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.

Comic Review: Kid Lobotomy

The birth of a new comic imprint can be a thrilling thing. In a field that tends towards stagnation, new imprints in the past like Vertigo and Helix have produced some of the most surprising cult hits in years. Based out of Los Angeles, Black Crown, a brand new imprint of publisher IDW, promises a line of new books from a variety of creators, exploring a myriad of subjects and introducing a host of new properties.

In Kid Lobotomy, the first title coming from Black Crown, we're introduced to a partnership of old hand and new talent. The pen is held by British writer Peter Milligan, whose notoriety in the comics business can't be overstated. The artwork is the blood and sweat of rising talent Tess Fowler, whose most recent work can be seen on covers across multiple major publishers. 

Milligan has a long reputation as a skillful craftsman of the grotesque and hilarious, from his genre-defining creation X-Statix to long tenures on Hellblazer, Shade the Changing Man and a plethora of others, he's known for pushing the envelope on the norm, and the boundaries of taste. He's on top form in the world of Kid Lobotomy.

It's the story of a young man, Kid, who after a series of twisted events finds himself manager of the city's strangest hotel. Tortured by a past shrouded in macabre music, madness and medical experimentation, Kid finds allies and enemies alike in the denizens of the building known as The Suites.

Part Overlook Hotel, part Mos Eisley Cantina, The Suites are home to a variety of strange and unusual lodgers. The biggest charm of Kid Lobotomy so far is in the very building Kid must discover. He explores the workings of The Suites and just what he's got himself into, and along the way the many inhabitants, not all apparently human and not all even apparently alive, go about their own unique business within the walls of the mysterious building.

The art is sharp and fitting the world we find ourselves ready to explore. Fowler's distinct talent for expressive faces gives equal attention to the cute, the sexy, and the macabre alike, and no two characters look the same. The halls of The Suites are both shadowy and dreamlike, with a wonderfully moody colour scheme that reminded me of The Neon Demon.

There's a world waiting to be discovered here, with Kid's family, staff, and the many lodgers making up the main cast, along with hordes of quirky background characters. There's so many distinct characters lurking in the first issue alone, I look forward to seeing who among them will be fleshed out, what will become of them, and what's really hidden in the shadows of The Suites.

Kid Lobotomy, in all it's twisted, funny, and grotesque glory, comes out on October 18th.