X-Men Legacy #1 - "Prodigal"

[laughing_tree]

With the news that Fox is developing a TV series about Legion, Charles Xavier's son, I thought it might be a decent time to a bunch of posts on his solo series, X-MEN LEGACY, from a while back.

"There's a long tradition of superhero characters being used as allegories in explorations of real issues, subtle or otherwise. That's especially true of Marvel's X-Men 'mutant' characters, whose defining trait -- that they may seem different but they're still human in any way that matters -- has been very successfully used as a thematic stand-in for stories about racism, immigration, sexuality, transgenderism and so on. For me what's so wonderful about a character like David Haller is that he adds a new string to that bow, shifting the focus onto mental illness." -- Si Spurrier

Comments

[informationgeek]

Yeah... I... I tried reading this a while back and for the love of God, I could not get into it. No matter how hard I try, I cannot get into a single book Spurrier has ever written due to the way he writes dialogue and narration (plus his storytelling as well, like in this book where I felt like I could barely understand what is going on at any given moment).

Rereading this again... still does nothing for me.

[captainbellman]

I find on a reread it loses some of its charm...a good deal of it was written as a crowd*-pleaser, there are some nice emotional beats and character resurrections (Aarkus the Aetheric! Nosferatu-esque original flavour Vision! I would read his miniseries in a heartbeat), but all in all most of it doesn't make sense. The bit with the central villain stating "All will become clear" feels especially hollow, given that, well, that was a gigantic lie.

*Tumblr

[icon_uk]

I think I slightly resent the notion of "tumblr user" as being a bad or somehow inherently inferior thing.

So they listen to more a dedicated, diverse body than, say, the average comic book shop customer. This does not strike me as a bad thing.

Tumblr users aren't a crowd, but what they are is a possible market.

[captainbellman]

I agree with you a hundred per cent. It's not the diversity of voice in Tumblr to which I object; more the favouring of endlessly splintered discourse and constant miscommunication. It translated into "X-Men Legacy" for me in that it never really seemed to find its focus. There's so much introspection and philosophising the plot barely has room to breathe.

[laughing_tree]

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2014/01/all-our-friends/

[dc2houseofmystery]

I'm onboard with this statement. In my opinion, Spurrier taps into the worst of the British approach to American comics and his voice on his books is so grating. This, X-Force, when he was trying to mainline Warren Ellis in his X-Club minis... same voices, same beats, nothing inspired beyond what he read in a Morrison book in the 90s. Such a shame, because this book had so much promise.

[captainbellman]

I'm severely disappointed they have David Tennant as the Purple Man now, since I'm of the opinion that (apart from the hair, the tendency to do manic faces, the history of playing mentally unstable characters [and yes I include the Tenth Doctor in that group], the lean-muscly torso, the first name and the accent), there is one very good meta reason for him to play David Haller:

[cygnia]

Fandom wars never end well... ;)

[captainbellman]

Is that an agreement or a disagreement...?

EDIT: No, wait, I get it. I was being dense, sorry.

[cdamascus]

Lately I've been thinking that Rami Malek, of USA Network's Mr. Robot, would be absolutely perfect for David Haller.

[captainbellman]

...Yes, on reflection my choice doesn't exactly look mixed-race, does he? I've not seen Malek in action but I concede he looks closer to the part.

[viridian5]

Rami Malek is good. People who watched Mr. Robot know another reason why he's an appropriate choice.

[sarahnewlin]

Purple Man apologists are going to be spreading like wildfire

[dc2houseofmystery]

Good grief, I hope not. People need to get past the actor and focus on the character-- and the Purple Man is a horrifying rapist and therefore worth no apologies from fandom.

Glad to see that Tennant is playing a villain though. I'm hoping he can tap into whatever it was he did during his Hannibal audition. I know he didn't win that role, but imagine Tennant playing Lecter? That would have been amazing but Mads owned that role like nobody's business. I wonder if he'll go that route with Killgrave.

[spidermanwashere]

I loved this series, it was such a great story

[silverhammerman]

I really like this series, and I thought it was fantastic the way Legion was made into a character for once rather than just a plot device. That said, I've always found it a little... disagreeable perhaps, that this series which is explicitly about mental illness ends with the protagonist committing suicide, and that being treated as a relatively happy ending.

Anyway, I'd love to see the TV show pull inspiration from this series, and I hope we get to find out how things are going to shake out regarding being able to mention mutants and X-characters.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

"That said, I've always found it a little... disagreeable perhaps, that this series which is explicitly about mental illness ends with the protagonist committing suicide, and that being treated as a relatively happy ending. "

He doesn't just commit suicide, he wiped himself from all living memory.

*cough*

[silverhammerman]

Yeah, he literally makes it so that he'd never been born and not only is the world is better for it, but it's cast as a moment of empowerment and the ultimate act of agency. Which is a pretty troubling note for a series about mental illness to end on.

I mean, it could be that I'm being a bit to literal about the whole thing, but I'm still shocked that there wasn't even a discussion anywhere about the matter when the series wrapped.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Reminds me of when Jim Starlin said that an arc of his Thanos series was a criticism of American policy. No one caught it prior, because it was so poorly done/thought out.

And when they did...heh, Starlin was looking for another job.

[laughing_tree]

Pretty sure Starlin only said that after he was already off the book. Though it's possible the editors or PTB or whoever already found out beforehand and that was the reason he'd been moved off in the first place.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it was before, but goodness it's been a while.

Either way, every now and then stuff just slips by readers and editors, stuff that's kinda obvious looking back. I don't recall anyone talking about how in Joe Casey's Wildcats 2.0, one of the main characters is a serial rapist (Mr. Wax).

When stuff comes out slowly, I guess the big picture can be missed.

[laughing_tree]

"one of the main characters is a serial rapist (Mr. Wax)."

...What?

(I don't know anything about Wildcats 2.0)

[quatoria]

Yeah. Wax is a scumbag with super-hypnosis powers. Not really telepathy, but the ability to make you believe whatever he wants you to believe, so long as you're looking into his eyes when he tells you to. In the previous series, he was a government agent, part of a group that investigated and cleaned up superhuman messes, in Wildcats 2.0, he got recruited into the new group, and as he shifted to one of the main characters, the fact that he was a gross, self serving piece of shit became evident. He used his powers to impersonate his boss, and as part of that, let his bosses wife believe that she was still sleeping with him. Just, the grossest shit.

Minor disagreement

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

"and as he shifted to one of the main characters, the fact that he was a gross, self serving piece of shit became evident. He used his powers to impersonate his boss, and as part of that, let his bosses wife believe that she was still sleeping with him. Just, the grossest shit."

Agree on all of it, except the 'became evident'.

In the plot itself, the relationship is treated as an affair, even though their first sexual encounter was Wax forcing his boss' wife to blow him. Later, he observes that she was fighting it less, and that was somehow consent.

In addition, while he constantly mind controlled her into having sex, his boss' suspicion were treated as jealousy. As it was presented, he was having an affair with his boss' wife, not constantly sexually assaulting her.

Yet in the trades that I have, Wax is never called out, or held to account for his actions. Hell, he acts as the voice of reason/conscience around Halo, Inc (I'm at a loss as to why they ever needed one, but hey). If the narrative ever so much as hinted at him being a rapist, I never saw it.

The biggest reason, of there are many, of why looking back, Casey's Wildcat's 2.0 was a mess with nice lipstick.

[gnarll]

Always seemed to me that Spurrier only very superficially read the backstory of the main character of the story. He gave him a Scots accent and it seemed to come as a total surprise to him a few issues later that his character was an Israeli who grew up in Israel, and spent most of his time in Scotland comatose.

I mean, a few issues down the line he is cooperating with the red Skull, something I don't really see as something that comes easily to an Israeli, especially one whose mother was in a concentration camp.

I also always though that the Entity was the big bad of the series. Made the leap from Xaviers brain to Legions when Xavier died. Figured they were going to Xavier had a touch of the same power as David, and the Entity was his split personality.

[icon_uk]

Not sure about that, IIRC he spent most of his time in Israel in a barely verbal state as the various selves (who had various levels of communication skills themselves, but usually more than David) fought for control.

After he was... I won't use the word "cured" but brought some coherence to his life in the early Bill Sienkiewicz New Mutants, he learned more communication skills from Moira, so I could well imagine him having a Scottish accent because that's who the person who taught him most verbal speech was.

He went into a coma some time after that but he'd have had time to pick up a good deal of Scottish language, idioms, grammar etc.

Be thankful Muir Island is West Cost rather than, say, Aberdeen! I would LOVE to have a properly Doric character appear in an American comic at some point, think "Young MacGuffin" in the Disney movie "Brave".

If Lex was making sarcastic comments about the Glaswegian Mirror Master's (Whose accent he described as "Let's be charitable and call it a brogue") I can only imagine what he'd make of broad Aberdonian dialect!

[gnarll]

They can't all be as good as that issue of "Red Lanterns" with Guy and Tora:).

However, as I remember Davids history, he had a perfectly normal childhood up to the age of 11. His mother was a rising civil servant, she got together with some guy we've never seen named "David" for whom Legion is named. Then there was that terrorist attack, his powers manifested prematurely, and he was in a coma until 17.

Sometimes you'd see him on the floor playing with toys like a much younger kid in the New Mutants, I think.

[icon_uk]

Ah, I stand corrected, I had forgotten that his childhood was normal up until age 10 or so.

[thanekos]

Would-be Legion pilot reviewers, unconsciously, are preparing their " United States of Tara but with superpowers " snark.

[icon_uk]

And those with an eye for the order in which they were created would perhaps say "You mean that United States of Tara is 'Legion without the superpowers'". :)

[roguezombie]

I really wanted to like this series. I think David is a fascinating character and I liked Spurrier's previous work with X-Club, but I just couldn't get interested in it. It doesn't help that I found the relationship between David and Ruth to be creepy.