Peter Milligan's reunion with the Allreds in X-Cellent #2 remains as sarcastic and violent as any longtime X-Statix fan would expect from the collaboration. The connection with that comic means there's no real "jumping right in" with X-Cellent as a series, but it is still a fun romp that swaps the reality television craze of the early-21st century for today's social media landscape. Just don't expect conventional superhero storytelling or connections to the wider X-Men line. Read Full Review

While the previous issue's satirical look at the X-Statix didn't wow me, #2 goes down a bit better by examining the X-Cellent through an equally critical lens. Zeitgeist's point of view is fun in a deranged way, and the art remains delightful.

On the whole, the social satire seems a lot weaker than in the X-Statix days, though. The culture's evolved, the satire hasn't -- to stay relevant, you need to do more than sprinkle social media buzzwords into an old script. I'm thinking this series is destined to go down as a pleasant but inconsequential epilogue to the main event (though #2 is pretty early to pass judgment).