{"id":6823,"date":"2021-06-28T21:36:01","date_gmt":"2021-06-28T20:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6823"},"modified":"2021-06-28T21:36:01","modified_gmt":"2021-06-28T20:36:01","slug":"x-men-legends-3-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6823","title":{"rendered":"X-Men Legends #3-4"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>X-MEN LEGENDS #3-4
\n“Transformations” \/ “Tools!”
\n<\/strong>by Louise Simonson, Walter Simonson & Laura Martin<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s been a long while since Marvel were especially preoccupied with the details of X-books history, and really, where Krakoa is concerned, they still aren’t. What\u00a0has<\/em> re-emerged in a big way, though, is an interest in inter-title continuity, and the sense of a bigger picture which helped to drive the X-books through the 80s and 90s. Perhaps in that light it makes a little more sense to commission a book like\u00a0X-Men Legends<\/em>, which brings back old X-books creatives teams from decades ago to provide one more story.<\/p>\n

I must be close to the ideal target market for\u00a0Legends<\/em> – which is to say, I actually remember reading this stuff the first time around. But I’m not crazy enough to think that there’s money to be made in releasing books laser-targetted at the likes of me. There must be a temptation to throw in plot points that tie in to the Krakoan back story. But they’ve resisted that so far, in favour of straight encores. Still, thanks to Marvel Unlimited, the back catalogue is more available than it has been in years (legitimately, at any rate). Maybe there’s a certain kind of sense there.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Fabian Nicieza’s opening two-parter took a dropped storyline as its springboard, but also worked well enough as a story on its own terms. After all, he was basically getting to do the payoff that he didn’t get around to the first time round. With these two issues we have Louise and Walt Simonson, the creative team of mid-80s\u00a0X-Factor<\/em>. And it’s a good run – maybe the first major creative team to establish themselves alongside Chris Claremont, in the days when there were only three X-books. However, it doesn’t have such obvious unresolved stories to go back to – they never got around to doing the origin of Nanny and Orphan-Maker, I guess, but you can’t do that story unless you’re going to tie in with\u00a0Hellions<\/em>. And that’s not the USP of Legends<\/em>. It wouldn’t be a Simonson story any more.<\/p>\n

Even so, this issue sets about some gap plugging. This story first between\u00a0X-Factor<\/em> vol 1 #42-43, and it covers two main points: it adds a bit of build-up for Ship suddenly rocketing into space at the start of issue #43, and it explains how Cameron Hodge wound up with a robot body after being decapitated in Inferno. It’s a slightly odd gap to choose, since this actually comes\u00a0after<\/em> the end of their joint run – Walt Simonson left the book after Inferno. By the time Ship was rocketing off into space for Judgment War – a storyline which isn’t even on Unlimited – the book was being drawn by Paul Smith.<\/p>\n

Still, visually this recaptures a lot of their run. Lots of big bold shapes. Lots of stark angles and parallel lines. The blue and purple Archangel design made so much more sense under Walt Simonson than it did with most of his successors – those metal wings and rectangular razor blades made perfect sense in his style. The smiley faces of the Right armour are perfect for him too. It’s minimal and abstract and completely over the top at the same time. It’s wonderfully efficient.<\/p>\n

And there’s a lot of that here too. The colouring is just a little more subtle than it was back in the day, which I’m honestly not sure is an improvement; flatter colours feel like a better fit for this art style. But the scale is there, and the energy. The Simonsons are in their 70s now, you know. This doesn’t feel like it.<\/p>\n

The story, though… The story pretty much consists of Ship starting to malfunction in the run-up to\u00a0“Judgment War”, and Apocalypse amusing himself by packing off Cameron Hodge as a mute cyborg with whom to test X-Factor. Because that’s what he did in those days. He tested people a lot. Hodge was decapitated in “Inferno”, but survived because of his deal with N’Astirh. Unfortunately, he didn’t do a very good job of wording that deal, with the result that he survived as a decapitated head. Which isn’t very useful.<\/p>\n

So Apocalypse sticks him in an absolutely ludicrous battlesuit and packs him off to fight X-Factor, after which he sends him on his way so that the Right can build a new body for him. Which, yes, does bridge the gap between “Inferno” and “X-Tinction Agenda”, but… it boils down to a two-issue fight scene and some continuity gap-filling. It still holds my attention, better than you might expect from that, but I was there first time around, and if I’m being honest, the nostalgia factor is a big part of this.<\/p>\n

I’ve enjoyed\u00a0Legends<\/em> so far, but the appeal of a book based around loose ends from 20 or 30 years ago – more, in fact – seems terribly niche. Fun enough for those of us in the niche, though.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

X-MEN LEGENDS #3-4 “Transformations” \/ “Tools!” by Louise Simonson, Walter Simonson & Laura Martin It’s been a long while since Marvel were especially preoccupied with the details of X-books history, and really, where Krakoa is concerned, they still aren’t. What\u00a0has re-emerged in a big way, though, is an interest in inter-title continuity, and the sense […]<\/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-6823","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\/6823","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=6823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6825,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6823\/revisions\/6825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}