X-Men Legacy #235

This book is written by Mike Carey, one of my favorite writers in comics today.  He's also writing The Unwritten, probably my favorite book right now, and one I've reviewed a couple times here.  I kind of wish Carey was writing all the X-Men books, although he obviously doesn't have time to do all that.  But after reading this issue, I especially wish he was writing New Mutants.

I haven't reviewed any of New Mutants yet, but now seems like as good a time to talk about it as any.  The writer on that book is Zeb Wells, and he's not bad, but there's something a little off.  It's sort of like what I said about Bill Willingham on Angel.  He just doesn't have the greatest grasp on the characters.  When a writer is writing characters with long histories, especially when I'm as familiar with their histories as I am with the New Mutants, it's easy to tell when they sound wrong.  Wells' New Mutants sound wrong.  They don't sound like themselves.  Especially Illyana, although I think he's doing something specific with her character that calls for her to sound a bit off, but still, the Spock speak he's given her is especially grating, given that she's never ever talked like that before even when she was borderline evil.  I love that he's brought back Doug and Warlock.  And I love that he's giving Doug a chance to reach the potential that's always been implicit in his powers.  But so far, his characterizations just haven't rung true.  Maybe he just needs to write them more, or maybe he needs to read more of the old Claremont stuff, I don't know.  I hope he finds it eventually, because these are probably my favorite characters in the history of comics.

Which is why, after reading this issue of Legacy, I really wish Mike Carey was writing that book.  The New Mutants were as heavily featured in this issue as the X-Men were, and it was great.  I really liked the way Carey wrote them.  I thought it felt more natural than these characters have felt in years.  There were some great moments too.  I liked Doug having to convince Warlock to take out the smiley soldiers and Hodge.  I can see people having a problem with it, but with where this newly-resurrected yet somehow older Doug is at right now, it felt right to me.  The smiley soldiers were an especially nice touch, since they were a big part of how Doug died.  There was a nice bit of revenge below the surface there.

On the downside...

SPOILERS...

So they brought Ariel back from comic book limbo just to kill her off.  I don't know how I feel about that.  I don't really want them killing any of the beloved characters from my youth, but if they feel like they really have to kill someone, I suppose it's better if they kill a bit character who hadn't been seen in twenty years anyway than if they decided to kill Nightcrawler or somebody like that.  On the other hand, if they had killed Nightcrawler, he'd just be back a few months later.  Who knows when or if we'll ever see Ariel again?  And it's not like I loved Ariel or anything.  I enjoyed Fallen Angels when I read it as a kid, even though I could tell even then that it was pretty ridiculous stuff, but I didn't exactly form an emotional connection with any of the original characters from that series.  Still, when I saw that they'd brought Ariel back, I was interested to see what they'd do with her, in a "Hey, I remember that character" kind of way.  Seeing that they just brought her back to kill her off is pretty disappointing.  It's like they must have thought, well, we need a death, what are some characters we haven't used in forever that we could bring back and then kill off?  Hey, how about that teleporting chick from Fallen Angels?  Just seems kind of lazy, doesn't it?

Well, maybe she'll be back.  You never know.