Comic Review: Legion

Of all the recent superhero shows filling the box the last few years, none have quite stood out like last years out-of-nowhere sleeper hit, Legion. The psychedelic, music inspired sci-fi comedy horror romantic-drama told the story of a troubled antagonist, inspired by the X-Men franchise's character of the same name.

It's been a while since we've seen David Haller, as Legion much prefers to be called, in the comics. Last seen in a truly seminal run penned by Simon Spurrier, X-Men Legacy confronted the nature of Legion's many personalities, giving them individual faces, names and forms, and ended with the incredible finale of David's fractured mind finally coming under  his own control at last. Sane at last, David uses the reality editing power of his ultimate personality to remove himself from history, choosing to exist only in the mind of the woman who loved him.

Now Legion is a complex character, and not just thematically. Since his introduction in The New Mutants, David Haller  has been through the ringer. He's a deeply haunted and troubled young man possessed of a plethora of conflicting personalities, some good, some evil, and some utterly beyond human understanding. Over the years writers have taken him from a mentally handicapped child, to an all powerful anti-villain splitting universes apart, to a lonely traveler seeking redemption.

Milligan's Legion begins at an unspecified time in David's life, when the wandering mutant, garbed in his hospital scrubs, is tormented by a fierce and dominant new personality, Lord Trauma. Desperately seeking freedom from his increasingly aggressive alter-egos, David encounters New York Psychologist Hannah Jones. A shrink to celebrities, Dr Jones appears to be encountering strange and unexplained phenomena all her own, with apparitions and hallucinations warning her of dangerous events to come.

Finding each other in their time of distress, David Haller and Hannah Jones meet, and perhaps will be able to help each other. 

There's some great moments in the first issue of Legion, with the sinister telepath Lord Trauma manifesting himself in the brain waves seen as David undergoes an Electroencephalogram being a particular high point. The interior art is stylish and colourful, Wilfredo Torres using a mix-up of dutch angles to leave us feeling as off balance as the characters within the story, and the sharp blacks and hard edges are reminiscent of classic Mike Allred work. The cover image is a puzzling one though, which shows a much more cartoony styled theme than what new fans of the character attracted by the show are likely to take to.

Where Peter Milligan's Legion fits into the greater picture of the character isn't clear yet, but I do hope it acknowledges past (or future?) events from the previous runs (and please don't forget David's often neglected accent Pete!) There's still a lot to explore with the character, and a whole plethora of new personalities to explore it with. If anyone can do justice to David's twisted and warped mind, Peter Milligan is sure to write from experience.

Super Special Dooptacular Doop Special.

There are many heroes in the Marvel Universe.

Characters that have captured the imagination of millions across the globe since before the majority of us were born. Spider-Man, Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America. To name only a tiny fraction of the many and varied heroes that provide everyone with excitement, entertainment, even inspiration in their everyday lives.

But is there one amongst the legions that shines brighter than the rest? A hero so great we can all aspire to emulate? One amongst the Avengers, Earths Mightiest heroes? Or the Fantastic Four? A team held together by family and love? Is there truly a hero grander than all the others?

No. Just kidding. This article is about Doop.

'But just who is this Doop?' I hear you blithely ask, Ignorant of the absurdity of your question.

Those who are in the know are painfully aware of the floating little green potato looking thing lurking around the pages of Marvel comics. Just look at that lovable little green blob.

He's been kicking around since 2001, a (one can only assume off the cuff) creation of Peter Milligan and Mike Allred in their run on X-Force. You see Joe Quesada had taken over at that point, and various comics were getting overhauls. With British talent Milligan (Penner of some truly classic 2000 AD stories) writing and Madman legend Allred with the pencils, the team that emerged from the duo would turn out to be one of the most surreal in Marvel's history. They would come to be known as the X-Statix.

So what we end up with are a bunch of self-obsessed and morally deficient young heroes with powers ranging from wholly useless to ridiculously specific. They would be killed off left and right, act like immature idiots, and generally be a irresponsible team, albeit one of the most interesting there's ever been. Through the swiftly changing roster, one of the only standbys of the team is their cameraman. Or cameraperson. This little floating green potato that looked a bit like a stop halfway between Slimer and Gary Busey.

You could be dooped into thinking he wasn't important, and although ever-present, he never actually does all that much. But if there was a soul behind the body of the X-Statix, it would be green and Doop shaped. He floats around, rarely doing much more that getting footage of the team going about their business and sneaking shots up the female team-members skirts, occasionally spouting dialogue in a nonsensical wingding that is apparently unintelligible. 

So what exactly are Doop's powers? Who the hell knows? They're super-dooper, how about that? At one time or another he's shown evidence of super strength and resilience, transforming and enlarging his body, dooplicating items, something that seems to resemble creating pocket dimensions in his own body, energy beams, and just plain weirdness like taking himself bodily apart with no physical limitation.

Doopseak remains an enigmatic secret buried far deeper than anything in a Dan Brown novel. In universe, everyone seems to understand it of course, leading to baffling comedy in the reactions to whatever it is the little guy is saying.

In a crossover event with the Avengers near the end of X-Statix's run, Doop is taken hostage by Russian terrorists and turned into an atomic superweapon. Captain America makes a vague reference to something called 'The Doop Project' in the final days of the Cold War. Could Doop possibly be of Soviet Origin? Who the hell knows, we never hear any more on the subject.

That covers literally all we ever really discover about Doop. There's some vague allusions to relatives at one point, but they remain an unsolved mystery. Through thick and thin, Doop remains the  most stalwart member of the team. They send him to deal with a trouble-making prospective member at one point, and Doop does the kid in with an axe. Holy shit, that's some brutal stuff, Doop. He's capable of all sorts of things, including being an ordained Anglican priest and engaging in apparent sexual relationships with She-Hulk and Madonna. He palled around with Wolverine on a noir-style detective romp for a couple of issues, and one time the little guy went toe-to-toe with the Mighty Thor in a confrontation so calamitous it awoke the sleeping Valkyries of Asgard.

So how do salacious tendencies, mystical dialogue, a dooplicitous nature and some incredibly poorly defined powers combine into a cult character shadowing the margins of the Marvel universe?

Who knows, but when the X-Statix had their comic canceled (A criminal travesty as far as I'm concerned), every team member was apparently done to death in the last issue. The issue is chiefly focusing on the more vocal heroes of course, and Doop is seen in the background in one frame, lying sprawled over a chair with a nasty stomach wound.

Could the blob be done in so easily? Was that the end for our hero? Doopsday?

No chance.

Other members of Marvel's creative team took notice of that little chap. In an unrelated comic, somewhere in the multiverse, a passing child might be seen clutching a familiar looking green doll. Jean Grey had an awfully distinctive blob of a keychain one time. In an issue of symbiotic hero Toxin's self titled comic, a scrawl of graffiti in the background proudly reads: Doop Lives.

Was the little blob becoming an almost Christ-like figure within the ethos of the Marvel universe? Not quite, but had he subtly infiltrated the lines between? Indoopitably.

A few years later Doop resurfaced, alive and well, a mysterious entity discovered deep in space speaking in an all too familiar tongue. He reappeared in the Marvel universe not with a bang, but with a whisper. A simple reemergence unquestioned by readers who knew Doop not. Among other things, Doop went on an utterly sdoopid kung-fu adventure with Iron Fist, acted as a criminal investigator to the mutants of Utopia (Driving his victim to tears with an interrogation comprised completely of questions about French cinema) and appeared in a mutant romance special that was truly weird.

Since then, Doop has been appearing in the pages of every mutant based comic there is, apparently having found employment with the Jean Grey School for Higher learning. You'll see him at a desk in front of students, sleeping through one of his own lecture periods, or eating doughnuts in the staff room. He seems to be doing well in the teaching profession. Of course, Doop's employment as staff is purely a front for the real job at the school, that of an undercover security professional, looking out for the safety of the students, and rooting out trouble at the heart of the problem. Logan can count on his old buddy Doop to do what needs gettin' done.

That about brings us up to speed. Marvel NOW is in full swing, and creeping up on us very soon for some strange reason that only the correct alignment of planets could possibly have allowed, Doop is getting his own little limited series. Set during the events of the massive mutant book crossover 'Battle of the Atom' Doop is getting his own slice of the center stage after all this time.

Screw The Avengers, go out and buy your kids (or wife, boyfriend, grandmother, etc) some Doop. They'll love you for it.

You said it man.

Comic Review: The Trial of Jean Grey.

Comic book crossovers can be a scary thing.

If you're a veteran comic book fan, you're used to it. The mass blender of characters and story lines that are thrust at you three or four times a year and mix up the stories and the bad guys. They're epic, they're fun.

If you're new to the comic book world of course, they may intimidate and frighten you. Who are these characters I know nothing about? Who are all these strange names on the covers? This new art is strange and unfamiliar! Why can't we just go back to the was it used to be?!

All it takes is a little getting used to, is all. Try to see it not so much as the literary clusterfuck it initially appears to be, and more like a sampler CD. One of those big ass ones you got for a few dollars that feature all sorts of stuff you've never heard before, but has that one track you really like. You have the comfort zone of the ones you know, can skim over the guys you aren't so keen on, and just might find something new you love, and go out and buy their record afterward. This is exactly what a comic book crossover event is like, so turn it up. Or open the page, Whatever.

  

The Trial of Jean Grey is the first crossover involving Marvel's biggest property, The X-Men, and it's newest (But swiftly rising star) property The Guardians of the Galaxy. Only a little one, three books of each completes the entire story. It's not unusual for crossover events to involve characters or books that are a little under the radar and mix them with the big leagues, as of course it's a good way to introduce people to a book they may not have picked up before. It's no coincidence that the Guardians just happen to be crossing over with the X-Men six months before their big budget movie comes out of course, you gotta introduce people somehow. It's similar to what they did at the start of this latest Guardians run, having Iron Man amongst the team for a trial run, a sort of viewpoint character, an everyday (comparatively) human amongst these spacefaring pirate nutters. It helps that a few members of the Guardians can out-flirt and out-wisecrack Tony Stark or Bobby Drake at every turn, Rocket Raccoon is a hilarious character and he's been particularly enjoyably written into this crossover event.

Now I came into this crossover from the opposite side of how most will. I follow the Guardians, and getting back into X-Men again was a strange feeling for me. They were my team back in the 90's and it's strange to see how much the characters have aged as I have. The series is All-New X-Men in particular I should point out, the concept of which is that the original X-Men from the teams beginnings in an idyllic superhero group under the tutelage of Professor X, have been pulled out of time and to the present, where the rebellious Cyclops is leading rogue mutants against his old comrades in a post Charles Xavier world.

Pretty heavy concept to swallow, I know, but it's a hell of a lot of fun to see.

Of course where most people will be learning is in the other team. The Guardians of the Galaxy, led by cocky American Star-Lord, will be new to many readers. They haven't been involved in too much heavy plot dragging them down yet, so it's easy to jump into getting to know the team, from gun-loving weapons specialist Rocket Raccoon (Yes, he's a raccoon), to smoky female melee combat expert Gamora. The teams latest member, Angela, might take a little more salt to accept, as she is a fresh addition to the Marvel universe, created by Neil Gaiman and recognizable character from the popular comic book Spawn. Yes, THAT Angela.

The crossover is a little unforgiving in that if you only really want to pick up your book out of the two, you're out of luck. The two books trade the crossover in chapters, so you'll be entirely out of half the story if you're only reading one. It's all in with this one.

I for one didn't mind picking up All-New X-Men and giving it a chance, it got me back into enjoying a few characters I didn't even realize I had been missing for a while. The relationships between young Jean and Scott is charming and brings you back a little to an earlier time of comic heroes. That's when they're from of course, and they pull it off well.

 

The story itself that all these heroes are mixed up in? Heavy stuff. This is a Jean Grey prior to the Phoenix force, long before her power grows and she becomes a danger to herself and others. The Jean from this universe never had the chance to stand trial for her crimes, on the account of being long dead of course, so when an intergalactic tribunal, lead by classic X-Men foe the Gladiator, kidnaps Jean to face trial for her future self's crimes as the Phoenix, the young X-Men are dragged along for the ride as the Guardians of the Galaxy take the plucky group into the stars to rescue Jean Grey.

 

 

Now some characters are more important than others in all this. It's a lot to juggle essentially having ten main characters to throw around, and you may find your favorite getting lost in the clash.

The focal characters between the teams: Jean Grey, Star-Lord, Scott Summers, are fully fleshed out, having their whole range of emotions on show, but I could count the lines said by Drax or Angel on one hand. X-23 seems to appear out of nowhere five books in. There is also the threat, as with far too many crossovers, of simply having too many characters! Mixing the members of X-Men and the Guardians should be enough already, but then the Starjammers turn up, intergalactic pirates with a heroic streak and a family tie to the X-Men, and it starts to get a little packed in there. There is a panel of everyone sat in the Guardians spaceship filled with so much spandex and weird coloured skin it looks like a convention in there.  It's an enjoyable mashup though, the dialogue between the teams is great, and the sardonic wit of Rocket and the stone-cold sexy of Gamora plays well with personalities as strong as those of the hyper-intellectual Beast or over-excitable Ice Man. The hamburger scene is just....great.

 

The story as a whole, is solid. Simple even. Physics-bending moral dilemma aside, It's a rescue story. Jean Grey is held imprisoned by the Gladiator and his men, seeking her to not only face punishment for crimes she has yet to commit, but to atone emotionally for them as well. Gladiator's stubbornness and seeming cruelty makes him a strong villain, and his incredible physical capabilities make him a solid match for both teams put together as it is. It's a shame there really is only one brief confrontation with all the characters present, as the story does pass an awful lot of time with the getting-there as opposed to the rescue in actuality. When the inevitable showdown does come to pass, it's over a little quickly, but is off-the-page huge of course.

 

Gladiator should know that messing with time isn't always so easy, and the resolution of the story looks like it could have some lasting consequences for the X-Men. Jean Grey theorizes her emotional state has been pushed beyond the point her previous self ever was, and that maybe the Phoenix force will effect her differently this time around. Her all-new (and all-naked!) new form is nothing wildly unexpected, but it does at least show us that this Jean we haven't seen the best of yet. Even the ever amicable Cyclops, already thrashed into subservience by the events of his own book, steps up at the end and makes a decision that could hugely change the story on his end.

 

 

As for the Guardians, sadly there isn't so much to say for this story really making a change to them. Apart from Star-Lord getting a little more-than-just-friends with Kitty Pryde, no major friendships are established or developed. The whole thing is definitely much more about the X-Men that it is our space heroes. The more you think about it, the more you need to ask: 'Did the Guardians really need to be there?' Are they just in this story for the sake of a crossover? The interplay is great fun, but could these two comics have gone their separate ways without forcing the readers to buy both? If there are further reaching ramifications for the Guardians resulting from this story, I will be surprised.

All in all, I for one did enjoy the thing. For a big fan of the Guardians of the Galaxy, it did a great job of reminding me how much I used to like the X-Men too. It even gave me the nudge to pick up a few more of the past books of their new series and enjoy them too. The Guardians and the X-Men, although wildly different teams, fit well together, and perhaps we'll see more of how they work together in the future. There was a lot unsaid at the end of this story, both happy and grave, and I hope we see these characters develop further to establish themselves in the vastness of the Marvel universe.