I should never have dropped it to try and save money
I unfortunately haven't been able to keep up with X-Men: Legacy lately, which is a shame because I think it's always been my preferred X-Men title. However, I made it a mission to pick up this issue (which I was mislead to believe was out last week) because it sees the return of Mimic!
Sadly, I must say, that is a really weak excuse to pick up this book. After having read this issue I was reminded I should never have dropped it to try and save money. Sure, Mimic was there but so were all the things I liked about X-Men Legacy before Schism. I never really gave Chris Gage a chance, since I jumped off when Mike Carey was nearing the end of his ridiculously long and largely great run, which is baffling considering I've enjoyed most of everything else Gage has put out.
The story sees the return of Mimic and Omega, former members of Norman Osborn's X-Men who were a team that never took off for some reason and were abandoned early on and not even included in Siege. As you can imagine, a team that is just dropped is usually left with unresolved character arcs and what Gage does here is start to build closure (which we will presumably get next issue) for the two Dark X-Men. The characterisation of the X-Men is spot-on and it's really nice to see the X-Men be nice for a chance and not massive jerks... Beast, Rogue and Iceman treat Mimic with respect (hell, he used to be an X-Man in the 60s!) and Rogue shows a lot of empathy for Omega (whom she obviously shares a similar powerset with). I also found it initially stuck out that Mimic claimed he and Omega were now "best friends" but then I began to realise that's also really nice for both characters (whom also share a similar powerset). Don't worry, Gage is aware they all share the same powerset and you will see them all use their "power" in unison by the issue's end!
The art by Rafa Sandoval is pretty all-around fine, it's nothing brilliant but there are some good looking panels along the way. Although I did notice sometimes the character's faces looked a bit weird and literally everyone seemed to be looking down at the ground in the issue! I don't recall seeing Sandoval's work before, but I'm going to assume his decision to draw everyone staring at the floor is to avoid drawing so many "weird faces" on the characters.
All-in-all, this was definiitely another good issue of X-Men: Legacy and it's great to see the characters act like themselves and the return of Mimic (and Omega) as well as the resolution to the Dark X-Men stuff is more than welcome. Let's only hope when this story is over Mimic (and maybe Omega) aren't left to sail off into limbo again.
