Your Happenstance page for today:

From X-Statix #21, "The Good and the Famous, part 1" Written by Peter Milligan, pencils by Mike Allred, inks by Nick Craine. I had to go to GCD and look this up: this issue is cover-dated June 2004, same as Avengers #81, a Chuck Austen-written issue, that I haven't read but kinda figure is terrible. "The Good and the Famous" would run five parts and end about the same time as Bendis's "Avengers Disassembled," and X-Statix would end with issue #26. Weird...Thor, Hawkeye, and Ant-Man would all be dead about the same time this storyline ended. (I think Thor was dead, he was at least missing; and he and Hawkeye have of course returned since.)

I wanted to look it up, since this seems like a very old-school Avengers roster, and I thought Milligan and Allred might've just picked whatever Avengers they wanted to play with, rather than being tied to whoever was in the current book. Allred draws Thor and the Scarlet Witch in a likewise old-school style. He at least pays lip service to the current looks for Cap and Iron Man, but it seems like Allred really, really wants to draw them in a sixties style as well.

This issue: Terrorists kidnap the mysterious Doop, to use his brain to power a super-weapon. The Avengers and X-Statix clash, stepping on each other's toes and badmouthing everyone involved, until Doop's brain blows up, into six pieces scattered around the globe. (Think the Cobra Weather Dominator of G.I. Joe, although this storyline also calls back to the Avengers/Defenders clash of about a geological age ago.) Doop can only survive a limited time on the backup brain in his butt (ah, I love comics) and X-Statix fights for their spud-like teammate; while the Avengers try to keep it out of the wrong hands...including the X-Statix.

I just got this run out of the quarter boxes a couple of weeks ago; since I had read X-Force/X-Statix for some time, then fell off the book during the too-long pseudo-Princess Di storyline. I might have to check out the Iron Man/Mr. Sensitive fight next week, though...