Dead Girl was once a young mutant woman who moved to New York to become an actress. Murdered by a one-night stand, she revived using her mutant power and killed her murderer. Relocating to California, she became a freelance adventurer, and soon joined the publicity-seeking mutant team X-Force, accompanying them into space to battle the Bush Rangers, renegade government mutates. When teammate U-Go Girl died during the mission, X-Force's leader, Mister Sensitive, renamed the team "X-Statix" per her final request. As the team reorganized, Dead Girl dated fellow member Anarchist, and the two briefly embarked on a "Death and Anarchy" roadshow, capitalizing on Dead Girl's ability to recover from any lethal attack.
Over the next few months, Dead Girl performed X-Statix missions in Africa, Malaysia, India and elsewhere, often proving herself a savage combatant. She faced a personal crisis when telepathic messages from the dead warned that mortician Brad Gutman was defiling corpses in his care. She killed Gutman rather than allow him to molest the corpse of his daughter Britney, then revived him long enough for him to be attacked by the ghosts of those he had assaulted. When another resurrected woman, mutant pop star Henrietta Hunter, joined X-Statix, Dead Girl shared her teammates' dislike of the newcomer; but after the maniac Mister Code slew Hunter, Dead Girl helped her spirit get vengeance on her original killers.
X-Statix eventually decided to retire on their wealth after one final mission; Dead Girl accompanied her teammates despite an unexplained illness which ultimately re-killed her, and the rest of X-Statix were slain during the mission. Months later, the spirit of a dead super-villain known as the Pitiful One led the Anarchist, Mysterio, Kraven the Hunter, and Miss America out of the afterlife, in forms much like Dead Girl's, to wreak havoc in New York. Needing an ally familiar with the realm of the dead to face this threat, Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Strange contacted Dead Girl, who led his astral form to recruit the spirits of Phantom Rider, Ant-Man, Mister Sensitive, and others.
