Comic Info
Comic Name: X-Men Legacy (Volume 2)
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Simon Spurrier
Artist: Tan Eng Huat/Paul Davidson/Kho Pham
# of Issues: 6
Release Date: 2013
Reprints X-Men Legacy (2) #13-18 (September 2013-December 2013). After a stand-off in England over mutant rights, David finds himself facing personal tragedy. Pushed to his limit and seeking retribution, David seeks out the man he blames for his family problems…the man who killed his father: Cyclops!
Written by Simon Spurrier, X-Men Legacy Volume 3: Revenants follows X-Men Legacy Volume 2: Invasive Exotics. The critically acclaimed series features art by Tan Eng Huat, Paul Davidson, and Kho Pham. The series was also collected in a massive X-Men Legacy Omnibus.
Legacy is an odd Marvel title. While it falls under the X-Men flagship, the series is actually pretty cerebral and different from everything else published in the vein. This volume of X-Men Legacy almost plays with the standard Marvel comic.
The first storyline (“Hope and Glory”) features an England story which is always fun. I was a big fan of Excalibur so a nice stop in London with cameos by many of the Marvel’s English characters is always welcomed. The story leads to a different type of conclusion and sets up a nice stand-alone issue that needed to happen sometime involving David’s mother.
The second storyline (“Wear the Grudge Like a Crown”) is almost a riff on the issues where two characters fight. This has David facing off against Cyclops but like most of X-Men Legacy, the story isn’t that straight forward. I like that it is almost like a bad mock-up of the end of The Matrix with the characters punching each other for a whole issue in the rain…most comics use this as filler and don’t do anything with it. X-Men Legacy makes use of it and turns it on its side.
Ever since the mutants moved to San Francisco and the whole Schism storyline evolved, Marvel has been putting out a lot of sub-par X-Men books. Continuity has been thrown out the window and for the most part writing also has as well. X-Men Legacy is one of those rare exceptions that stands out among X-Men books and is definitely better than much of what Marvel put out.
Legion is always a tough character to write. He’s clinically insane and his powers are virtually limitless. This can either lead to good storylines or really bad storylines since the character is so hard to deal with. Spurrier gets Legion (or David as he prefers to be called) and this series shows it. That being said, X-Men Legacy is really tricky read, and it isn’t as easy and simple as other comics out there…forcing readers to do some thinking while reading. It is worth the attempt however and with a new series based around Legion in the pipeline, I hope they borrow some of the ideas in the series. X-Men Legacy 3: Revenants is followed by X-Men Legacy 4: For We Are Many.
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