When ‘X-Men Legacy’ #18 came to a close, Legion had both won and lost everything he was trying for. On the one hand, he had tricked Blindfold’s brother into revealing himself and was able to defeat him. On the other, he really ticked off Cylops and his crew and in the process, not only lost his hard earned control of his powers but the fake Xavier that had been floating around in his head was not able to escape and get a body for himself as well.
We open this issue with Legion in prison. Not just any prison either, as Cyclops had placed Legion in Abigail Brand’s custody as she was one of the only people on the planet with the means to keep him imprisoned with his power set. He’s finally contained though it doesn’t take long for others to find that out.
Pretty quickly he has a visitor. Who exactly would go visit him in space? Ir’s Aarus, the vampire looking creature he had taken out earlier in the series. Two prior characters? That makes it sound like things are starting to come around full circle. I hope Aarus’ return isn’t implying an end to the series is on the horizon, though clearly it looks as if the story arc that started from the first issue is finally coming to a close as all of the loose ends are tying up.
Aarus has full control of his facilities and he’s quite the interesting character. Apparently at one point he was some kind of an intergalactic space policeman. His purpose here is two-fold. One, he is there to explain to Legion why he has to die. The Evil Xavier wanna-be that he has inflicted upon the world will slowly end up tearing apart humanity.
The second reason he’s there is to test a weapon on Legion. Aarus feels that if it can take Legion out, he can stop the fake Xavier with it. If not, they’ll need to find another route. Unfortunately for him, Legion was able to tap enough of his powers to read Aarus’ thoughts. While he’s finding this out, we see the entire process shown in split screen. In one pane we see Legion, who has such a fragile hold on his powers, using them to find out what Aarus is really up to. In the other, we see Aarus explaining what the Evil Xavier is doing and watching the weight of Legion’s guilt slowly crush his self control.
Legion knows what’s coming and tries to explain to Aarus that they can find another way. I’m dying to see how he fights off this weapon which can kill nearly anything. The big reveal on what the weapon actually is was just about the last thing I would have expected. It’s fitting have it introduced in the realm of the X-Men and I wonder if it will continue to be used down the line.
X-MEN LEGACY #19
Writer: Simon Spurrier
Artist: Tan Eng Huat
