Legion of X, Vol. 2

Legion of X

by Simon Spurrier

Collects Legion of X (2022) #6-10, Before the Fall – Sons of X (2023) #1. When Judgment Day arrives, Legion is on the Celestial's chopping block! Is David Haller a hero, or will he succumb to his madness just as everyone predicts? Then, something savage is afoot! Nightcrawler develops some very demonic physical features - and he's not the only one. Goodbye, Warren Worthington III - and hello, murderous winged monster! Meanwhile, Banshee has developed a flaming skull, and Cypher and Warlock have made a startling discovery about the seemingly innocuous blooms floating out of the Astral Plane. As Kurt's inner beast threatens to completely take control, can the Legionnaires - with help from the mystical Black Knight - untangle this complex web of threats before it envelops mutantkind? When Legion battles Nimrod, the status quo will be completely shattered!

Genres: Comics, X Men, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Comic Book, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics

164 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 2, 2023

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 2 out of 5]

The worse thing about this volume is that it is a must-read for X-Men readers, but it is such an average read! It begins with a superb Judgment Day crossover featuring Legion, and then each issue gets poorer than the prior, both in story and art! On the other hand huge stories for Legion, Xavier, Juggernaut, Banshee, Warlock and more; not withstanding some of the X-Men's darkest villains. I think it was trying to essentially tell three stories at once that made this volume and series more of a data dump than a story. For the record the three stories' leads are Legion, Nightcrawler and the Legion of X (Nightcrawler's team - Juggernaut, Banshee, Warlock etc.). Spurrier writes a great Legion, and should stick to just that :D A Two Star read. just 5 out of 12.

2025 read

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A real drop-off from the first Legion of X volume, which probably benefited from a self-contained mystery that only tangentially tied in to bigger X-events. This second volume has to tie in to the Fall of X, meaning that a lot happens.

There are several overlapping storylines here. Nightcrawler is afflicted with a monster mutation, which soon spreads to other mutants. This comes from his mother, who is working with Orchis. Meanwhile, Legion's mind palace is infected by a Technarch from Warlock's people (which is actually Nimrod, I think?), and that infection spreads to Nightcrawler's Narthex on Krakoa. In the end, there's a big battle with multiple moving parts that I could barely follow.

In the midst of all this, Professor X tries to fix his distant relationship with his son in the worst way and Mother Righteous floats through, granting wishes that seem to fix everything? This female version of Mr. Sinister keeps showing up in different X-series and seems to have a different goal in each one. She's impossible to keep track of.

All of this doesn't even touch the dozen other characters who receive significant page-time. This is simply a dense read. I think there's a neat story here (the mutants as monsters piece is a logical turn!), but it's buried underneath a mountain of minor and major incidents.

[Bertazzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Spurrier, period. BUT, that said, Legion of X was a mistake. An average journey for great revelations. Sons of X kinda patches some issues, but it is still far from the excellence of Way of X.

[Cristhian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nadie escribe a Legion como lo hace Si. Todos sus momentos son casi perfectos... hasta que son afectados por las decisiones editoriales.

Este volumen se ve afectado por A vs X vs I, Sins of Sinister y el comienzo del Fall of X lo cual le quita mucha vida propia al correr de la historia.

[Michael Church · Rating 2 out of 5]

I might just be too dumb for this book, or Si Spurrier in general. I can appreciate what he’s going for in this volume, especially with the focus on Legion, but it just doesn’t land for me. The astral plane stuff doesn’t make sense. I still don’t understand what Ruth is doing. Then they bring in magic that is sort of an infection that they can’t get rid of and that fed into the Sins of Sinister story. I also don’t like Mother Righteous. Her accent being so strongly phonetic really pulls me out, because I can only hear her as Eliza Doolittle before her teaching, and it’s so incongruous with everything she does.

Even more than all that, I still hate the idea of the Spark (and the name) that gets so much spotlight in this book. Like…ok…live life. That’s not that revolutionary or deep. It doesn’t actually ponder the meaning or implications of resurrection or the various forms (or lack thereof) of justice. I thought Spurrier was claiming to tackle the meaning of a soul in the context of “what if your mind can be reborn, is your soul separate?” Which I think was explored most by the Laura/Talon storyline that highlights how every experience shapes a person, but that has nothing to do with this title at all.

On top of that, we get a Phalanx and Nimrod story. I still don’t understand how any of this works because the rules are so loose. The Phalanx is an infection, but it’s ok that they were in Krakoa and they’re sure they’re gone.

It felt like a lot of the narrative telling us that Kurt is the best of them instead of just showing it. I also still hate this trench coat costume on him and the goatee. The art in general is fine, but it’s all retroactively blown out of the water by having Phil Noto on the final issue for Fall of X.

In retrospect, I got these 3 volumes because I like Kurt and the concept sounded deep and interesting. It didn’t deliver on either count. I wish I had skipped it altogether.

[Alex Sarll]

The first issue here is a masterclass, Spurrier, Pimentel and Blee all on top form as they depict a battle beyond depiction or description, Mars burning at the hands of Uranos and his war machines even as David Haller struggles to hold the line – and struggles with himself, meaning that even while it gives us Armageddon, it's also a touching character piece.

Thereafter, Nightcrawler gets horny, and not just in the usual Krakoan sense. There's some Phalanx business which I can recognise as ingenious, but would probably be more invested in if I cared more about the Phalanx, and I'm still not quite sold on the Spirit of Variance business, even having seen where it was headed. But the beauty of LoX is that with so much going on, if you're not into one bit there'll be something brilliant along soon enough, such as Nemesis and Sinister being catty science bastards at each other. Plus, Spurrier brings the Black Knight back, and while it's clearly one of those cases of a writer wedging a pet character in to anything they can get away with, when it's a character I like too I'm fine with that. I just wish it didn't have to end on the downer of the impending Fall, and worse, Nightcrawler off to become substitute Spidey in a series which, even with Spurrier still writing, I can't bring myself to look forward to.

[Matthew Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best parts of this one by far were the stories focused around Nightcrawler and around Legion. The rest of this stuff was mostly just okay, but I love getting deeper into who those two characters are and what the relationships around them look like.

[Joselyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Estoy siendo MUY atrevida al ponerle 5 estrellas a esto pero, la emoción que sentí con ese último capítulo debido a Nightcrawler, Legion y Charles no me deja otra opción.

Sin duda, me es un gran alivio haber disfrutado de este volumen a este nivel. Odié el volumen anterior con profundidad y empecé a leer este un tanto inquieta respecto a si la experiencia se repetiría o, por el contrario, esta sería positiva. Por fortuna, el resultado fue la segunda opción.

Desde el primer capítulo me enamoré por completo. No lo considero perfecto en lo absoluto pero si cerca de serlo. Me deja dubitativa esa nueva imagen que se construyó David sobre Magneto ya que la encuentro súbita y un tanto forzada. Spurrier logra que funcione dado los eventos pero, me hubiera gustado que se exploraran los sentimientos negativos que David en algún punto tuvo por Magneto cuestión que, tal parece, ya está muy olvidada por las mentes creativas de Marvel. Nunca es tarde para explorar ese punto, de todas formas.

En otros temas, mi único problema real con este volumen es que suceden DEMASIDAS cosas. Creo que Spurrier las desarrolló tanto y tan bien como pudo dentro de lo posible pero, eso no impidió que me sintiera confundida la mitad del tiempo en cuanto a los tecnicismos y la relación entre las múltiples historias que acontecían.

Los personajes son mil veces más entrañables e interesantes que en el volumen anterior. Sobre todo, están mucho mejor encaminados y todos tienen un propósito más adecuado a su caracterización. Voy a extrañar mucho tener a todos estos personajes juntos.

El dibujo también me gustó mucho. Disfrute cada página en cuanto al arte por lo que, me llena de felicidad, que hayan cambiado al ilustrador y de esta forma haber disfrutado como se debe a esta historia tan interesante.

Por último, solo me queda decir que tengo expectativas altas por el desarrollo siguiente de estos personajes. Ojalá no me decepcionen otra vez.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Si Spurrier takes Legion through Judgment Day and towards the Fall of X as problems build on the Astral and Material Planes.

What I like most about pretty much anything Si Spurrier writes at Marvel is that no one's afraid to let him get weird with things. And things get weird here for sure. Mutants turning into monsters, Nightcrawler's mother, literally everything about Mother Righteous (best new character award? Yes), it's just so out there and nuts, but it's still...I don't want to say easy to follow, because it can be a little obtuse at times, but this doesn't feel like it's being intentionally that way like some of Grant Morrison's writing, for example.

Netho Diaz handles four of the five issues, with Rafael Pimentel on the Judgment Day tie-in, and Phil Noto on the Sons Of X issue that finishes everything off. To be fair to them all, they each manage to keep up with the insanity that Spurrier throws at them, which I'm sure can't be easy.

Legion Of X, like many of the X-books these days, is so very unique, so very different to everything else on the line. It's a bit nuts. Okay, it's a lot nuts. But it's a hell of a lot of fun along the way too.

[Joey Nardinelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know I read this, but the whole time I kept thinking "who is this for?" Are there still people who got on board with New Mutants in the 90s and really want to see Legion and Nightcrawler and DougLock and the like running around right now? This also feels like weird gap-filler between Sins of Sinister and whatever comes next, in a way I found just confusing enough that I couldn't tell what fell between here, that, and AXE Judgement (since it seemed to hit on both crossover events amid its own narrative run). It sort of seems like we might be done with this series just two volumes in, but then I'm not entirely sure as I have been sort of scattershot snagging Marvel X-Men-related properties this last year based on what my county library has most recently in stock.

Heading into winter recess 23/24, I have a big chunk of Marvel reading to get through -- most of the fall/winter releases for Star Wars, some X-Men, a chunk of Wolverine, and some other odds and ends. Hoping I can dig through 15+ before the year ends (hitting at least one day will have me way over that), but we shall see!

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Absolute chore. Delighted it’s finished.

Spurrier needs to have a rest from sniffing his own farts and his desperation to force his own self indulgence over the art of providing a cohesive narrative.

Spurrier’s entire writing career, going all the way back to Jack Point in the Judge Dredd Megazine, has been full of various annoying writing ticks that takes the reader out of what they are reading, sadly he’s never grown out of it.

It’s seemingly more important to Spurrier to appear clever than it is for him to write in a manner that flows well - and there’s nothing clever about an overinflated sense of self worth.

He’s never going to be Moore or Morrison and his urge to keep reaching to those unattainable heights by experimenting with dialogue and using unnecessarily complex language and terms are what’s going to ultimately kill his career.

He’s the harbinger of doom for every book he’s assigned, currently tanking sales on The Flash as readers departed in their droves and the end result is going to be work drying up unless he can find the courage to get over himself and focus on entertaining mainstream audiences.

If he could find the discipline to rein himself in, there’s clearly a very good writer in there waiting to get out.

[Brandon Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series ended up being among the best of the era. It had a rocky but interesting start with Way of X, but it became something special. It ends up being maybe too dense, but, not unlike Ewing on X-Men Red, Spurrier juggles while doing his taxes for this book.

It’s a Nightcrawler book that continues where Way of X left off, brings back an obscure mother character (not Destiny or Mystique), and sets up Uncanny Spider-Man. It’s a Legion story that feels like a sequel series to Spurrier’s run on the character’s solo title and, in many ways, the culmination of the David’s decades long arc. It’s arguably the only book that continues building on Tini Howard’s mutant magic idea from Excalibur, and it does so in some very surprising and strange ways that feel ripe for more stories. It also features a majorly pivotal subplot featuring Cypher and Warlock and a lot of other seeds for the end game of the whole era. Last, but not least, we have a Ghost Rider possessed Banshee using Juggernaut as a vehicle.

[Emilie]

This explains a lot that I missed leading up to Uncanny Spider-Man. Now I understand why Kurt felt the way he did during the Uncanny Spider-Man series. I didn't realize that Kurt had met Weaponless Zsen. I was introduced to the character in X-Men Red (Mars).

Still too much astral plane for my tastes, but some things happened in the physical world too. I remembered Doug and Warlock from The New Mutants. Doug was killed off decades ago in real time. I believe he was resurrected even before Krakoa was a thing. I like those characters, too.

The storylines were fairly confusing, but I think some of the coherence was sacrificed to the big crossovers happening three or more times along the way in the X-Men and X-related titles. Also, I should catch up more on what went on with the X-titles in this century, because remembering what had happened in the 1980s leaves me lacking in background since then.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

That was a weird one... but this title is overall.
Highlights:
- Some of the mutants are becoming infected with something bestial, altering their form and their psyche. Angel attacks them, but gets away, but the large portion of this focuses on Nightcrawler, who ends up being controlled by Orchis and doing some very bad things. At the end of the Volume, he leaves Krakoa to sort things out on his own.
- Much of this book focuses on Legion, and this time Xavier visits him to see the work he is doing with the Abbey. Not trusting his son, he establishes a protocol that begins to shut David down. Doing this is horrible, because it opens Krakoa to attack from Nimrod. In the battle, Warlock is destroyed.
- The last issue was a bit confusing.... I really need to read Sins of Sinister soon...

Overall, an alright Volume. Looking forward to less speculative and trippy X-Books.
Recommend.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

It feels like Spurrier wants to be one of the big storytellers in the Destiny of X era, but that his comic isn't really appropriate for that. So we get this volume, which concentrates on a big Orchis attack on Krakoa, and in the process we lose track of almost all the characters who made the first volume enjoyable. So we get repercussions, but lose the personal touch.

With that said, Spurrier continues to have a magnificent focus on David that makes me want to go back and reread the omnibus of his previous Legion volume. He also gives as good of attentions as he can to Kurt given the circumstances, and the repercussions for both Mother Righteous and Sean coming out of the Sins of Sinister crossover are interesting.

So, a fun volume, but an unbalanced one.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Spurrier, but sometimes he goes just a bit too far with all the weirdness and this volume is a good example of that. Very complicated story--overly so--with a lot of moving parts and big sections of it taking place in David Haller's mind or on an astral plane...And the art isn't always up to the task. It's a good story, but it will probably turn off a lot of casual readers not interested in muddling through.

[Jennifer Sigman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admit, I was completely lost by the end. What happened to Legion? Who is that all powerful woman who got outsmarted? When is the Sins of Sinister event going to be collected so I can read it? *shrug*

[Mariano Hortal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lectura 256 (2023) Legion of X Vol 2 de Spurrier/Pimentel et al
Tengo que reconocer que edta serie me ha interesado, todo esa idea del mundo Altar regido por Legion ha sido algo que no esperaba. Rondador es otro buen motivo, as usual. Y contiene el primero de Fall of X.
3/5

[Max Pacheco · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't want event tie-ins. I just want four dang issues of seeing my favorite characters interacting and developing without any of them dying or fighting zombie Venomized Galactus clones from another series I'm not reading.

[brand · Rating 3 out of 5]

An overall 'alright' title in the Destiny of X era. I did really like the A.X.E tie-in issue, but the rest of it felt pretty convoluted and weird, even for these X books, though its stays enjoyable.


60/100

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, after a solid first act in Way of X and an excellent transition into the action of Legion of X, this collection stumbles into silly poetics and a final chapter that relies far too heavily on having read Sins of Sinister, an entirely different collection. Not a fun read anymore.

[Conor Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of great ideas that felt very rushed, like Spurrier knew he didn't have a lot of time and had to wrap up a bunch of plot points. Overall I really enjoyed some aspects of this book, but it needed more space to finish cooking. 3.5/5 stars rounded up.

[Andres Pasten · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lo lei solo para saber que pasaba por esta linea, por el Fall of X, pero no es mi tipo de comic

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25
This book got really good, interesting, and relevant, and it didn't feel like any of those things in the first story arc.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Metaphysical mess. The vibrant dream-like colors and art redeem it a bit

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uneven art really drags down this story, which is muddled from too many subplots and confusing crossover stuff. Phil Noto saves things at the end but it's a only a small piece of the pie

[Ernesto Jun · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's so chaotic but so good. I definitely feel like this would be what living in Krakoa amongst super-powered beings would be like. It's a trip.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This had less of what I have disliked from Spurrier's Krakoan stories and more of what I do like. But it is also an in-between. I am curious who he tells his story in Sins of Sinister.

[Kris Ritchie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Inhuman/Xmen/Avengers stuff was alright, but I really enjoyed issues 8-10 focusing more on Charles and David's relationship as well as Nightcrawler's with his adoptive mother.

[Csenge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading any comic written by Si Spurrier:
"I don't get it... I don't get it... WTF is even going on... I'm not smart enough for this... WTF... OH HELL I GET IT! DAAAMN!"