0-: Duane Swierczynski, writer | Eric Nguyen, pencils.
Plot
X, whose law is that one mark means a warning, the second one death, takes on a collection of business, law, mob, assassins and politics. This includes characters such as Mayor Teal and Police Commissioner Anderson as well as the Llewellyn brothers, their hired assassin named Gamble, Mob boss Carmine Tango and highly connected army officials.
1-15: The first section of the series involves a series of political hits performed by X, sometimes in tandem with a woman named Diana Gorreti, who wanted to take over Arcadia from mobster Carmine Tango. It is eventually revealed that X used Goretti to remove Tango and put pliable people in positions of power within the city. To this end, a "War" was fought between X and the mob, during which X was briefly thought killed by a mysterious mind controlling villain named Lord Alamout.
16-20: X travels to Washington D.C. to letthe government know that he is in control of Arcadia and to try to extend his influence. During the trip to D.C., X encounters a general who seems to know something about X's early past. It is also revealed that X arrived in Arcadia as a young man, rapidly recovering from burns that covered much of his body and with no clear memories. He fell in love with his case worker who was involved with another man, Carmine Tango. X tried to kill Tango which amused him, so he took X in and pushed the case worker out of both of their lives.
21-25: Gamble, the only man X failed to kill after marking, returned and drew X into the open by inviting a rash of killers into Arcadia. Assistant D.A. Elizabeth Treaty spends some time building a case against X. Coffin returns just as X busts up Gamble's operations, saves Christie and marks McCone, one of the killers. The General explains that as a young military officer, he was sent in to search the area of a bombed scientist's lab and his arm was infected. The arm was amputated, but would not die and was eventually stolen. X finally recalls how he lost faith in everything he grew up believing, the day his father and mother were killed in front of him by men from the government. His father, before dying, injected him with a serum from an arm in a tank. As X recovers from a wound, the General realizes that the key to X's invulnerability is that his blood analyzes and repairs itself. Coffin arrives and rips the general in two, before being defeated by X, who also kills Gamble. At the end of the series, Treaty grants X full immunity.
Ghost Special: Written by Eric Luke, pencils by Matt Haley, inks by Tom Simmons
X: "One Shot to the Head". Script by Jerry Prosser, pencils by N. Steven Harris, Inks by Dan Davis. Also, this issue collects the first five pages of "X" from Arcadia week one, which had pencils by Chris Warner and Inks by Tim Bradstreet. Cover is by Frank Miller.
Comics Greatest World: Arcadia, weeks 1-4: X, Pit Bulls, Ghost, Monster. All were written by Jerry Prosser.
Ghost : Issue #9, #15, #'s 20-27, #32. Written by Eric Luke.
Characters
While it is debatable if X ever truly aligns with anyone else, he does team up with or use another person in order to benefit from them. Essentially, X either kills you or he does not, mostly disregarding any prior use.
Allies
Mickey D
Kingston
Monster
Villains
Carmine Tango
Ziggurat/Coffin
Lord Alamout
Willie McCone
Gamble
Chaos Riders
Judgement Knights
Headhunter
One-Shot
The General
Others
These people may be antagonistic or beneficial to X. Because of this and other characteristics, they do not qualify as a villain or ally:
