Yes, I know issue #8 is out now, but it’s a totally different story. \u00a0So let’s cover this two-parter quickly.<\/p>\n
The Marvel Legacy remit requires this\u00a0to have something to do with past continuity. \u00a0As it happens, that works out quite well, because what Sina Grace mainly wants to achieve in these two issues is to give Iceman a reason to quit the X-Men and move to Los Angeles so that his series can go its own way. \u00a0That’s fair enough; if he’s going to anchor his own title, there’s a lot to be said for prising him away from the team. \u00a0And it fits with the book’s general theme of Bobby trying to establish a new social life for himself outside the X-Men.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, old continuity provides a perfectly serviceable reason for Iceman to visit Los Angeles, because apparently Black Widow is dead this week (Secret Empire<\/em> or something – it really doesn’t matter), which is a good enough reason for Iceman to attend a Champions reunion. \u00a0That’s the sum total of the continuity callbacks in these two issues, which is fine. The other Champions get plenty to do, even if most of it is acting as a collective sounding board for Bobby, but there’s no need to descend into any of the detailed history, and the story wisely avoids doing so.<\/p>\n While in LA, Bobby meets a guy called Judah who is obviously going to be the romantic interest going forward. \u00a0Arguably that’s not the main plot, but it’s a very prominent subplot and it feels like the thing that Grace is more interested in (after all, it’s the one with more impact on the overall series). \u00a0What works about this stuff is Iceman’s side of the relationship, and his reaction to, well, not just dating a man, but just dating normal people, period. \u00a0Yes, he’s had relationships with relatively normal people in the past, but that was the early nineties. \u00a0It feels fair enough that he’s out of practice.<\/p>\n At least at this stage, I’m less convinced by Judah. \u00a0He’s a bit of a cypher-ish ideal entry-level boyfriend. \u00a0But if you take Iceman as our point of view character, that’s fair enough at this stage. \u00a0That probably is how Iceman should see him right now.<\/p>\n That aside, we have a bit of schtick with the Champions being vaguely numb and detached in their reminiscences about Black Widow – after all, it’s not like most of them were\u00a0that<\/em> close to her – and trying to remember how they first met her. \u00a0The pay-off to that turns out to be a flashback to Bobby clumsily making a pass at her, but this stuff is really more notable for letting the Champions act supportive. \u00a0Perhaps because she’s the least-used character, and thus the one with the least constraints, Darkstar gets a surprising amount of space, played as somebody who’s been off doing cosmic stuff while none of us were watching, and feels a bit harassed and out of place coming back for this, but gets to deliver some words of wisdom about living with your flaws. \u00a0But a boisterously supportive Hercules comes across well too.<\/p>\n Iceman’<\/em>s weakness tends to be the obligatory superhero elements. \u00a0That continues here with an odd little plot about a woman trying to build Sentinels in her back garden so that she can get into a career in special effects. There’s a passing mention that she also makes stuff for low-grade supervillains, which goes nowhere; perhaps it’s set-up for a future story with her. \u00a0At this stage, though, Leti is a bit awkward.<\/p>\n Bobby and Warren are understandably unimpressed by someone building replica Sentinels as a hobby, but we’re evidently supposed to see Leti as a basically sympathetic character. \u00a0The thing is, there’s nothing very sympathetic about her. \u00a0Yes, there’s the occasional mutter about wanting a better life for herself and her partner Daisy. \u00a0But she’s building imitation murder machines in her back garden; she sends them out to wreak havoc in a public area in the hope of impressing somebody with the footage (which is both reckless and stupid); and somehow it’s supposed to be a happy ending that Iceman puts her in touch with a university that she could have looked up in the phone book? \u00a0This might make more sense if she’s going to be a recurring character, and it’s laying the groundwork for future issues – but based on what we see here, doesn’t she belong in jail?<\/p>\n Robert Gill’s art is decent. \u00a0He’s a clear storyteller, he can cover the range of scenes (you get the feeling he’s more confident with the action sequences than Grace is), and he can do understated. \u00a0Still, I can’t help feeling a shade more nuance could bring more life to this. \u00a0It’s perfectly fine, but it’s the good end of “house style”.<\/p>\n Overall, there’s more good than bad here. \u00a0There are some glitches that hold it back a bit, but the central ideas work well enough to carry it through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yes, I know issue #8 is out now, but it’s a totally different story. \u00a0So let’s cover this two-parter quickly. The Marvel Legacy remit requires this\u00a0to have something to do with past continuity. \u00a0As it happens, that works out quite well, because what Sina Grace mainly wants to achieve in these two issues is to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3962"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3966,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3962\/revisions\/3966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}