Why Gin Genie Was One Of The Most Bizarre Comic Characters

Lots of people think they have superpowers when they're drunk. Or at least, they act like they do ... while not thinking very much at all.

It's understandable how comic book writers can run out of gas amid all the absurdly nonsensical, continuity-breaking plots involving universe reboots, clones of clones, secret parentage, cosmic overlords, factional infighting, and molecule-manipulating superpowers. Some concepts are going to fall through the cracks, especially given real-world, behind-the-scenes politics that go on at comic book publishers such as Marvel and DC, and especially because fans within the comic-book-reading community tend to be quite vocal about their displeasure.

Enter Gin Genie, a short-lived "superhero" (we use the term loosely) in X-Force, and later X-Statix (no, not Static-X), whose superpower is connected to debilitating alcoholism. Namely, as described in Listverse, the more she drinks, the stronger her seismic blasts become. So it's basically always in her best interests to be an ornery drunk while strapping some brown jugs of whiskey to her belt as she slurrily slides into combat. Maybe someone along the line thought it might be funny to draw a character stumbling around while plastered and shooting off errant blasts at teammates, but needless to say ... the potential for long-term, gripping storytelling is minimal at best (unless they took the rehab route, where she has to suppress her powers and struggles with her relevance to the team — okay, that's not half-bad; call me, guys).

In true comic book fashion, Gin Genie's origin stems from convoluted ludicrousness that's more difficult to follow than a 10-second crash course on the Higgs boson given in Pig Latin. Gin Genie can be traced back to X-Force, which started as a black-ops style mutant fighting force derived from the New Mutants, which were Charles Xavier's second, younger class of mutants back at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Per Den of Geek, they rejected the X-Men's philosophy and went with a more militaristic stance, led by time-traveler Cable. That's when, after about a 100-issue run, creator Rob Liefied headed out, and, according to CBR, employees Dustin Milligan and Mike Allred created X-Statix as a spinoff from X-Force, after X-Force was changed into a send-up of reality TV where its members were actually filmed.

X-Statix was introduced in X-Force #116 in 2001 as a weird, comical superhero team alternative. Per CBR, its members included narcoleptic, smalltown gal teleporter U-Go-Girl, emo with sensitive skin and acne Orphan, fake-gangsta white boy Phat, zombie-ghost hybrid Dead Girl, dimension-traveling shapeshifter Doop, who was the team's longest-standing character, and the actual ghost of Princess Diana (which caused a bit of a stir). There's some admittedly clever stuff in here, and we can maybe guess that the creative team saw Gin Genie as a way to critique the public's love of celebrities' downfalls.

Ultimately, though, Gin Genie died ignobly in cross-helicopter gunfire fighting terrorists, as Comicvine states, along with most of her teammates.