X-Men Legacy #1 (2012)
Writer- Simon Spurrier
Pencils- Tan Eng Huat
With the beginning of the Marvel NOW line we get a relaunch of X-Men Legacy beginning with a new creative team and starting at issue one. This time our series lead is David Haller, the son of Charles Xavier who is dealing with his mental issues at a monastery in theHimalayas. The majority of the book focuses upon David as he discusses his situation with Guru. Very little actually happens, but David does attempt to deal with some of the problems that come up at the monastery. The issue ends with David leaving the monastery to find his place in the world and the X-Men being warned of his return to the world.
The writing is terrible. It is very difficult to follow via dialogue and the issue really goes nowhere due to stagnant storytelling. While, it is nice to see someUKslang to add to the Scottish side of David, it does not add much to the story. Guru mostly speaks in platitudes and there is very little dialogue outside of those two characters. The problems that David has to deal with are not big deals and we do not really get to know David at all. While David may be a little schizophrenic that does not mean the story should be written that way. There is nothing in this first issue to make you wonder about future stories. More importantly there is nothing to make you care about David.
The artwork is mixed at best with most of the art looking messy, but that works well for the scenes inside David’s mind. The mental prison sequences are well done, but do not add much to the comic. There is no excuse for the rest of the comic looking sloppy. The character designs are blocky and look more like early sketches than final designs. Ironically, the established X-Men character cameos look much better than the original characters of this story. You can tell that if more time was given to the art it would have made a big difference in this comic.
The original run took the adjective “Legacy” to denote it as the older run of X-Men and it had a strong following due to the great art and interesting story. This time around it is a rushed mess with terrible writing and sub-par artwork. There is nothing in this issue to compel a continued read of this series. Conceptually this series has something going for it, but the “creative” team is not utilizing their talent to unlock this potential. If you are a fan of the X-Men there are plenty of other better series to read in addition to a robust back catalog. There is no way this book can be recommended to anyone.
Final Verdict:
1 out of 5 – This is a disappointment to the legacy of X-Men