X-Men Legacy #229 – Review

By Mike Carey (writer), Daniel Acuña (artist), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor), Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: Rogue has entered Emplate’s dimension using the astral projection power of Trance to search for Bling!.  She found her, but also got discovered and is now running from astral monsters.  In the meantime, her teammates are trying to bail them both out.

What’s Good: I really enjoyed the whacked-out settings Acuña brought to life for this issue.  We’ve got a weird, other-dimensional castle, retro-tech, bizarre monsters that look like Cambrian explosion rejects, and chase scenes galore.  Acuña also drew an effective Scott Summers.  Given that Acuña is playing penciller, inker and colorist, he does pull off some of his trademark effects well, like where he changes color abruptly without the inker’s lines to separate the changes.  With Acuña, black is only used for true shadows and the rest of the definition he gives with different patches of color.

My first thought on the story as a whole was that it felt a bit empty.  Nothing had happened except that Rogue’s conflict had been decided.  But on second glance, this is a passable rescue plot set in a really original place (for this team).  And the X-team on Earth is working pretty hard on making this rescue a success, which drives up the tension even more.  The bits with Dr. Nemesis and “the smart team” were fun to read.  And, this issue is dominated by an effective chase conflict with Rogue.  Not sure why I had an initially negative reaction to the book, unless the art had a hand…

What’s Not So Good: Acuña’s art takes a bit of getting used to.  Since I’m talking about some of it here, I obviously haven’t completely come around to it yet.  I mentioned the great setting and background work above.  On most characters though, his style rubs me the wrong way.  The body proportion distortions, the occasionally crude and generic facial expressions, and the stock poses give all the characters an unnatural look.  And, just as an aside: The dumbest looking, least related cover of the week award goes to…. Legacy #229!

Conclusion: Diehard X-fans should certainly get this.  Carey has publicly stated his mission of really developing Rogue and Gambit and a few other, so if you’re a fan of any of those characters, you should get the book.  If you’re an occasional reader and you don’t get this issue, I don’t get the impression you’ll be missing out on something that to sends ripples through the X-universe.

Grade: C

-DS Arsenault