REVIEW: Marvel Legacy #1

Neill Hiltebrand

7 years ago

As always, I will start by a minor confession that may influence my feelings on the book. This one is a doozy:-

I am an angry Marvel fan.

I only read the Star Wars books these days. I won“t go into the nitty gritty of why I am angry; I will sum it up with just this, too many events, too many number #1s and a feeling in general that the books are becoming second fiddle to the movies that the books themselves have made possible. I know I am not alone out there. I will add the caveat that none of my anger stems from the wave of welcomed diversity, or the new characters that have been washing over the publisher. It is simply this, you can only revamp yourself so many times before you lose me. That is the long and short of it.Â Â Â I am going to take this opportunity to review Legacy #1 because I actually think I may be this book“s target audience. The guy who never missed an issue from the time he was eight until he was, well, fed up with Secret Seige Wars of Planet Civil or whatever. Let“s get the nuts and bolts out of the way first.

Jason Aaron is the writer, and it looks like pretty much everyone in the offices had a hand in the artistic work, but Esad Ribic and Steve McNiven“s names are given the lion“s share of the credit, so they get it here. Matthew Wilson handled the colors, while VC“s Cory Petit made the words work on paper.

I took the time and I read it twice as it is a very pretty book to look at. The art is crisp and fluid, detailed when it must be, but not so detailed you get bogged down when the action needs to flow. With that many artists working on the book you do run the risk of it becoming a disjointed mess. It most assuredly does not. The tone changes were subtle and appropriate. Full marks to Legacy for being visually entertaining.

Let“s talk about the plot, the writing, and the words. The dialog was fantastic! Characters were interacting with each other with quite a few nods to how I was feeling at the time. That is always fun. The stand outs were, the new big three in the Avengers realm, Sam/Cap, Jane/Thor, And Riri/ Iron Ma“am (yeah, I know it is IronHeart but Ma“am was a funny line from the book). Dr. Strange and Iron Fist have a very Monty Python like convo, and Ben Grimm gets the line that hits home the hardest. You will know it when you see it. It sums up just about everything I was feeling.

As for plot, it“s a game we have played before. Universe ending blah blah, needs its new host, final form, blah blah, only the blah blah can stop it. You get it. Another world maybe universe ending event. The plot isn“t set up poorly, it“s just the same old same old. I don“t see it as a negative point, just a neutral one. I wasn“t expecting anything different, and I wasn“t surprised or disappointed.

We catch glimpses of our original heroes and they are clearly being moved towards a return. Returns are a pretty good bet for this book and we get quite a few here, and some to be set up later. (Wait, what is up with that Avenger“s statue?). I can“t deny one really made me smile, although It felt kind of forced.

Marvel is billing this book as a return to the roots of its characters. I am not sure if that will be the case or not, but I enjoyed it. It made me laugh, and I want to read the next one. I haven“t said that in a while. You got me for number two Marvel, I can promise you that much.

Marvel’s LegacyÂ is accessible without reading a ton of Marvel books for the last couple years, and the art was top notch. If you were looking for a way back to the page after the movie screen, this is a good place to start. Thanks for reading!

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Written by; Jason Aaron
Art by; Esad Ribic, Steve McNiven
Colors by; Matthew Wilson
Published by, Marvel Comics