X-Men: The Legacy Quest, Book 2

Marvel BP Books Prose Novels

by Steve Lyons

Hank McCoy?the X-Men¹s 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, Marvel, Fiction, Fantasy, Superheroes

272 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]

So far, I'm enjoying this trilogy; wonder how things will shape up in the last volume.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting format to read as it alternates between "the present" and "one year in the future". It has its good moments, its strong moments, and its weak moments. The action is not quite "non-stop" but pretty close. The character development is about what you would expect in a book like this (which involves some form of "continuity" with the comics, but whatever transpires in the book has negligible effect upon the comics). The book is not really a "stand-alone" book; the first book leads into this book, and this book leads into the third book.

I would say most of the story focuses on Storm, that it gives her the most "character development." Sebastian Shaw makes her an offer he does not think she should or can refuse. He offers her the role of White Queen in the Hellfire Club. He brings up her past history of working with and even being attracted to various villains over the course of her tenure as an X-Man (such as being Magneto's White Queen when he was the White King, or having a tenuous, short-term relationship with Doctor Doom). Storm is tempted throughout the entire book by Shaw's offer; the fact that Shaw saves her life more than once throughout the book increases the conflict within her. She eventually decides to take him up on his offer and join the Hellfire Club, but Tessa telepathically rebuffs her and tells her that she will never be happy in the Hellfire Club and the Hellfire Club is not for her. Her relationship with Shaw over the course of the novel is full of twists and turns, I guess, but I got a little tired of the whole "will she, won't she?" going on and was happy when she finally made her decision (which, again, goes back to the theme of "small compromises for the greater good" and the "lesser of two evils."

A couple of comments stood out to me in this book. The first was from Blackheart, Mephisto's son. He said, “It is easy for men to forget that the lesser of two evils is still an evil” (135) to Shaw while leading Shaw amongst the various temptations the X-Men were facing. I thought that was an interesting point he made; it was an observation I do not think I ever would have expected to hear the son of Marvel's iteration of Satan say. That comment was followed about twenty pages later with Jean Grey (Phoenix) saying, “So, it’s agreed, then? Siding with Shaw is the lesser of two evils” (157).

It will be interesting if the series continues the whole "the lesser of two evils" thread in the third book that it has had going on in the first two books. Both books have been about people making choices and decisions, about the consequences of those decisions. Moira MacTaggert, in the first book, had taken the stance that it was better not to work with "evil" (in the form of the Hellfire Club and Sebastian Shaw) to create a potentially greater common good (in the form of a cure for the Legacy Virus). Hank McCoy, on the other hand, decided that working with Shaw was the lesser of two evils, so he opted to work with Shaw and the other kidnapped scientists to come up with a cure. At the end of the first book, he made the choice to infect himself with the Legacy Virus in hopes that "the cure" he and his fellow scientists "discovered" (created?) would save his life and his body would have the strength to develop the "super cell" needed to fight and defeat the virus. In this book, he discovers "the price" of his decision, as he is captured by Selene of the New York branch of the Hellfire Club and Selene keeps him alive long enough to determine if the experiments on Shaw's Pacific island hideaway were a success or not. The "cure" is a success, and she (nearly) bleeds McCoy dry of his blood in "the future" sequence of the books, she had bled Hank McCoy dry and killed him, but by the end of the book, that future is "wiped from existence" (or, "one existence" as there would be alternate universes created with different "end results" and in a second result, the X-Men would have failed in their mission).

This book has a similar theme in which the heroes are "tortured" by being tempted to make some sort of small compromise for the greater good. For each hero, it is different, and regardless of the choice they make (even if it is "the right choice"), Blackheart claims that they will be weakened because of their choice, their decision. For example, Wolverine's temptation is that he is allowed to kill every villain in existence to remove "their evil" from the world. He hesitates a few times when it is a female performing some act of evil or villainy, but he soon overcomes that resistance and begins killing females as readily as males. What "gets" him is that his last "villain" he faces is a little girl who is holding a button to set off a nuclear bomb. He hesitates killing the child and the child sets off the nuke, creating a nuclear holocaust that decimates the world. Wolverine survives in his "dream/temptation," which is now a nightmare, and resolves to never hesitate like that again. According to Blackheart, this means that, in the "real world," Wolverine will be less likely to think twice and react as he thinks fit instead of taking another second or two to think about the situation, to consider the ramifications; he is less likely to be cautious when approaching a situation. Cyclops's "temptation" is simpler; "all" he has to do is kill Wolverine and evil (and anti-mutant hysteria) will be removed from the world. He refuses to kill one man for the greater good of millions or even billions, but Blackheart says that Cyclops will now second-guess himself forever and wonder if he should have made that "choice" to kill Wolverine, to make that "small compromise for the greater good."

While I did like the whole "time-travel" thing that was going on and did not mind how the story was progressing in two different time periods, one year apart, that is not to say the book did not have its weaknesses. I understand the X-Men’s general principle not to kill any life form (or, intelligent life form), but that “hard and fast rule” tends to get thrown out the window when it comes to certain creatures (such as the Brood). So, I truly do not understand why, in this book, when the teams are fighting DEMONS (of all creatures!) that they refuse to “kill” them! They tend to knock the creatures out, stunning them instead of killing them. Really? Really?!? (Granted, I’d like to know how you go about killing a demon, anyway, since they are supposed to be “spiritual beings.”) Scott won’t use his optical blasts at full power to “kill” the demons, even though he knows the creatures are evil incarnate and using his full power would clear things up pretty fast. Not only that, but he chooses to only stun them instead of bringing Selene’s lair down around her (which is implied to be a source of strength and power for her throughout the book). What the heck is up with that? OR, Wolverine is fighting DEMONS as well, and he chooses to be “non-lethal” and knocks them unconscious, but he is ready to kill Lady Deathstrike when he has the chance/opportunity?!? The demons were trying to kill him, but he lets them live. Lady Deathstrike seeks to kill him, and he would have “returned the favor” if Scott hadn’t stopped him. Bit of a double-standard, there! It is pretty incredibly stupid and unbelievable that the X-Men would not use “lethal force” against demons, considering what is at stake at both points (in the “present” and the “future”).

Personally, I found it hard to believe that a team of heroic mutants would have been defeated as easily as Selene implied they were. Maybe they weren’t defeated so easily, but I kinda doubt they should have been defeated at all, myself. I don’t know if Selene has some kind of ability to time travel and that was how she beat them (considering she transported the X-Men a year into the future)? Still, though – it’s not like her magics should have been strong enough to beat Asgardian or Olympian magic, let alone Doctor Doom and his “skills” in the dark arts (as comic book writers would say). I would have thought the mutant team would (should) have included Namor (half-human, half-Atlantean), Thor (half-human, half-Aesir), and Hercules (half-human, half-Olympian), along with Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and whoever else was put together to be on the team.

I didn’t find Selene’s “omniscience” to be very credible, which is part of the problem when authors create these well-nigh-omnipotent, omniscient characters. The author makes her “too powerful” to really lose, and yet she still “loses” in the future and then in the past. She is supposedly one step ahead of the X-Men the entire book, both in the “present” and the “future,” yet she still loses in the end. Whatever. The team keeps getting beat back and losing, yet I am sure people will excuse that by saying how plucky they are and that they never give up and that I how they win, because they keep on keeping on. Whatever. Not only that, but somehow Selene was able to use “magic” to disguise herself from the Phoenix and take Phoenix “down,” despite the internal thought process that admitted how much stronger Phoenix was than her (Selene). I wasn’t sure how much I agreed with that takedown, either. On the one hand, it felt like the “win” at in the future was cheap and unbelievable, and because she lost in the future, it was guaranteed she was going to lose in the present, too, which is what happened (and which was fine, in that regard). At the same time, though, one can say that her pride got in her way as she ignored one of the White King’s party to her detriment (as this mutant was able to boost the powers of other mutants, and he was able to boost Jean Grey’s powers to the point of overwhelming Selene). That pride on her part is also what allowed her to be beaten in the future, so that part was believable, I guess, so her defeat created some mixed emotions in me.

I also got tired of Shaw’s constant machinations and side-plots and little schemes to try and work things his way. That got pretty old, pretty quick. I couldn’t “buy” his defeating his older self like he did, unless his older self wanted to die in hopes that Shaw would change his tactics and thereby defeat Selene (which is pretty much what happened). Granted, Shaw let the X-Men defeat Selene while he made off with “the last bit” of Beast’s blood. By the same token, considering how he acquired the sample, there should have been more samples of Beast’s blood in the vines that had been formerly entrapping him and bleeding him dry for Selene.

As strong as Iceman is supposed to be, and the way he went about finding out how strong he truly is in the comics, was never fully explored in this book, which was kinda sad. One might have thought that the author would have explored his abilities and strengths a bit further, even though it would not have affected the continuity of the comics at all. He is supposedly some kind of elemental force, yet even in the comics it seems like it took him a while to begin to grasp what that means.

There were a few moments that I liked in the book, however. One of them was when they had captured Selene in the future. Logan made the decision to kill her then and there in hopes that her death would trigger some effect and send them back to the past, to the point where they had been transported to the future. “Fortunately” for the X-Men, his ploy worked. So, it was doubly nice, that Selene was killed (even if it was a “non-death” because of the past being changed, in “this reality” she was killed) AND the members of the team that had been killed in the future while fighting Blackheart were returned to live when the team returned to the present. I am still not quite sure how that worked, how her dying in the future reversed her spells and sent the team back to the past, but it was still a clever trick on the part of the author and I appreciated it.

I was quite happy that the Avengers, FF, Thunderbolts, and other superhero teams were still alive and well one year in the future (despite their inability to penetrate Selene’s mystical barrier around Manhattan Island). It was amusing to me that after Iceman was captured by one of the Sentinels guarding the island and he managed to convince Moira MacTaggert that the X-Men had returned, that she said she could go over Henry Gyrich’s head by talking to Captain America about what was occurring (or, about to occur) on the Island and how a distraction was needed. That moment occurred with all of the non-mutant superheroes attacking the mystical shield and providing the much-needed distraction, as Selene had to focus on keeping the mystical barrier up under their combined assault while facing off against the X-Men. Iceman had commented that if Gyrich was in command, nobody would believe him, but she commented that nobody could stop Captain America – not even Henry Gyrich (paraphrased), which was pretty funny to me.

I never did figure out who the White King was in the future, until Storm and Wolverine were discussing it. Then, I had a bit of an idea who it might be. It was still a fascinating idea, though, in how it created a kind of “temporal loop” for a particular character. I still don’t quite understand what this character thought he could accomplish, and whatever his plan was, it failed pretty spectacularly. So, I thought that was “well done” on the author’s part, in terms of the White King and his ultimate identity.

I liked it, but not nearly as much as the first book. I would probably rate it 2.5 – 2.7, rounded up to three stars. Overall, though, it did have a fast flow to it, and it did keep my interest from start-to-finish. I am glad that I read this book. On to the third one!

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 2 in the series: This book had total potential to lose the reader as it moves between the "present" and one year in the future, with the same characters. The author does an amazing job keeping the reader from becoming confused. Characters continue to develop and lots of action keep the reader engaged.

[Fire_Dragon_ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars


(Part of the X-men Legacy Quest Triliogy, 3-in-1 book)

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Guilty pleasure reading/Crack.