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.

Review: 'Phasma' by Delilah S. Dawson

The Star Wars series has never been good at fleshing out the villains. We had to wait 30 years for an entire trilogy of films before we learned the backstory of Darth Vader, so it's no surprise we learn next to nothing about the characters that make up the face of the First Order in the new films.

As before with the original trilogy, fans interested in a deeper exploration of their favorite characters can turn to the novels to find out more, and a look into the chrome suited warrior Captain Phasma is a great place to start.

Phasma begins with the capture of a young spy, Vi Moradi, by the First Order during a scouting mission for the resistance. Instead of being taken for routine processing however, Vi is placed under a secret interrogation by a high ranking Stormtrooper in scarlet armour, Cardinal.

Locking the spy deep in the bowels of a First Order ship, Cardinal bargains with Vi for information on his military rival, the enigmatic Captain Phasma, and so Vi must become a space-faring Scheherazade, playing to Cardinal's curiosity and telling the stories of Phasma's origins, all the while seeking a way to steal her freedom.

After my disappointment with the recent Thrawn novel, I was a little hesitant to dive back into the new Star Wars novels. I wasn't convinced yet.

Where Thrawn felt like treading all too familiar territory with a character we've dealt with many times before, Phasma takes a refreshing attitude to the Star Wars universe, showing us a character we've never seen before, in ways a little unexpected.

It follows the adventures of a barbaric group of warriors across a wasteland of conflict, complete with a moving setting, road-adventure feel, and many of the elements of a classic sci-fi fantasy magazine that you might not expect from a Star Wars story.
Our protagonists are a hard edged group of young men and women who face bloodshed and horror with smiles and bare blades. Encounters like finding themselves in a bloody arena of death for crazed spectators or catching the attentions of an abandoned mine full of lost droids gone mad all feel lively and visceral like the adventures one might encounter reading Conan or Richard Blade. Oftentimes in novels the important fantasy element of Star Wars is forgotten in favor of pure science fiction, but Phasma brings it in wonderfully.

Blending the hard edged barbarian heroes with the strict precision of the First Order characters is a lot of fun, and it reminded me of reading some of those wild Star Wars comics from the 70's that really played with the fantasy element. Thankfully Phasma doesn't stray too far from its purpose either, featuring a lot of character development for the leading lady, and, perhaps just as interesting, a lot explored about the sinister child indoctrination of the villainous First Order.

A common problem with books focusing on minor characters is the tendency to lose track of the elements that made those characters likable in the first place. If you like Phasma because she's a mysterious, practically faceless warrior, that image isn't tarnished within the pages of the book. Her strength is not undercut by her backstory, and neither is her enigmatic nature over-explained and ruined. The book isn't a who of Phasma, but a why.

Phasma builds to a satisfying conclusion, and perhaps most successfully of all, makes me like the titular character a lot more than before I'd read it. It's clearly a work of love from the author, and it made me eager to see what's next. You could say I'm convinced.