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Sometimes, Marvel does a ballsy move. They'll kill someone off like Captain America, and make it stick for a good number of years, for example. Or, they'll bring back Bucky, and somehow make that work. A lot of times it can blow up in their faces, but once in awhile, something clicks.
Taking a long-running title like X-Men Legacy - previously the second volume of X-Men that Chris Claremont and Jim Lee launched in the early 90s, then New X-Men under Grant Morrison - and toss out every single X-Man from the book, and give it over to such a minor character as Legion, is one of their latest crazy moves.
Legion first appeared in the 80s, as more of a gimmick than a character. He's the son of Professor X, and he had a fractured personality; four distinct identities, each with their own unique mutant powers. So, we never really got to know the REAL David Haller, it was always the voices in his head. But, he made a few other appearances over the years, most notably as the cause of the universe-changing Age of Apocalypse storyline. In more recent years, they've slowly peeled back the crazy, to reveal a real character underneath, and slowly worked on rehabilitating him.
And somehow, someone thought to give him his own title. Not exactly the move I would have made, but we'll see how it plays out. It is definitely an odd choice to use a well-known name, and not call the book Legion or something specific to him, but there is some logic behind it.
Keeping "X-Men" in the title is a no-brainer. Sure, there aren't any ACTUAL X-Men in the book, even though they wisely have used them as guest stars and antagonists a few times. Keeping them in the title can only help sales, though. "X-Men Whatever" will sell tons better than "Legion". It's arguably false advertising, but it's still vaguely connected to the X-books at least, so it almost works.
Even Legacy makes sense. With recent events causing the death of his father, Xavier, Legion is picking up the slack. Cyclops has drifted far afield from Xavier's dream, Wolverine of all people is still kinda on the road, but Legion is trying to find his own path to honour his father's memory, and that's an important part of the books ideals. They found a way to make the title work in spite of the problems.
The book also has the good fortune of being very well written, by Simon Spurrier. He's written mostly smaller, weirder books for Marvel and other places, so he's a good fit here. He has a decent handle on Legion, and has made an interesting character out of this former cipher. He has an odd tic of making David speak with a Scottish accent, which doesn't make much sense, but whatever.
Legion has spent most of his time trying to come to terms with his father's death, find his new path in the world to honour his legacy, and basically giving a giant middle finger to the entire conventions of the X-Men and superheroes. He mocks their spandex, he mocks their ineffectiveness in EVERYthing, how the world is no better today than it was when Xavier started the school... That alone is great commentary on the status quo-keeping nature of superhero comics. He doesn't even want to be called Legion, he has a real name, use it.
Along the way he's made friends with the young X-Man, Blindfold, made an enemy of her brother, and tried to keep all his multiple personalities, many of which are not nice at all, under control. All of this makes for an interesting, and unique read in the Marvel Universe.
Plots progress nicely, with simple stories done in a few issues, with a few ongoing subplots slowly building over time. It's the right way to do serialised fiction, and the pace is just about right. If you can't stand most of the X-Books, but like stuff a little odd, Legacy is definitely worth checking out.
So yes, Legion is trying to help mutants, and he's trying to save the world. Sometimes even from himself. He may deny it, but he is definitely a superhero. Just don't tell him I said that.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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