revealed, British media jumped on Marvel. After both Elton John and the British royal family condemned the portrayal of Lady Diana, Marvel backed down and asked Milligan and Allred to remove Princess Diana from the storyline.
With only a handful of months left to change the comic, Milligan and Allred were forced to make slight alterations to the completed issues. The new story, Back From the Dead, replaced Diana with a fictional pop star named Henrietta Hunter who comes back from the dead as a mutant with empathy powers. Obvious relics of Lady Di's presence in the book include Henrietta's body being kept in Hawthorne House, an obvious stand-in for Buckingham Palace, and repeated references to landmines, an issue that the late princess famously spoke out about.
Reading the five issues, it is not difficult to tell that they were hastily rewritten. X-Statix was always one of Marvel's stranger titles, but many fans felt that Back From the Dead made little sense. Despite the controversy, Marvel allowed X-Statix to conclude with issue 26. Living up to its reputation as the superhero team with the most dead team , X-Statix famously ended with almost the entire team dying. X-Statix maintained a cult following long after its conclusion. The team's mascot, Doop, has even made frequent appearances in the Marvel Universe.
Though the potential storyline might seem baffling and in poor taste to many, it is important to look at it in context. The two biggest themes of X-Statix are celebrity and mortality. It makes some sense for the book to combine those two themes by prominently featuring a dead celebrity. While the storyline definitely would have kept with the series' irreverent tone, giving Lady Di empathy powers feels like it comes from a place of iration rather than disrespect. Milligan himself is British, and wrote in an article responding to the controversy that adding Princess Diana to X-Statix was his attempt at adding a uniquely British element to American comics. He also added that he would love to have soccer star David Beckham become a mutant in the Marvel universe though, so even Milligan's response is firmly tongue in cheek.
Regardless of whether the controversy was justified or not, Milligan and Allred's work on X-Statix developed a cult following for a reason. The social commentary and pop-art aesthetic make it stand out among Marvel's titles. One of the series' strongest elements was always how it committed to its themes. Readers might not know whether Di Another Day would have been in poor taste or not, but fans can be certain it would have been uniquely X-Statix.
