Robin Lewis
Mar 2, 2008, 03:33 pm
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/marvel/0208/XMEN208_col.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/marvel/0208/XMEN208_colt.jpg" alt="X-Men: Legacy #208" hspace=10 align=left></a> Reviewer: Robin Lewis, lucillerobin@aol.com
Story Title: From Genesis to Revelations.
A trip down memory lane with Charles Xavier.
Writer: Mike Carey
Art: John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson/Scot Eaton & John Dell
Colors: Christina Strain and Frank D'Armata
Assistant Editor: Will Panzo
Editor: Nick Lowe
Executive Editor: Axel Alonso
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Published By: Marvel Comics (www.marvel.com)
In a medium where being reduced to your constituent atoms and fired into the sun is only a minor inconvenience to your well-being, getting shot in the head should be taken no more seriously than you or I would regard a slight sniffle. Death is but a minor bump in the road of your life (unless you're Uncle Ben), and Charles Xavier isn't a beginner when it comes to getting over it. He's been killed a couple of times already (and rendered unable to walk more times than that), bouncing back in a clone body and a retcon which casually painted him as a man with a somewhat sadistic sense of humour ("Oh no, Scott. I'm not dead, I've merely been in the attic all this time. Haha, what fun, eh?"). It should therefore come as no surprise to find that far from being six feet under after Bishop drilled a bullet through his brain matter he is, in fact, alive and well. Well, he's alive anyway. Sort of.
As many people surmised, after his apparent death in the final part of Messiah Complex Xavier has been spirited away by Exodus and the remnants of the tenth rate bad guys known as the Acolytes. Exodus, no-one's favourite reminder of the days when new villains had twelve-hundred vaguely described powers that made them a) incredibly dangerous and b) defeatable by little other than blatant fudging on the part of the writer, has stolen him away and has him lying on a slab. Skating breezily over the fact that with most of his brain missing Xavier should be irretrievably dead, Carey has Exodus and Karima keeping his body alive through technology (and whatever power Exodus has on a Tuesday) while his memories are stored in Du Parris' own mind. Once Exodus has repaired Xavier's brain (he can restore destroyed neural matter perfectly, of course) he plans to copy and paste the memories back in and hey presto, Chuck's back. Leaving aside the obvious 'oh come off it' complaints of such a strategy, this plot gives Carey the opportunity to revisit the origins of the X-Men. Xavier's memories of putting the team together percolate in his rented mindspace, as do his discussions of his dreams with Moira, and his conversations with Scott about the thorny question of just how much he's intefered with his pupils minds over the years. All this is well written, and after several years of Xavier being painted as something of a schmuck it's nice to be reminded of his idealism and his central role in the mythos. However, it's still essentially just a flashback story, the sort of thing that used to take up a single issue before things were back to normal (someone would turn up at the mansion, blow it up, wackiness would ensue, etc). Having it be the backbone of an ongoing storyline is perhaps asking a little too much of Xavier's wonder years.
It helps that the art's so lovely. As well as John Romita JR's customarily gorgeous storytelling we have Scot Eaton providing pages that look very much like Steve Epting's work over in the Captain Americia (Frank D'Armata's colours probably add to this feeling). It's a good-looking book, and getting Romita JR to handle the flashback side of things contrasts perfectly with Eaton's more realistic work. No problems on this front.
X-Men: Legacy is an odd X-Men comic. There's no team to speak of. Very little happens that isn't confined to the imagination and memory of Xavier. The villains, barring the one who pops up at the end, aren't very interesting and the action is non-existent. On the other hand much of this can be seen as an answer to the most frequent criticism levelled at this title since Grant Morrison left: there has been almost nothing to justify its existence other than the fact that while it was around we got to read about two teams of X-Men. Not any more. Now it's a title with its own agenda and its own storyline, one that very much looks as if it's going to be the tale of how Charles Xavier gets his groove back and revivifies his dream. I have my doubts about the ability of this plot being enough to hold an audience as well as even the odd-squad of mutants Carey put together when he took over the book, but the solicitations suggest that the cast will be broadened out in time. Under Carey's stewardship the mutant books have been given a shot in the arm, so he's certainly earned the right to expect a little patience on our part until he unfolds his plan.
OVERALL:
http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xhalf.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xnone.jpg
Buy X-Men: Legacy#208 online now from X-WORLD and save! (http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=1321&cat=X%2DMEN+157%2DPRESENT)
Story Title: From Genesis to Revelations.
A trip down memory lane with Charles Xavier.
Writer: Mike Carey
Art: John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson/Scot Eaton & John Dell
Colors: Christina Strain and Frank D'Armata
Assistant Editor: Will Panzo
Editor: Nick Lowe
Executive Editor: Axel Alonso
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Published By: Marvel Comics (www.marvel.com)
In a medium where being reduced to your constituent atoms and fired into the sun is only a minor inconvenience to your well-being, getting shot in the head should be taken no more seriously than you or I would regard a slight sniffle. Death is but a minor bump in the road of your life (unless you're Uncle Ben), and Charles Xavier isn't a beginner when it comes to getting over it. He's been killed a couple of times already (and rendered unable to walk more times than that), bouncing back in a clone body and a retcon which casually painted him as a man with a somewhat sadistic sense of humour ("Oh no, Scott. I'm not dead, I've merely been in the attic all this time. Haha, what fun, eh?"). It should therefore come as no surprise to find that far from being six feet under after Bishop drilled a bullet through his brain matter he is, in fact, alive and well. Well, he's alive anyway. Sort of.
As many people surmised, after his apparent death in the final part of Messiah Complex Xavier has been spirited away by Exodus and the remnants of the tenth rate bad guys known as the Acolytes. Exodus, no-one's favourite reminder of the days when new villains had twelve-hundred vaguely described powers that made them a) incredibly dangerous and b) defeatable by little other than blatant fudging on the part of the writer, has stolen him away and has him lying on a slab. Skating breezily over the fact that with most of his brain missing Xavier should be irretrievably dead, Carey has Exodus and Karima keeping his body alive through technology (and whatever power Exodus has on a Tuesday) while his memories are stored in Du Parris' own mind. Once Exodus has repaired Xavier's brain (he can restore destroyed neural matter perfectly, of course) he plans to copy and paste the memories back in and hey presto, Chuck's back. Leaving aside the obvious 'oh come off it' complaints of such a strategy, this plot gives Carey the opportunity to revisit the origins of the X-Men. Xavier's memories of putting the team together percolate in his rented mindspace, as do his discussions of his dreams with Moira, and his conversations with Scott about the thorny question of just how much he's intefered with his pupils minds over the years. All this is well written, and after several years of Xavier being painted as something of a schmuck it's nice to be reminded of his idealism and his central role in the mythos. However, it's still essentially just a flashback story, the sort of thing that used to take up a single issue before things were back to normal (someone would turn up at the mansion, blow it up, wackiness would ensue, etc). Having it be the backbone of an ongoing storyline is perhaps asking a little too much of Xavier's wonder years.
It helps that the art's so lovely. As well as John Romita JR's customarily gorgeous storytelling we have Scot Eaton providing pages that look very much like Steve Epting's work over in the Captain Americia (Frank D'Armata's colours probably add to this feeling). It's a good-looking book, and getting Romita JR to handle the flashback side of things contrasts perfectly with Eaton's more realistic work. No problems on this front.
X-Men: Legacy is an odd X-Men comic. There's no team to speak of. Very little happens that isn't confined to the imagination and memory of Xavier. The villains, barring the one who pops up at the end, aren't very interesting and the action is non-existent. On the other hand much of this can be seen as an answer to the most frequent criticism levelled at this title since Grant Morrison left: there has been almost nothing to justify its existence other than the fact that while it was around we got to read about two teams of X-Men. Not any more. Now it's a title with its own agenda and its own storyline, one that very much looks as if it's going to be the tale of how Charles Xavier gets his groove back and revivifies his dream. I have my doubts about the ability of this plot being enough to hold an audience as well as even the odd-squad of mutants Carey put together when he took over the book, but the solicitations suggest that the cast will be broadened out in time. Under Carey's stewardship the mutant books have been given a shot in the arm, so he's certainly earned the right to expect a little patience on our part until he unfolds his plan.
OVERALL:
http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xhalf.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xnone.jpg
Buy X-Men: Legacy#208 online now from X-WORLD and save! (http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=1321&cat=X%2DMEN+157%2DPRESENT)