X-Men: Legacy # 226 - Suppressing Fire Part One

Book written by: Mike Carey

Art by: Dustin Weaver

Hex’s score: 4 out of 5

Another week and another ‘Utopia’ book, and I have to say another that I really enjoyed. This is an actual tie-in book which helps, not just some book for Marvel to stick an event banner on that has nothing to do with the overall story, which they have been guilty of many times in the past. X-Men Legacy #226 actually gets right into the thick of it, as I’ll explain.

Rogue, Gambit and Danger fly to San Francisco to help Cyclops and the rest of the X-Men with the mutant/ human riots. Their main priority is to rescue as many mutants as possible from both H.A.M.M.E.R agents and certain Dark Avengers, and there are throw downs galore! We have Rogue vs. Ms. Marvel/ Moonstone, Gambit vs. H.A.M.M.E.R, Gambit vs. Ares and Ares vs. Rogue!! As you can see it’s an all out action issue. It ends with our trio of heroes stealing a H.A.M.M.E.R tank and continuing their search for missing mutants, oh and by the way (spoilers on)…… after Rogue’s confrontation with Ares, she now has the power of the God of War! Very cool.

 Carey really writes the main characters well in this issue and there are some great lines of dialogue too. Gambit is at his cocky best, Rogue shows that she is a true warrior and there is a great line where a child Danger rescues refers to her as a Transformer. It was a truly funny moment. There was great artwork too by step in artist Dustin Weaver. It was really nice to look at and very consistent throughout with awesome action scenes.

X-Men Legacy has not been a title I have enjoyed since its name change, and one that I mostly avoided. I enjoyed Carey’s previous work on the ‘Messiah Complex’ crossover and this issue reminded me of that. This was a good solid X-Men adventure, dealing with the problems of the mutant species whilst mixing it up with some cool villains, classic X-Men stuff. I just hope that the direction this book takes after the ‘Utopia’ tie-in concludes (next issue), continues the fun X-Men stories Carey has written here and in the past.

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I'm not going to break down the story here too much. It's too late at night for that. X-Men: Legacy #226 is a UTOPIA tie-in and I think it lives up to that distinction well. Comic companies love making tie-ins between major story issues so fans of the main series will be encouraged to pick up issues of comics they might not otherwise. I was encouraged to pick up this issue. The downside of most tie-ins is that they can end up not adding to the story at all. The upside of a tie-in is that it can add important story elements that won't be included in the main story books. X-Men: Legacy #226 falls in between these two extremes. I can't be sure how profound the story told in this book will be to the UTOPIA story but I can guess: not really. I mean the issue takes place in San Fransisco and the characters in this book interact with major players in UTOPIA but it all seems so blah. Comics that don't further the story much but are still related to the story they are tied too get 2.5 stars. Sound fair? I thought so.