Unless Power Pack Vs Marvel Zombies is in the works, this is likely to stand for quite some time as Marvel’s most curious crossover. Mike Carey’s physiological take on Charles Xavier’s past has misfired several times during its brief life. However, it’s hard to see how its problems could be remedied by briefly merging it with Daniel Way’s distinctly retro Logan solo book. Judging by this one-shot opener, the two titles have brought out each other’s worst traits.

Original Sin’s linchpin is Draken, the estranged son which Way introduced early in Origins’ life. The bulk of the issue is context, with the young man falling in with even worse company than usual, while his father turns to the figure who helped him rise above a similar life. Way writes only a minority of the book’s pages, but the absurdly conservative characterisation he deploys sours the entire issue. In order to show Wolverine acting solo, he engineers a spat with Cyclops, with a momentary misunderstanding turning quickly to violence. Unfortunately, a number of plot details make the clash look like merely a playful conforming to type. If Logan really wanted to harm Scott, he’d only have to open his mind to Emma about his recent extra-curricular activities, while Cyclops doesn’t even threaten to deploy his eye beams. The scene merely exists as a lazy and unconvincing backdrop to the issue, sending Wolverine out into the city for the bulk of the action.

With Origins providing the a-story, Legacy’s contribution to the title is delivered as flashbacks to the formation of the All-New, All-Different X-Men. Unfortunately, Carey’s retcon work here is severely hampered by both the lifting of the twist from Mark Miller’s first Ultimate X-Men arc, and the fact that this story was comprehensively rewritten by Ed Brubaker only a couple of years ago. While the threading of Vulcan into the proceedings cleared up one of the X-franchise’s long-standing niggles, it’s hard to see any benefits arising from such a laboured and clichéd amendment. Mike Dedato’s sketchy, ink-heavy art complements the story well, but unfortunately Scott Eaton turns in some his weakest work to date for chapter two of the tale. The lack of texture in the images suggests a pressing deadline, and although his gift for expressions never quite deserts him, several backgrounds consist of only a couple of lines. Sadly, this perfunctory pencilling suits the book’s content perfectly.

Despite beginning from a standing start, Mike Carey has managed to turn Legacy into something genuinely different. Although the tale is obviously destined to be collected as a hardcover once the fourteen issue story is complete, the writer has still managed to deliver enough plot each month to satisfy those purchasing the title as an ongoing. However, issues with the introduction of new story threads are still holding the book back. Having put his pre X-Men house in order, Charles Xavier feels ready to face his more recent actions, confronting Cyclops over their past dealings and what he’s recently discovered about Sinister’s manipulations of their lives. Unsurprisingly given his focus on “building the future”, Summers doesn’t take kindly to the professor’s raking over old ground, but it’s his old mentor’s dealings with the deceased Dr Essex which really alarm the X-Men’s leader…

It’s a reasonable story, although a key plot point of Xavier psychically manipulating Summers to attend their meeting is rather forced. Given the exchanges between these two characters in Messiah Complex, it’s hard to believe that Xavier would regard this as a good idea, and this nagging difficulty undermines much of the discussion that follows. This issue does provide a good summary of the disagreements which have arisen between the two men, and the central idea of an introspective professor interrupting Cyclops’ construction of the new X-base is a clever metaphor for the character’s limited relevance to the franchise as it stands. There’s little that is genuinely new here, but as part one of this particular episode in the Legacy storyline, it’s a reasonable decision by the writer to leave the resolution of these issues to next month.

As I mentioned earlier, the main problem with the title is the secondary story strands which serve to advance plots which the Professor will undoubtedly encounter later. As usual, we are given snippets of Sebastian Shaw and Rogue’s doings, gradually advancing each of their stories. Instead of skilful foreshadowing, chunks of a later story are artificially broken off and served up in advance. Carey is obviously trying to mimic Ed Brubaker’s work on Captain America, but the multiple elements here are much less organic, interrupting the action without ever feeling a part of the same story. Another weakness concerns the villain whose “Legacy” the title of the book now appears to refer to. While most of the X-men’s core villains have grown intellectually over the last one hundred issues or so of the franchise, Sinister hasn’t really been developed, staying true to his early nineties Saturday-morning cartoon persona. The character sorely needs depth to be convincing, and there’s yet no sign of it being supplied here. Just as Grant Morrison tore down Magneto and Peter Miligan & Fabian Nicieza retooled Apocalypse, Essex sorely needs adjustment before he can fit with the franchise as it stands. Carey is obviously having fun playing with the character’s impact on the X-Men’s history, but the book is undeniably limited by being built around such a two-dimensional element.

As the X-Men line retools itself following Messiah Complex, we finally get to to the book formerly known as Adjectiveless. Essentially created to be a Jim Lee vehicle in 1991 off the back of Todd MacFarlane’s successful “Spider-Man” title, the book was slightly scuppered when Lee left to help form Image under a year into its lifespan. Nevertheless, with a five-cover launch at the height of the speculator boom, it’s easily one of the biggest comics ever published and remained a staple of the line.

I find it somewhat odd, then, to see it reworked (reduced?) into essentially a Professor X solo title, which sounds like a bad idea to anyone. Carey, though, is a fantastic writer who brought the continuity back to comics by being the first person in years to openly acknowledge and reference the X-Men’s rich history. It’s a trend he’s continuing with the rework, and Legacy’s gimmick is that it’s going to feature around 8 pages of backup story each issue, set at certain points in X-history. For a long-time X-Fan like me, it’s a very attractive prospect.

It’s made even more attractive because John Romita Jr. is drawing the Lost-style flashbacks featuring Xavier forming the original X-Men. Some people don’t understand his style, but like his father, he’s nothing less than a true industry great and seeing him draw the X-Men makes me wonder why they ever let him go - he last drew an X-Men title (Uncanny) in 1994. Scott Eaton capably provides the modern-day sequences as the massively powerful acolyte Exodus heals Xavier’s brain and tries to reassemble Xavier’s memories and put them back in his head.

As expected, this fills in the gap between Messiah Complex and the recent Uncanny issue, explaining where Xavier’s body went - the Acolytes have it. That means it’s already continuity plug, starting as it means to go on. Magneto shows up at the end, which makes things very interesting, but also has worrying shades of Claremont’s aborted Excalibur series. Still, let’s not judge it on that so far. At the moment, it’s hard to see where this is going.

The main theme of the book appears to be asking just what Xavier’s motivations really are, presumably to repair around a lot of character damage that’s gone on. The flashback sequences feature him and Moira discussing the formation of the X-Men, and for all Xavier’s claims that he’s building a school, Moira can’t help notice there are only 5 students and he’s training them into a private army. He justifies it to himself, of course, but we’re certainly being asked to consider which of the two characters is correct here.

An odd start for X-Men: Legacy, though an excellent read nonetheless. I suspect that the title is in for an interesting ride over the next few years…

Chapter eleven of thirteen, and I have to admit I’m starting to get a bit worried about where the Predator-X story is going. It’s supposedly been tracking the “messiah” baby, to the point where its masters pointed the Predator at the mansion and it just ran the other way to find it, so… why is it now back at the mansion and about to eat the cast of New X-Men? Hilariously, the X-Men are so worried about whether there’s going to be a next generation of mutants, they’re not paying attention to the fact that the current one is about to get ripped into bacon.

The connection the baby has to Bishop’s future is revealed and, even though it requires a bit of continuity fudging based on what we already know about him, I welcome the attempt to simplify the X-Futures into what appear to be the “bad” future, where Bishop grew up, and the “good” future, where Cable grew up. The specific identity of the baby messiah isn’t identified yet, but at this point it’s hard to imagine it being especially relevant. If it’s not Phoenix, they’ll need to come up with a really good alternative because that seems like the most logical choice right now. 

There’s a nice nod to continuity where the Professor and Cable reminisce about the events of a previous crossover, the X-Cutioner’s song, a story this specific crossover owes a fair amount to. The reason why Cable didn’t go to the X-Men is fairly believable - Rogue’s team was full of Marauders - though with Mystique and Gambit apparently working outside of Sinister’s command, it seems that they might’ve been a good choice after all - it’s a nice reversal of the marauders infiltrating the X-Men, if so.

At the moment, the question worrying me most is how Layla’s going to get back from the future. At least readers of X-Factor do have a fair amount of the regular cast show up in this issue. To Peter David’s credit once again, he makes it feel almost like an issue of X-Factor, albeit one embroiled in a crossover. With the end for Messiah Complex now well in sight, one can only wonder what revelations are coming.