X-Men: The Legacy Quest, Book 1

Marvel BP Books Prose Novels

by Steve Lyons

Hank McCoy -- the X-Men's Beast -- made himself a guinea pig in a desperate attempt to find a cure for the deadly Legacy Virus. His gamble succeeded. Now his blood is a living serum that can save countless lives. Unfortunately, the Beast is also a prisoner of Selene, the dread Black Queen of the New York branch of the Hellfire Club and she is literally bleeding him dry in order to further her own mad quest for power and wealth. The X-Men, and their uneasy ally, Sebastian Shaw, the mutant Black King of the Hong Kong branch of the Hellfire Club, are locked in a race against time to defeat Selene and free the Beast. But to their shock, they have discovered that Selene has found a way to turn time itself into a weapon against them. Meanwhile, Sebastian Shaw and the mysterious menace known as Mutant X, pursue a different agenda -- one that if it succeeds, will place the Legacy Virus serum in the hands of the most dangerous mutant in the world!

Genres: Science Fiction, X Men, Fiction, Superheroes, Comics, Marvel, Fantasy

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Steve Lyons is a science fiction writer, best known for writing television tie-ins of Doctor Who for BBC Books, and previously, Virgin. The earliest of these was Conundrum in 1994, and his most recent was 2005's The Stealers of Dreams. He has also written material for Star Trek tie-ins, as well as original work.

Reviews

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 4 out of 5]

My introduction to the X-Men was via watching the original celluloid trilogy well after its theatrical run; seriously, I didn't even see the first film until at least 2007. Since then, I've watched some of the other films, as well as the entire '90's animated series on DVD, and I've also read right many of the comics, both the old-school ones reprinted as Classic X-Men, and the new ones put together in omnibuses that I found at libraries in my area. Yes, I have read many of the print novels before...including this one; however, until today, it had been years since I'd done so, so, I'd forgotten a lot of what happened in them. This particular book made for good reading, and set the scene for what should be some fireworks in the later novels.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found myself enjoying this book more than I thought I would, which surprised me. It was written back when Marvel was trying to create a "cohesive universe" in the publishing world with its books. Some of the books published during that time were also said to take place around or just after certain storylines in the comics as well. This is one of those books; it is set after X-Men vol. 2 #87 (which probably helps explain why Psylocke, Angel, Gambit, Kitty Pryde, Colossus, and Jubilee were not in the story?). I had read Mutant Empire back when it came out and was not the least bit impressed with that book. One of the "weaknesses" of the books were that they ignore the other Marvel heroes to the extent that it seemed as if the characters in the story inhabited another Universe, but then sometimes there would be some kind of toss-out to let the reader know the other heroes were in the same universe but not for the story (or something like that).

Anyway. This book moved at a decent pace. While I did get tired of "the Legacy Virus" in the comics, enough time has passed that I don't mind it so much in this story. I did like the various "internal conflicts," the moral dilemmas, some of the characters had (even one of the villains!) over situations with which they were suddenly faced. I thought the characters were pretty spot-on in terms of how the author wrote them in the book. All the same, I am not sure how much "character development" can truly occur, since what happens "in the book" may not necessarily carry over into the "next" novel and assuredly not in the comics. This novel did have some nice "Easter Eggs/tie-ins" with other characters/comics, though, which I did appreciate such as a reference to the Beast having been an Avenger at one time and in a positive way, or some of the X-Men facing off against a Kree Sentry and it tying back to the FF's first encounter with the Kree "robot." I also enjoyed the comment about how various government agencies would be aghast to discover that the Avengers and FF shared "top-secret government files" with the X-Men, who were called "outlaw heroes." Those immediately come to mind, as did some toss-outs to S.H.I.E.L.D. and Excalibur.

I do think one of the "better" moments occurs in the beginning, when the Beast is trying to escape from a mob after a funeral and a young girl speaks with him while he is trying to catch his breath. That was when his prior association with the Avengers came up; she was, "You were an Avenger once and tried to save the world from a crazy man. You're a hero" (paraphrased), which lifted his spirits and gave him hope. It was a pretty cool moment and a nice offset from the mutant-hating mob that was searching for him.

I think I was in one of my "stages" where I had quit reading so many comics and especially the X-comics (as the various series being published seemed to be multiplying like rabbits), so I missed where Madelyne Pryor went from being the wife that Scott abandoned when he discovered that Jean Grey was alive (for which I despised him when it happened) to being "just" a clone of Jean Grey, created by Mr. Sinister from stolen cells. This book has a "big confrontation" between Jean and Madelyne and provides the 'backstory' to explain why Madelyne was who she was, which was helpful. It was interesting that Scott still felt remorse and even guilt over how he abandoned "Maddie" when he got that fateful phone call that Jean was alive again and no longer in a stasis egg (right before X-Factor was formed). The "combat" between Maddie and Jean was interesting, I guess; I thought Jean would have made short thrift of Madelyne sooner than she did. Ah, well. It is funny how even when a character's story is ret-conned, it still doesn't make the despicable behavior of the hero any less despicable.

Storm has a bigger, better part to play in this book than she normally does, which was nice to read about. Usually she seems to be more in the background or get shoved into a "lesser role" because most writers do not truly seem to know what to do with her character. She was quite a bit more physical in this novel than I remember her being in the comics. I was not sure how I felt about Bobby Drake (Ice Man); he might have been written in line with the comics, but I still felt like his character was one of the few that was lacking a bit. Jean's stealing his thunder like she did was a bit on the "brutal" side; he was pretty proud of himself for escaping his trap until she said he escaped it so easily because he was, mentally, one of the weakest links on the team despite being one of the elementally most powerful (paraphrased). It was pretty rude of her, to shatter his self-confidence like that and be so oblivious of it at the same time.

Hank McCoy probably had the "greatest moral dilemma" as he was willingly throwing his lot in with Shaw and the Hong Kong branch of the Hellfire club. He had reached a dead-end in terms of his and Moira's research and efforts to find a cure and he knew the Hellfire Club had the resources that they lacked. He believes he can ensure that the cure does not remain fully in the hands of Shaw, so he makes his own personal "deal with the devil" for the greater good. I could understand his reasoning and can not blame him for making the choice he made, regardless of how "evil" the Hellfire Club might be. I thought it was a nice twist on the plot that Shaw's island base was the former Kree base discovered by the FF, raised back up from the ocean floor (and several hundred miles from its former location). The "fact" that the island was raised from the depths of the ocean tells me that Shaw's "hidden partner" must be Magneto, but we'll see. The Kree had experimented on humans for centuries in Earth's distant past, so they had thoroughly mapped the human genome and its various offshoots of the time (the Inhumans and I forget the third race, if not the Eternals or Deviants). I was somewhat surprised that the Kree computers would still have worked after the island's prior destruction, but it is never explained how this came to be. Probably the computer room was encased in some kind of protective layer as the island itself first sank into the ocean.

There are eight members in this series of books; that means two teams of four if the team needs to split up. I won't lie; part of me still wishes that the author had also used some of the other X-Men in the book, but perhaps that would have made it too overwhelming, character-wise?

It was interesting to "encounter" Tessa in this book. I do not remember her from the comics when she was with the Hellfire Club. I only remember her from the X-treme X-Men comics when she went by "Sage" instead of "Tessa." So, while I was not familiar with her character when she was a member of the Hellfire Club, I was familiar with her skills and mutant abilities. She would eventually be revealed to have been Xavier's "specially chosen mole" into the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club, which I can only assume to have been some kind of "ret-con" so her character could be used on this supposedly "X-treme Team" of X-Men to do the "dirty jobs" that the "public teams" could not do or accomplish. Anyway, it was interesting to come across her in this book; I never knew she served as Shaw's personal assistant.

I loved the artwork before each chapter. It was like a blend of two different styles and made almost every picture worth taking a longer look at (some of the pics were not as good as others, but most of it was a pretty spectacular blending of "styles" or whatever you would call it). Hopefully the next two books in the series continue with the same style/artist!

It was an enjoyable book and I am glad that I took a chance on reading it.

[Jennica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE X-men. It used to be the only thing me and one of my other friends would talk about when we were together. I have read this book many, many times. I just wish I had the other two as well.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really well done book but I picked it up at very much the wrong time.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

It really took me a while to get into this book, but things did pick up and finally get me interested. While I still plan to read the rest of the trilogy, I will plan to read a few other books before starting the second volume. This considered only giving two stars, I upped my rating because the plot did pick up and that these are “my” X-Men. This group and this story line are the 90s team that broken sales records for comic books, starred in the hit Saturday morning cartoon, and we the team I grew to love when I got into comics during the final decade of the 20th Century. The fact that Beast, my favorite X-Man, was one of the main character, helped to bump the score up for me.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author did a good job of jumping right into action and explaining events that led up to this book so I did not feel like I was lost. There are a lot of characters to keep straight and again, the author creates a story around each one so that you are not flipping back the pages trying to figure out which characters are which. I like the story line and the moral struggles the characters go through.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt like this story could have been told in 1 regular size comic (2 at most). It was a bit slow - especially early- and wordy at times, but was ultimately an ok story. I felt like the Beast was the only character that got any real in-depth examination. I’m not in any rush to read the rest of the series.

[Fire_Dragon_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Part of the X-men legacy quest trilogy, 3-in-1 book)

[Justin Kempf]

Awesome, would read again. I really want to read whole series!

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Guilty pleasure reading/Crack.