Sorry, I Don'T Care About Her. Get Back to the Interesting Stuff?
X-Men Legacy catches up with the rest of the X-Universe as its cast face the aftermath of Schism. It's an issue undercut somewhat by already knowing the characters' ultimate decisions but is made interesting largely due to Mike Carey's handling of Rogue on her journey to arrive at her own.
Rogue's squad has returned to Utopia along with Havok, Polaris and Rachel Grey to find the X-Men divided. Now, this doesn't exactly line up with what we actually saw in X-Men: Schism with some of these characters present for the situation, but that isn't too difficult to overlook. None of them really had significant roles in Schism anyway. In this, Rogue is faced with the reality that her newly established team will no longer be able to continue as opinions differ on what side to take.
What I really like about Carey's handling of Rogue is how he makes her relatively neutral. She is one of the very few characters portrayed to be on the fence while others, like Gambit and Magneto, have more immediate and decisive impulses about where to turn. Carey makes a really clever connection between Rogue's ability to see both sides and her power, which has her routinely absorbing other people's perspectives. This leaves her with respect for both Cyclops and Wolverine as well as their decisions. This leads to a suggestion in the story that Rogue use her power to survey those who have already made their decisions so that she can figure out what she should do. It's a really interesting idea because of how it could allow us to really get into some side characters' motivations for taking a side, which is something that Schism has unfortunately been really lacking.
Also unfortunately, this story quickly takes a detour from doing that.
Instead, we are suddenly propelled into a plot about a mysterious phantom presence that must be investigated. It's not a bad plot, but it is really unwelcome. I would much rather be reading about Rogue absorbing the thoughts of other X-Men, so it quickly becomes frustrating to be going off on some plot detour. It's made worse by Carey teasing the Jean Grey card once again. It wasn't Jean in Age of X, and it's not Jean this time. This is a side X-title. I know it is never going to be Jean Grey. Please don't bother to insult my intelligence and waste my time when I am already annoyed to be following the wrong storyline.
Don't get me wrong. Under other circumstance, this new story would be fine. But this has the effect of teasing us with one story and then pulling the rug out from under us. It also centers on the fate of a character I am very barely aware of, and that's something I'm not in a very forgiving mindset about.
Honestly, this issue of X-Men Legacy really isn't bad at all. It starts rather strong but takes a sudden shift away from that interesting character focus onto a plot that is much less appealing. This results in a very frustrating and underwhelming cliffhanger, leaving me with only the blind hope that it will get back on track next issue.
