X-Force (1st series) #123

Issue Date: 
February 2002
Story Title: 
Tick Tock
Staff: 

Peter Milligan (writer), Mike Allred (artist), Laura Allred (colorist), Mike Allred & Blambot (letters), John Miesegaes (assistant editor), Axel Alonso (editor), Joe Queseda (editor in chief), Bill Jemas (president)

Brief Description: 

X-Force are hanging out at their headquarter. Doop squeezes a pimple on his forehead, and as it splits open a vortex appears taking the entire team into Doop’s head. Doop follows by reaching into the hole, turning himself inside out. His teammates are trapped in Doop’s dark side of his imagination. They face horror scenarios based on their own fears. Phat is chased by black people, Vivisector faces his fathers in a library full of empty books, Spike is on the cover of a cross-dressing magazine wearing women’s clothes, the Anarchist is drowning in his own acid sweat, U-Go Girl’s tongue has been cut out, and the Orphan is in agony as he is attacked by a swarm of insects overstimulating his fine sensors. Doop rescues all of them and rushes back to reality through the hole in his forehead. He squeezes the pimple once more and X-Force are back in their base. The entire adventure happened within one second.

Full Summary: 

X-Force are hanging out in their headquarter doing nothing. Vivisector is reading, Spike is looking at the pictures in a nudes magazine, Phat is playing with some electronic toy, Edi and Guy are toying around with each other and the Anarchist is watching neighbours with binoculars. Doop is floating in front of a mirror looking at an awful pimple on his forehead. He is trying to squeeze it out, and as the big clock in the reaches a second before noon with a TICK, the pimple opens. A mini vortex spins through the room tossing the members of X-Force around. As it stops Doop takes a look around; he is alone, all the others are gone, but their books, toys, etc are still there. Doop checks the mirror and find a hole on his forehead. Doop puts his finger in it, apparently there is a larger room behind it and he then reaches fully in it, even gazes inside himself, before under a lot of strain he turns himself inside out. Time has apparently stopped, as the clock still shows a second to noon.
Doop takes a look around, there are many Doop-like creatures floating around in a surreal landscape too composed of Doop’s bodyparts. It seems that he is in the darker parts of his own imagination. Doops looks scared, but then gazes up through the hole he entered and sees the clock at the wall in X-Force’s base. Time hasn’t moved.
Elsewhere within this scenario there are buildings. In the streets between them are many dark, threatening figures with glowing eyes. They are chasing Phat, who tries to hide from them, but they always keeps up. Meanwhile Doop is fighting his own evil incarnations. Behind them is a huge glass window, with Phat’s scared face on it. Doop defeats his opponent and rushes through the window. He arrives in the city in giant size, grabs Phat and swallows him.
Vivisector finds himself a a library with thousands of books on the shelfves. He opends some, but all the pages are blank. A big red figure walks towards him, it’s a demonic image of his father, his body filled with letters and markings. Myles tries to seek cover, as he stumbles over a book entitled “Pop-Up“, with Doop’s face on. Vivisector opens the book and Doop emerges from it. Doop yells at the demonic image and it dissipates, and then he sucks Vivisector into himself.
Looking around Doop finds another book called “Spikey Cross-Dressing Ooh Lala “. Spike is on the cover wearing a dress and net stockings. Doop doesn’t know what to make of it, but when he finds the evil Doop, now wearing dresses and bustiers attacking again, he eats the book. The clock still displays a second to noon, though the second arm strats to move ....
The Anarchist is lying in a desert, bones and skelletons all around him. Thre are various suns in the sky and the hotter it gets the more sacidous sweat he produces. Finally Tyke is drowing inan ocean of his own sweat, but Doop finds him and dives after him.
U-Go Girl is in a dark place surrounded by tubes. She is bleeding from her mouth and trying to speak she finds her tongue missing. It’s in one of the tubes, but she doesn’t know which one as they all contain somebody’s tongue. Doop arrives and shows her the right glass cylinder, but Edie is unable to open it, so Doop smashes it with a pipe. U-Go Girl takes her tongue and puts it into her mouth again. She wants to speak, but Doop gestures her to stay silent.
Elsewhere the Orphan is in pain, a swarm of insects is all over his body, but at a closer look they aresn’t insects, but tiny, eveil Doops. They are all over himcrawling in his mouth his nose, his ears. Doop arrives and grabs Guy by his antennae, trying to pull him free. Suddenly the head rips of the body, but Guy makes a friendly face, everything is ok. Doop looks above and sees the hole through which he entered and the clock’s arm about to move to noon. He rushes for the exit.
Doop emerges in the X-Force building folding out of himself. He flies to the clock and stops it before moving. He squeezes his pimplie once more and this time when it splits open the rest of the team emerge, ending up in exactly the same positions as before. The clock switches to noon with a TOCK. Doop looks relieved.

Characters Involved: 

Anarchist, Doop, Orphan, Phat, Spike, U-Go Girl, Vivisector (all X-Force)

Story Notes: 

The issue is part of Marvel’s ‘Nuff Said silent month. There is no dialogue or thought bubble; the only sound effect in the story is the ticking of the clock.
The entire issue takes place within one second !

Issue Information: 
Written By: