Written by Mike Carey
Illustrated by Khoi PhamThe X-Men are divided. As the teams part ways, Rogue, Magneto and Gambit attend to unfinished business, hoping to avoid answering the question: Whose side are they on?
Now that Schism is over, and all the X-Men titles are re-aligning, it was a great time to jump on board. I’ve alternated between picking this book up and not, simply due to budget constraints. Given the new status quo in the X-Men franchise, I decided to pick up each of the new books to see if they can bring me in, and how new reader friendly they are.
Does X-Men Legacy make the great, or is it too focused on its legacy to capture new readers? Well, when you hit that jump, you’ll find out!
The point of the Regenesis was to bring new readers in, right? Did someone tell Mike Carey? That was my biggest problem with the issue, as there were things in the book that, as a relatively new reader, I really had no idea what was going on. I was initially very excited that there was a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine reference from the mouth of Emma Frost, only to learn that it was a call back to the most recent arc before this one, which re-introduced the X-Spacemen to Earth. This is all well and good, and in fact, I LIKE the fact that Havok and Marvel Girl are back on Earth being X-Men again. But when reading this as a new reader, it does not make it easier. In fact, it just left me unsatisfied and slightly confused, especially since I explicitly picked this up to jump in; as I did with Adjective-less X-Men and New Mutants. However while those made it easy to jump in; this one did not, which hurt the book more than it should have.
The thing about this is that it is reportedly Carey’s last arc on a series he’s been writing for damn near seven years, so from a creative standpoint, it makes sense that he wouldn’t write another beginning to his run, especially given the fact that the next issue (#260) will be his last on the title. But it makes you wonder why Marvel didn’t wait a couple months for #260.1 to add that banner that exclaims “Read me! I’m new!” when it’s closing up the threads laid down nearly thirty issues ago.
That’s right — thirty issues. Not only does this work as a two part epilogue to the most recent arc on Gul Damar (Star Trek reference like whoa!), but to really get this book, you really need to have read the book for over two years to fully understand it. That’s just disappointing.
But while the book isn’t the easiest to dive into for new readers, it at least (mostly) makes sense. The characters are well fleshed out, and after 7 years, you know Mike Carey knows characters like Rogue and Magneto, along with Cyclops and even lesser known characters like Blindfold and Frenzy. Carey writes these characters like they’re members of his own family. As someone who is familiar with the characters, it’s great.
But while the writing is as well constructed as it is impenetrable, the art is just not good. Khoi Pham is an artist who is incredibly uneven. While I considered myself a fan of his work in Mighty Avengers with Dan Slott, his work in Chaos War was sloppy and did not match the quality of the Incredible Hercules series. Here it’s just as bad, because from what I’ve seen of the X-Men: Legacy book in the past, the art was generally a highlight. Clay Mann, for example, would have possibly been a better fit, as he did some great work on the book before (Age of X) and even provides a stellar, if slightly bland cover. The details in this book are lacking, and in particular, there’s a panel where Rogue is simply talking to Scott, but you wouldn’t know it from the pose. She looked like she was about to clock him, or at least like she was auditioning for Dancing with the Stars. It was a confusing thing to see, and quite frankly, if there aren’t extreme close-ups and talking heads, his work doesn’t look very good. Unfortunately, half of the book just looks haphazardly drawn. It ends up looking muddled and not what it should have been at all.
In closing, I have quite a few problems with this book, but when you compare this to another book that came off the heels of a reboot and did not really account for it (remember that one time I reviewed the DCnU Legionof Super-Heroes?), it’s not THAT bad. The problem was not in its writing, but in the art and presentation. Check out X-Men: Legacy in January if you want a new book. If you’re looking for a new book to read without having to do research, this book is not it at all.
Final Verdict: 5.0 — Any time I have to rely on Wikipedia to explain things in the book I read, that’s a bad thing. Perhaps if they held off on the Regenesis banner a couple months, it’d get a better score.
