X-Men Legion #13: Hope and Glory Part 1 - Lets HOPE this become more GLORIOUS
COVER ART: 4/5
Mark Del Mundo creates the most unique and creative covers. It is too bad he isn't the main artist for the series. The symbolism of Legion sitting in the middle of a Russian doll toy, each representing a unique power set and personality within his own mind...just genius. I have picked up this series from issue #1 and this issue (#13) has provided us the best cover so far of the series.
STORY ARC: 1.5/5
Simon Spurrier seems to be running out of steam as we are heading into our "teen" years with this book. With this issue, I was introduced to Pete Wisdom shown here at left. I was graciously informed by multiple users that this is NOT a new character, however; a C-Lister who is "easily overlooked".
"Pete Wisdom has been around since the mid-90s, was fairly active at the time, went into limbo for a while, popped up again a few times in X-Force, featured in New Excalibur as one of the main characters, had his own MAX mini many years later, leading directly into Captain Britain & MI-13. The last stemmed out of Secret Invasion and ran for a bit before being cancelled".@jinjue . He is a mutant, and as you can see, he has shiny sharp plasma blade finger tips. He is British Special forces in charge of keeping Mutant riff-raff out the Queensland. He is an unoriginal mix of James Bond and Wolverine I suppose, after reading this book and seeing his fighting skill.
We start this story in London U.K. with a state visit from the leader of Aqiria, a sandy state in Persia. It is always about oil right? Not too different here. Aqiria is backwards and anti-mutant, but the chaps in England love their petrol so everyone tries to play nice with the baddie country. With this state visit, tensions are high as mutants,mutant supporters, and anti-mutant supporters come out in droves during this State visit. This is what brings Legion to the country and what draws out our new character Pete Wisdom of MII3. By now we know Legion does not "react" well to crisis, he is all about prevention.
This is what we see at an unusual bar scene, with an unusual group of random mutants from around the globe. We see Chamber, Liam Connaughton, Pixie, Lila Cheney, Thomas Jones, and PSYLOCKE! We find out later that Legion is in well good control of all these individuals through his powerful telepathy. This is a real show of power, to be able to control even the likes of Psylocke, but also 5 other mutants at once is a real endeavor. Legions girlfriend and arch-nemisis Blindfold does not totally trust Legions actions of prevention and helps Pete Wisdom see how Legion is controlling these 6 mutants. With his plasma finger tips, Pete Wisdom begins to sever the links from Legion that are controlling the 6 Mutants after showing his fighting chops agains all 6 of the Legion controlled mutants. Before Blindfold can stop Pete Wisdom, Pete takes his attack against Legion, shown here.
STORY ART: 1.5/5
TAN ENG HUAT who has been penciling this series, is not going to win any awards for his art. It seems, well, you can see for yourself. It feels as if you, yourself, were charged to draw the story, so you probably couldn't do any better and get paid for it.
VERDICT: 2/5
I would only recommend this book to someone who is really into something...different. I personally like it because I have read this from the beginning, so for a new reader to jump on at this point would not appreciate Legion or really understand him. If you are looking to start region this title, you should really start from issue 1 as this has not been the best book of this series.
