X (Dark Horse Comics)

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Cover of X #1
Art by Rick Leonardi and James Palmiotti

X is a comic book character who starred in his own self titled series published by Dark Horse Comics for their Comics Greatest World imprint. He is a dark, possibly undead anti-hero, with little true feeling and a strong tendency to kill.

After the character debuted in Dark Horse Comics #8, his own self titled series began with a cover date of February, 1994.

[edit] Publication

Series Creative Staff Information

Below is a list of those who worked on the book. When repeated, only last names are used.

• 1-5: Steven Grant, writer/Doug Mahnke, pencils/Jimmy Palmiotti, inks.
• 6: Grant, writer/Ron Wagner and P. Craig Russell, pencils/Palmiotti, inks.
• 7: Grant, writer/Wagner & Frank Fosco, pencils/Palmiotti, inks.
• 8: Grant, writer/Matt Haley, pencils/Tom Simmons, inks.
• 9: Grant, writer/Mahnke, pencils/Palmiotti, inks.
• 10-12: Grant, writer/Chris Warner, pencils/Tim Bradstreet,inks.
• 13-15: Grant, writer/Javier Saltares, art.
• 16-17: Grant, writer/Saltares, pencils/Andrew Pepoy, inks.
• 18: Grant, writer/Alex Renaud, pencils/Pepoy, inks.
• 19-22: Grant, writer/Saltares, pencils/Pepoy, inks.
• 23: Grant, writer/Saltares, pencils/Bradstreet, inks.
• 24-25: Grant, writer/Saltares, pencils/Pepoy, inks.

Note: Many fans felt Mahnke and Palmiotti gave the book a hyper-realistic and detailed appearance, while Saltares gave the series a much more traditional appearance. The series always featured striking covers, provided by the main artist, but which also featured Rick Leonardi for # 1, Jimmy Palmiotti for # 6 and Frank Miller, who did issues # 18-22.

[edit] Plot

One Shot to the Head/Arcadia, weeks 1-4: X, whose law is that one mark means a warning, the second one death, takes on the members of the Arcadian Waterfront Project, a collection of business, law and politics. X kills several, including senator Briggs. Mayor Teal and Police Commissioner Anderson send a S.W.A.T team after X, which X wipes out.

• 1-5: X kills the last of the waterfont backers, the Llwellyn brothers, who have hired Gamble to take him out. This is discovered by Carmine Tango, the Boss of all Bosses in the Arcadian undeworld and a believer in astrology, who informs Gamble that he can kill X. Mickey D, a street kid who saw X kill the Llwellyn's, begins sticking close to X. Gamble escapes X's wrath and vanishes. A few weeks later, a man named Cholly McGregor arrives at his friend Levan's nightclub and dies, an X on him. Mayor Teal realizes that Tango is backing Anderson against him for mayor. X visits Teal's secretary, Gretchen, who is having an affair with Christie, Tango's righthand man and marks them. X later experiences a flashback of a man holding a knife to his face while he begged for justice. Anderson unveils Cyborg editions of the original S.W.A.T team X had taken out, but they go beserk, causing trouble for Teal. Carmine Tango finds a single eye-possibly the one missing from the face of X-in a fish and asks himself a single name, "Johnny." Tango hires The Chaos Riders to take care of Teal. X takes care of them and puts Teal in his pocket. X also kills Anderson, raising the police against him. Congressman DeMarco reminds Teal that he is the real power in Arcadia's Arcadia's 'legitimate' side. Tango gets a call from an old-and female-business associate. Meanwhile, a nurse weeps over a comatose teen and recalls another, one that she lost, years ago.

• 6-8(takes place within 36 hours): Carmine Tango and his female associate, Diana Gorretti gather information on X. DeMarco tries killing X, but X eventually kills him. The mysterious Lord Alamout is brainwashing young men to use as assassins. He captures X and sends him to kill Tango, but X breaks free of programming and instead battles Alamout, who falls out a window into the river, leaving X holding a mask with Alamout's face on it. Carmine Tango declares war on X.

• 9-15(begins immediately after issue 8/"War For Arcadia): After X takes out over twenty of Tango's men, Christie throws his chips with X, who Christie why he thinks he would be needed. Teal is at a party at Michael Levan's nightclub, speaking with Diana Goretti when he learns about DeMarco. Tango is nearly blown up by X, who tells Carmine his time has not yet come. The Judgment Nights, a band of police who are killing criminals that get in their way, begin to surface. Goretti reveals her involvement with both Teal and DeMaro's incidents to X, who she is working with. Lt. Timothy, the only honest cop in Arcadia, is on the case of mutilated corpses, but doesn't think it is X. Tango and Christie go to a funeral home, where Tango introduces his men to a lage man lying in a coffin. Tango informs them that this is the Ziggurat, but that he goes by Coffin now. From outside, X recognizes Ziggurat as the man with the blade, cutting at him, from his flashback. Timothy is offered the job of commissioner, but turns it down, leaving Teal the choices of old-school officer Inspector Kossy or Mose Hughes, the governors handpicked man. X arrives and tells Teal that Timothy is not the one. X soon rescues Timothy from The Judgement Nights. X tells Timothy he owes him and now works for him, but is shot point blank in the chest by Timothy, who empties his revolver. X stumbles back to his hideout beneath the sewers. Mose Hughes is introduced as Commissioner, with Kossy being none-too-thrilled. X gives him the thumbs up. Timothy and his partner suspect the bodies are because of The Monster. Tango does not like Hughes, who does not sound like he's in Diana's pocket. Coffin pinches X in his support network, by firembombing the docks. X marks Coffin, while Gamble reappears, biding his time. The governor warns Teal that Washington is taking an interest in the happenings of Arcadia, so Teal goes to Levan's for a drink and vanishes. Timothy and his partner ask Hughes for a taskforce to take down the Monster, in the sewers. Gretchen tells Christie she thinks X is working for Gorreti. Christie tells this to Tango, who sends Coffin to kill her, but X tricks them, allowing Goretti to escape. X and Coffin battle, ending when X breaks Coffin's neck and shoots him, answering his question of "do I know you?" with "you never knew me". When X arrives back in his hideout,oonly to discover the police, who surround and arrest him. X escapes, with Timothy and his partner in pursuit. They encounter the Judegmnet Nights, forcing X to kill several more. The Nights leader is revealed to be Kossy, who fidn Timothy and Lewis passed out, but is forced to leave before he can kill them. Goretti turns to Hughes for help, but he isolates her. Teal is approached in his office by X and reminded that he owes him, but Teal sticks a sword through X's chest from under his desk, revealing himself as Alamout. Before his assassins can take him down, X dies, his body tossed into the river. Alamout dons the mask and costume of X, his agenda now added a new wrinkle. Gamble tells Peter Lwellyn he is there to finish his job, while Gretchen is revealed to be working for Diana Goretti, her relationship with Christie a scheme of Goretti. Alamout's scientist's assure him that X's cape is indeed drenched in blood, but what is stranger still about that, is that it is fresh and unable to be burned, frozen or acidified. Coffin is revealed as paralyzed but alive, while Alamout, as X, approaches Tango and orders him to set up a meeting with the other bosses to announce a new ruler for Arcadia. A mysterious figure saves a homeless man, then crashes Tango and Alamout's shindig. It is X, back from the dead. X kills Alamout, revealing him as Michael Levan, the nightclub owner. X puts his costume back on and declares that the war is over. Tango flees, X finishes the Judgement Nights, but does allow Timothy to arrest Kossy. Tango goes to Christie's place, where X arrives, killing both Goretti and Gretchen. X tells them he was the one using them. X then tells Tango that he is nothing and that he no longer has any power. It breaks Tango, who goes comatose. Christie assumes control of the undeworld as X declares a new day in Arcadia.

• 16-20: (begins 48 hours later) Hothouse Rose, member of an enhanced government strike force, has gone rogue. Her former emloyers are in Arcadia, looking for her. X goes to Tango's hospital room, but before he can injure the mobster, Tango's nurse- the same one who wept over the comatose teenager-stops him. She tells X about a young man she knew when she was a caseworker. He had no memory and was covered in severe burns which healed. He had no traceable Fingerprints and carried a wooden box with an x on it. In time, hypnosis revealing no memories, he grew and they became lovers. Her boyfriend, Carmine Tango, found out and she broke it off with the young man. It didn't work and he tried killing Tango, who liked his spunk and hired him. Tango named him Johnny. She left casework and town, retraining as a nurse. She found out later that Carmine had the boy murdered a few years back. X yells "what's it got to do with me?" Headhunter, Rose's former boss, tracks her down, but X finds them and tells them that the government is not welcome in Arcadia. Rose escapes, but during the confrontation, X is felled by a bullet from One-Shot, Headhunter's sniper. Timothy and his partner, Lewis, lead a team into Alamout/Levan's headquarters, where they find still Teal drugged from his drink. Timothy, called in to the hospital, does not believe the man he has been rushed to I.D is X, whom some kids found in park(it is X) because he had once pumped an entire revolver into X, so how could be felled by a single bullet? X has sent a threat to the Governor, strongly urging Teal be sent to Congress, which he does, terrified. Rose goes to the hospital in search of X, killing a guard to gain access to him, but Headhunter finds her. X awakes from his coma. X tracks down Headhunter but does not kill them. Instead, he kills Rose for murdering the gaurd and warns Headhunter that the government is to stay out of Arcadia. Headhunter fires One-shot after he is threatened by him. The gang leaves, but X is on One-shot's trail. X follows One-shot to a government safehouse when a Predator attacks them. The man in charge of the safehouse is after the Predator, angering X, who has told Washington they are not welcome in Arcadia. X and One-shot team up to destroy the Predator, but One-shot realizes that X has set him up to die along with the Predator and the two kill each other. X tells the Governor they will reubild Aracadia, and is told in turn that Washngton wants X gone, so X heads to D.C to personally deliver his message. Once there, X begins strong-arming senators to get his agenda for Arcadia passed. Vargas, Headhunter's boss, and Tommy Kafka-aka, Challenge-discuss the growing situation. Kafka offers to bring in X for study. X, still muscling senators, is taken down by Challenge after a fierce fight. A top-ranking general takes charge of a secret team to study X. Kafaka busts into a base, looking for X, who was taken out of official custody in order to be studied. Vargas warns him against poking his nose in others business. They are attacked by the General's men, sending Challenge to go after them. The lead scientist in charge of X remarks that X's metabolism is the only truly measurable statistic about him, otherwise he would be mistaken for a corpse. The General, who is missing an arm, speaks to X while he hangs in a tank, revealing that he knew X's father, who stole something from him. He promises X that he will now pay for his father's theft. When Challenge arrives to take the General and X into custody, the General uses a Vortex weapon, but is seemingly kllled. Vargas intervenes when it appears Kafka and X are about to square off, offering X all the funding and assistance he needs, Arcadia as his own sphere of influence in exchange for D.C staying out of Arcadia and X staying out of their business. Challenge goes off to figure out another way to deal with the situation, while X returns to Arcadia.

• 21-22: Gamble kidnaps Mickey D. Assistant D.A Elizabeth Treaty is put on the X case and begins working with Timothy and Lewis. At the hospital, the comatose teen is put in a room with Coffin. X begins cleaning up the mess that Gamble has started leaving. Gamble announces himself to X, who reminds Gamble he is as good as dead. Treaty and X square off over his motives. She marks her own face, mocking his warning. He tells her she doesn't know how close she was and that she ought not try that again. At the hospital, Christie is told that the kid in Coffin's room has been on life-support ever since X knocked out the power to city when he took down the Chaos Riders. Christie tells Coffin that X wouldn't like it if he found out about him being alive, so he pulls the plug on Coffin. . .and then on the kid, a possible witness. X meets Christie outside the hospital and reminds the mobster about Gamble. X tells him he needs the mob to find Gamble for him. X goes to talk to Peter Lwellyn, who is being forced to work with Gamble. After X leaves, Gamble tells Peter he has won since X thinks he is in charge. Treaty announces that she wants X caught and delivered to justice once and for all. Gamble and X have a confrontation, during which X lets him escape. At the hospital, a dying Coffin sees a Chaos Rider, who reveals himself as...the man in the bed next to him, who absorbs Coffin's personality, combing it with his own power. Coffin now lives in the body of a man connected to the comatose teen. Gamble meets with Willie McCone, a hired killer. McCone stabs Gamble in the chest and dumps him over a bridge, saying that Gamble would only have gotten in the way of his plans.

• 23-25: X starts busting up Gamble's operations. Coffin goes after Christie, but X saves him by tossing Coffin a challenge. The police give pursuit to the two. Lwellyn lets Mickey D go. X, while waiting for Coffin, discovers Gamble invited the killers to Arcadia while he was in D.C, under the pretense X had invited them. McCone finds X and they fight, McCone is marked, but the General from D.C-McCone's boss-shows up and they escape. Lewis prevents Timothy from killing himself going after X, who has saved the life of Treaty. Down in the sewers, Coffin finds X, Mickey and Treaty. The Monster arrives and fights Coffin, allwoing the tohers to get away, but it appears that The Monster dies when Coffin smashes it with a boulder. The General tells McCone a story, beginning with the fact that none of this has anything to do with Arcadia and everything to do with what the general lost. He tells Willie that the government bombed the Alien Scientist's lab in the desert(CGW 1-16)creating the Vortex, after detecting the presence of the scientist. As a young military officer, the General was sent in to search the area but his arm was infected. It was either have an infected arm and be sent to a ward for mutations or cut it off. He chose to lose the arm. But, the arm would not die. One day, after years of attempts to kill it, the arm was stolen. Willie and The General go to check on what is going on with the pursuit of X. Timothy and Lewis arrive at Treaty's apartment, looking for X. They find X and Mickey in Treaty's bedroom, X passed out on her bed. Treaty says X can be used to stop the violence breaking out, a notion Timothy struggles with. X meets with Gamble-who is alive-and Gamble's men overwhelm X. Later, X, seemingly escaped from Gamble, meets with Christie, who admits to X that he tried to kill Coffin as a favor to him, who flashes back to the night the Zigurrat, on orders from Tango-believing the stars had told him X would kill him one day-cut his eye out and sliced him up beofre dumping him in the river. X searches for the General and gives Christie an assignment. X also gives Mickey a task. X meets the General on the docks, but McCone shoots him. As X lies bleeding, X recalls how he lost faith in everything he gew up believing, the day his father and mother were killed in front of him by men from the government. His father, before dying, injected him with a serum from an arm in a tank. The house he grew up in exploded in flames. The arm, but not X, was recovered by the General, but its power was gone. X rises to his feet as the General realizes that the key to X's invulnerability is that his blood acts on aberrations, analyzing and reparing itself. Jealous, the general starts shooting at X, but Coffin comes up behind him and rips him in two. X then fires a single shot-literally through Coffin and into. . .the comatose teen, delivered by Christie. A second shot kills him and Coffin. Gamble appears, informing McCone that it is lucky for him he was born with his heart on the wrong side, then breaks McCones neck. For this transgression, and a final attempt on X's life, X kills Gamble. Timothy arrives to arrest X but Treaty give X full immunity. Disgusted, Timothy quits the force. End of the regular series.

[edit] Other appearances

• Will to Power #1-3, Script by Jerry Prosser, art by Mike Manley (& Ande Parkes, #3)
• Dark Horse Comics #19 & 20: "Welcome to the Jungle", Written by Eric Luke, art by Nghia Lam
• X (Hero Illustrated Special) # 1 & 2: Written by Steven Grant, art by Vince Giarrano, # 1, Corky Lehmkuhl & Jordi Ensign, # 2. (Introduces Challenge)
• Ghost Special: Written by Eric Luke, pencils by Matt Haley, inks by Tom Simmons
• X: "One Shot to the Head". (originally in Dark Horse Comics # 8-10) Script by Jerry Prosser, pencils by N. Steven Harris, Inks by Dan Davis. Also, this issue collects the first five pages of "X" from Arcadia week one, which had pencils by Chris Warner and Inks by Tim Bradstreet. Cover is by Frank Miller.
• Comics Greatest World: Arcadia, weeks 1-4: X(pencils by Chris Warner, inks by Tim Bradstreet)Pit Bulls(pencils by Joe Phillips, inks by John Dell), Ghost(pencils by Adam Hughes, inks by Mark Farmer), Monster (pencils by Derek Thompson, inks by Ande Parks.) All were written by Jerry Prosser.
• Ghost (first series): Issue #9, #15, #'s 20-27, #32. Written by Eric Luke.

[edit] Characters

While it is debatable if X ever truly aligns with anyone else, he does team up with or use another person in order to benefit from them. Essentially, X either kills you or he does not, mostly disregarding any prior use.

[edit] Allies

• Mickey D (First appears in # 1)
• Kingston (First appears in # 1)
• Monster (First appears in CGW: Arcadia)

[edit] Villains

• Carmine Tango (First appears in #1)
• Ziggurat/Coffin (First appears in #2)
• Lord Alamout (First appears in #6)
• Willie McCone (First appears in #21)
• Gamble (First appears in #1)
• Chaos Riders (First appear in #3)
• Judgement Knights (First appear in #9)
• Headhunter (First appears in #16)
• One-Shot (First appears in #16)
• The General (First appears in #20)

[edit] Others

These persons may be antagonistic or beneficial(sometimes both)to X. Because of this and other characteristics, they do not qualify as a villain or ally:

• Christie (First appears in #1)
• The Kid (First appears in #5)
• Mose Hughes (First appears in #10)
• Kossy(First appears in #10)
• Elizabeth Treaty (First appears in #21)
• Vargas (First appears in #8)
• Congressman DeMarco (First Appears in CGW: Arcadia)
• Mayor Teal (First Appears in CGW: Arcadia)
• Commissioner Anderson (First appears in CGW: Arcadia)
• Diani Goretti (First appears in #5)
• Gretchen (First appears in #1)
• Challenge (Real name-Tommy Kafka. First appears in Hero Illustrated X Special #1)
• Briggs
• Detective Lewis
• Detective Timothy
• Peter Lwellyn(First appears in #1)
• The Nurse (First appears in #5)
• Ghost(First appears in CGW: Arcadia)

[edit] External links

• Grand Comics Database Project