Media critic Ken Tucker reviewed Marvel's X-Force: New Beginnings trade paperback in last Sunday's New York Times Book Review.  The review occupied the central space of the Books in Brief section and included a black-and-white reproduction of a panel from the book.  Tucker, who is better known for his music reviews, liked the book, especially writer Peter Milligan's sharp satiric sensibility and witty plot which proceeds 'from the assumption that given a world containing scores of superheroes, at least one bunch of them will prove to be media-manipulating cynics.'  Tucker points out correctly that the 'heroes' of X-Force are much like the media 'personalities' of today (think Paula Jones or Tonya Harding) who are deemed 'celebrities' not because of their accomplishments, 'but merely for dominating the news.'

 

Marvel, which switched its bookstore distribution last year from LPC to Diamond (see 'Diamond Moves Into Bookstore Distribution'), has expanded its trade paperback program significantly over the past few months.  Getting the X Force: New Beginnings trade reviewed in the weekly New York Times Book Review is a real feather in Marvel's cap, since the Book Review apparent hold over the mainstream book trade is nearly Biblical.  Simply mounting the Books in Brief page on a slab of cardboard and displaying it prominently along with the X-Force trade could attract new customers, whose interest may well be piqued by Milligan's witty take on the superhero as 'media parasite.'