Legion of X, Vol. 1
(Issues #1-5)
by
Simon Spurrier (Writer), Jan Bazaldua (Illustrator), Federico Blee (Colorist), Clayton Cowles (Letterer)
My rating: 3.25 of 5 stars
A book starring Nightcrawler, aka, Kurt Wagner (arguably one of the most beloved X-Men) and the man known as Legion, aka, David Haller, aka, the son of Professor X and one of the most powerful Mutants in all of existence – set in both the physical/real world and a kind of meta-physical dream-realm within Legions’ mind.
For all intents and purposes, this is a book that as a concept is what I’d call brave and has a world of potential to be both a swishing success or a brick that clanks off the rim. Truth be told, it’s a bit of both. This series is another stone in the foundation of the new Mutant-status-quo that has been building at Marvel since Jonathan Hickman took over a few years ago, where the Mutants and their new utopian, techno-Gaian society is carving its place in the world and defining its boundaries, such as they are.
In that spirit comes this series, spinning out after a previous mini-series (one that was boring enough that I don’t recall nor want to look up the name) starring Nightcrawler that followed his crisis of faith and conscience in this new world where he finds death has no meaning now that Mutants can be reborn endlessly. Immortality is normal, religion is not just shaken but shattered as morality and ethics are more fluid + the shocks that he was in fact never a priest and it was all a ruse to mess with him led to his meandering journey to create some vaguely spiritualistic new form of faith that he felt was needed to guide Mutants in this brave new world and to keep them from getting lost or going down darker paths.
This series explores the aftermath of Kurt finding what he calls “the Spark” and with the help of David who creates a kind of haven/base of operations for Kurts new squad in his mind-space called The Altar.
…a little church-y, but whatever… We have Juggernaut and Pixie as well as several new faces that you’ll get to know – there’s even a super interesting new Mutant whose power is that he makes everyone around him constantly forget who he is completely, which makes for some very odd little moments.
There’s also Dust who has been popping in and out of the X-books without finding a permanent footing and she is in this series another example of one of the best and also frustrating things in the new normal for the X-verse, i.e, the highly creative use of mutant powers for wholly unexpected uses – it’s both very enjoyable creatively but at the same time continues to make the mutants such an ever-increasing oddity that is almost too powerful a group to be able to lay as low as they are and to even be remotely threatened by other groups like the Avengers and Inhumans and most villains; I mean when you read enough of these X-books now, I can’t imagine how such a highly powered, extremely flexible and quite well oiled and robust society of super-powered and highly trained folks could find a credible threat in almost anything that comes at them.
SO! We have this new Altar-squad acting as a kind of internal justice and guidance crew for the new Mutant nation, but interestingly, it’s both like a police-squad but yet it is not because their goal is to actually help and not to just outright punish anyone. It’s about redemption first. Their first challenge runs through this arc: a body-jumping sociopath who seems to love chaos + Kurt must contend with a diety-pummeling group on Arakko who have not found any diety worthy of the Arakki and beat down any wannabe God-ling who tries to gain them as worshippers (in the alternate dimension they were in before coming to Mars, they had no dieties at all), all except one who caused a lot of problems and then seems to have escaped to Krakoa – so Kurts new God Squad needs to chase a diety and a body-hopping mad-Mutant and do it fast and under the watchful eye of Weaponless Zsen who is sent from Arakko to monitor their progress.
Meanwhile! David has his own challenges to contend with as his father is the standard ass-hat that Xavier has become and is pretentious and pompous. Plus there is a new powerful woman who pops in and out and seems to like making deals – almost devil-like in her manner and David is one of the pawns/targets she is trying to make a deal with while random threats keep striking at the foundations of The Altar.
All in all, the story is quite content-dense and full of riotous colours and chaos and visually is absolutely a success. There is an inconsistency in parts I think, wherein I didn’t care for some of the character designs in particular, but overall the layouts and the colouring really sell it and sell it well! There is a frenetic energy to the pace and look of the book that goes a long way.
The real challenge is that the first 2-3 issues were a bit of a meandering slog and while I love Legion as a character and have had an on-off enjoyment of Kurt over the years, I found myself in that same sphere here: Davids wanderings and challenges and all are engaging and fun and thought-provoking and really do a nice job of exploring his character and nature. Kurt on the other hand is a bit bland to start with, much like that preceding series mentioned earlier – it’s in fact his team and their side-journeys as the story progresses and even Zsen’s that are the more engaging. In addition, this new deal-making Mother Righteous was not of interest to me and I don’t much care for these Faustian deal-making type characters in comics, they’re inherently boring for me. BUT, she is a great mechanic for moving poor Banshee into a new direction so that characters next entry in the X-comics is actually of interest to me at the end of this first arc, as was the surprising turn for Cain, aka, Juggernaut who had a short presence but a memorable one.
However, I will admit that somewhere through the 3rd issue and as I moved into the 4th, this story got some serious and very sudden legs under it. Kurts own story and the whole Spark philosophy is still a bit “meh” for me, but it was given some believable relevance in the climax and the overall story became truly nail-bitingly intense and fast paced as a lot of things came to a head and the stakes felt huge and profound (without endangering any part of the real world to be honest, which was a nice change of pace!) and deeply personal for our main characters and it was Davids journey in particular that resonated and felt strongly represented.
In the end, I realised that as long as this is primarily Legions’ story with the others just supporting cast in it, that is when it is at its strongest. If future issues focus on the same, I think they will be the better for it.
One Happy Monk 
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