X-Men Legacy #20 – Review

by Simon Spurrier (Writer), Tan Eng Huat, Craig Yeung (Artists), Jose Villarrubia (Colorist)

The Story: With the dark phoenix inside his psyche, David needs to gets himself together to actually have a chance to fight back.

The Review: The latest issue of X-Men Legacy was kind of great. With plenty of panel time dedicated to a duelling view of the past events of the main storyline of his title, Simon Spurrier went for both a retrospective and a seemingly dark-looking future for David Haller, the protagonist of this book. However, how does Simon Spurrier successfully continues this storyline when all the high concepts have been introduced so flawlessly and with such panache?

Simon Spurrier finds a way, as this issue mostly focus on the very basic concepts of David and his powers, putting the core of his character in the spotlight to transform him and shed a new light toward what he can be and how he could still evolve. Using the themes of his run, not only does the plot progress in a way that feels exciting and expansive, but David shows a new side of his personality with another point-of-view on his actions that actually elevate the character to something else.

X-Men Legacy #19 – Review

by Simon Spurrier (Writer), Tan Eng Huat, Craig Yeung (Artists), Jose Villarrubia (Colorist)

The Story: In custody of S.W.O.R.D., David gets a ”the reason you suck” speech by a cosmic entity.

The Review: One has to admire the willingness of Simon Spurrier to be unconventional. With books like Six-Gun Gorilla, his part in the Trifecta crossover in 2000AD and his webcomic Disenchanted, he seems to have a knack to go for what people might not expect, be it with the setting, the concepts and how everything mesh together. While being original isn’t always a sure thing when it comes to actual quality, being such is always something nice to behold.

His tenure on X-Men Legacy could certainly count as well, as Spurrier shows the mutant corner of the Marvel universe in a whole new light, with David Haller as a protagonist, one that has never been actually popular to begin with. With his story unfolding with every months, Spurrier keep his readers guessing as he seems to be unable to keep a status quo for his story, which can be a blessing as it can be a curse sometimes. However, the latest issue wasn’t certainly the greatest as it tried to precipitate events a bit fast in order to advance his story. Does this issue take advantage of this setup to properly advance its themes and story, though?

It actually does, much to this issue’s benefit, as not only Spurrier manage to bring in a certain retrospective and different vision of events past, but he also manage to provide some new concepts and ideas to his tale as well. The use of Aarkus, a villain that had been introduced in the story in issue 9, Spurrier manages to bring in a different way to envision David’s action through a bigger picture, peppering it with a tinge of grudge as well. The whole concept of cosmic trial is a sound one, as not only does Spurrier bring in past threads, but he uses them to go ahead with his story.