Review: X-Men Legacy #209

X-MEN LEGACY #209

(Mike Carey / Scott Eaten & Billy Tan)

Messiah Complex is over, and Exodus has stolen Xavier's lifeless body to resuscitate, with the help of... Magneto?

It's a great set-up, although I'm still foggy on Exodus' motives. While Magneto (now a 'flatscan' human since the M-Day event) toils to restore Xavier to life, the X-Men's founder is flashing back through the key moments of the struggle between the two old frienemies. Though I can't be bothered to double-check, I'm pretty sure Carey has gone back and taken actual pieces from dialogue from older issues and made the patchwork that is this issue, flowing seamlessly from one scene to the next mid-dialogue, and providing a fitting epilogue to the past 45 years of continuity. The Magneto-Xavier philosophical feud is over as everyone keeps pointing out, or rather it's been dead a long time but everyone was too busy to notice. Colour me curious about Cyclops/Alonso's plans for the future of the titles now!


The slugfest quota of the issue (you didn't expect the book to be all talky talky heads, did you?) is filled by a very pissed-off Cargill storming through the Acolytes' guests. I'm hardly surprised she would lash out like that, as she's long been established as the most hardcore believer of Magneto's teachings in the Acolytes. Now Exodus has brought inside their safe human-hating mutant heaven: Xavier (their mutant philosophical opposite), a Sentinel (machine created by humans to hunt and kill mutants) and a de-powered Magneto (their former messiah, described by them as the equivalent of 'Jesus reborn and declaring himself a satanist'). Wouldn't you snap if you were in her place? Nicely played mr Carey!


X-Men Legacy was touted as a Professor-X solo title, but the editors seem to have wisely weaseled out of actually naming it or marketing it so, instead keeping the original numbering, tweaking the name and featuring as many characters as possible on the covers (loving the interconnecting covers, btw. Well done). After all, making more drastic name changes would only lead to a radical sales drop from what was previously considered the core title, while the quality of the writing and art has remained at the same high level.

8/10