This might be the first issue in months where ‘X-Men Legacy’ wasn’t my favorite book of the month. Don’t worry, though, fellow fans of Xavier’s Legacy – the series was still my second favorite. Even with the return of the art, it couldn’t top my favorite this week. Honestly it’s only fallen to second place because of the compelling story of the return of Nightcrawler in ‘Amazing X-Men‘ (which has almost felt like the good portions of the mid-90’s X-Men stories being modernized).

In ‘X-Men Legacy’ #20, we saw Legion coming up against his greatest threat yet in The Shadow Phoenix! Yes, the yin to the Phoenix’s yang! Sure, the entire thing ended up being a hoax that was a test for young Legion to evolve from using his ‘I Rule Me” motto. Instead of bullying his powers and personalities into submission, he let them be a part of him fully.

That’s right, it’s a newer and more powerful Legion all pumped up to take on the evil Xavier wanna-be that used him as a conduit so he’d be in a position to kill everything and everyone. This issue we start with Legion having a date with Blindfold. Once more in his mind and where everything is possible. She isn’t a huge fan of what he’s becoming and feels that in order to stop the evil Xavier, he will have to trigger the event that will only end with his death at her hands.

But first, he’ll have to sacrifice to the power growing within him to stop the fake Xavier and allowing him to be killed in order to save the world.

Things are just not looking good for young David. It’s not until they dance that Blindfold realizes aspects of his personality are still joining him. In fact, it seems to be happening at an increased pace as he has always stated she makes him stronger. The fact that he’s once again using her is about to cause a fight between the two until he knocks her out having fulfilled his goal.

Now Legion is strong enough to take the fight to this mad creature, or at least as close as he believes that he’ll be. By the end of the book, the action is still going but we’ve had a lot of interesting things come up. The biggest is from the evil Xavier himself. Does it really matter who he is? All that should matter is without David he wouldn’t have been possible. While David wants to live up to his father’s Legacy, this creature believes David is his father and just wants to watch the world burn.

The climax of this fight is clearly coming which will probably lead into the inevitable showdown that will occur between David and Ruth. I’m not really expecting a happy ending at the closure of this book, but at the same time Spurrier continues to surprise me.

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X-MEN LEGACY #21
Writer: Simon Spurrier
Artist: Khoi Pham