X-Men Legacy 6, X-Treme X-Men 11

X-Men Legacy 6
Spurrier (w) and Molina, Lee, and Wong (a) and Rosenberg (c)

This book never stops moving, it seems. Six issues in and David's still harnessing new powers and, don't be put off by how lame this sounds, discovering himself. I KNOW, I wouldn't have bought it if I read that either. But for real, he makes some incredibly important decisions that benefit his characterization like mad. On top of that, he finishes up the story in this arc with a bang and leaves us with an idea of the sort of things to expect all while creating a new and very complex villain for us to be on the lookout for. Not bad for one issue.

Legion, held at knifepoint by the rescued child Karasu while her possessed brother attempts to kill Blindfold, decides that he's fed up with being led and grabs a new teleportation power that sends him straight to Luca possessing Karasu's now-dead twin brother. Luca is one thrust away from killing Blindfold when Legion stops him, but he leads Legion on a chase through the X-Mansion. Luca, now in control of half of Blindfold's power, has set up a number of traps and contingencies for Legion to fall into. In some cases, Legion does, but in others, he avoids narrowly. Legion keeps a step or two away from Luca before Karasu appears again, threatening David to stop him killing her brother. As David faces a moment of weakness, an unseen personality in his head takes over and easily knocks the girl aside, telling Luca that he'll be useful someday, before giving way to David's true personality again. The fight against that personality takes a lot out of David so he's winded when the X-Men show up and Luca puts on the guise of a little boy again and blames David for attacking him and his sister. Before the X-Men can react, Blindfold, recovered, leaps in and slices Luca across the middle. She goes on to cool things down with the X-Men, who offer David a chance to stay and find help. Claiming again that he won't be led, he leaves, determined to go the extra step of his father's dream, actually accomplishing something in the fight for mutant equality rather than just being reactive. His evil personality is revealed, telling him that Blindfold will eventually kill David to save mutantkind. That personality is a disappointed Charles Xavier.

Lots of demons here, lots of plot, lots of character building, lots of support characters, just lots of everything. And it's all executed really well. David's personality (and his powerset) has grown stronger and stronger with each issue without sacrificing any actual feel for the character. His resolve is stronger, though this new demon is bigger than one he's faced yet. It'll be very interesting to see where we go from here.

X-Treme X-Men 11
Pak (w) and Segovia, Valdes, Crisostomo, and Ruggiero (a) and Kholinne, Noor, and Sotomayor (c)

Geez, lot of creators on this book. ANYWAY. So Nazi Xavier, unlike the cliffhanger of last issue might have led readers to believe, is totally a friggin' Nazi. Namor has lost too much at his hand and has been waging war on the psychic for about ten years, by Nazi Xavier's count, and he looks primed to kill the last 500 humans on Earth in his latest attack, all to get at Xavier. Though the X-Treme X-Men hate this new Xavier, they refuse to watch Namor kill the last humans, so they all work together to take out Namor before Dazzler sneaky-stabs Xavier, allowing the wounded Namor to finish the job. The team's Xavier tells the team that this completes their journey and that, in the morning, he'll bring them all where ever they want to go.

There's a little bit of characterization to follow, including a new relationship for Dazzler and Cyclops and Dazzler's admission that she's changed so much in this journey that she's not sure she can go back home. The others celebrate and recount the ten evil Xaviers they've killed and, of course, come up with only nine. They hurry off to find their Xavier, who is now bonding with two previously-deceased Xaviers (including the friggin' Nazi), promising the destruction of worlds. So there's somewhere for this book to go yet, as the team faces three evil Xaviers at once. Then they'll probably cut away real quick for the X-Termination event (I'm not sure if that will slide in neatly or if it'll be in the middle of this arc or at the end of this arc or even at the beginning, I'm not sure when it happens and, frankly, as I type this sentence, I'm only kind of sure that it WILL happen). That's about all I've got here. A lot of stuff happened but it was largely plot. I friggin' hate Nazis. Always worth mentioning that.