With X-Men Legacy #12, Legion played out an end game of epic proportions. He not only was able to nearly single-handedly take out the Red Skull who is in possession of his father’s brain, but he also had a huge win in his own right. He was able to defeat the goblin running around trying to take over his body and regain a huge amount of control over his inner demons.
His motto “I rule me” has been prevalent throughout the entire series. He needs to follow it through completely to retain control over his powers. He started the series with near complete control and once his father’s mental blocks fell away with his death his hard earned control quickly and completely slipped away. He’s not back to fully in charge at the moment but he’s as close as he has been since that first issue.
Now? Now he’s past the solo phase of his life and is trying to get some teamwork going to make this next pro-mutant change. He’s left the states and is hanging out in the UK this week and in fact has invited a ton of British X-Men along including: Chamber, Pixie, Psylocke, and a few others. Almost immediately Pete Wisdom from MI:13 is on the case trying to figure out what Legion is up to.
The problem for Legion? All of these X-Men turn him down on his request for help even before he can explain what he needs help with. Honestly no one is a huge fan of Legion with his past dealing with the X-Men on the whole.
Things aren’t going to drop that easily as while it looks as if Legion gives up and Pete Wisdom goes to leave it isn’t long before he’s called on a new case. There are mutants doing something outside of an ambassador’s office and he’s called in to look into it. Quickly it becomes obvious that Legion is behind this.
Blindfold takes this time to jump in on her boyfriend and is furious that he’s controlling other people. He keeps telling her (and everyone else) that “You don’t understand!” and he has to do this but as usual no one is giving him a chance to explain. Blindfold helps Pete cut off Legion’s control over all of the mutants who are being forced to help him and the issue ends with what looks like a hell of a negative impact to Legion himself. I’m sure it looked far worse than it actually was.
While I enjoyed the build up of this issue and the jaunt into the UK (with a very Marvel UK feel) this isn’t my favorite Legacy issue to date. In all honesty I’m sure next issue. once it becomes a little more clear on what exactly Legion is up. will become vastly more interesting. So far Spurrier has been able to lead into some quite amazing twists and I expect nothing less in the upcoming issue or two.
I have a sneaky suspicion everything that has happened so far is just a lead in to manipulate Pete Wisdom into doing something.
I hate giving this comic anything less than a 5 at this time because I know once I read the next issue or two I’m going to want to go back and change it to a 5. I have full faith that the lack of information and the semi-slow setup is necessary. So while it would probably get a 4 I’m going to give this one a 4.5 knowing I’ll want to go back and up it even more. That’s called faith in an author right there and Spurrier has completely earned that from me at this point!
Writer: SIMON SPURRIER
Artist: Tan Eng Huat
