For most of Simon Spurrier’s X-Men Legacy, any time we’ve heard mention of Gabrielle Haller, the estranged mother of David Haller – the son of Charles Xavier who would very much prefer you stop calling him Legion – it was with a sense of ominous foreboding, as if there was a lot of bad blood between the two of them. When the bomb was dropped last issue that Pete Wisdom had called David’s mommy, there was an ‘oh shit’ feeling that made us think we were in for some major fireworks. But in X-Men Legacy #15, nothing goes as expected. Here There Be Spoylers.
The meeting between David and his mother, an Israeli ambassador, is actually more about the son’s abandonment issues than it is about any heated tension between the two of them. David’s resentful that Gabrielle left him in the care of Moira MacTaggart at Muir Island for many years, where he was strapped to a table and mentally probed and prodded constantly for ways to find out how to temper his dangerous instability. Gabrielle, for her part, believed that she’d lost David to Xavier’s world of costumes and super powers and it never occurred to her that he might not want any part of it. They have a tearful reunion that does manage to get us “intoxicated by the fucking feels,” as David puts it, Gabrielle takes a journey into David’s fractured mindscape to help him resolve some daddy issues as well as his mommy issues, and then out of nowhere, the dictator David deposed last issue tries to assassinate him, and kills Gabrielle instead.
It’s certainly a surprise, and we can’t help but feel we’ve been robbed, because there’s so much to explore with this relationship, and suddenly it’s over almost before it began. The first response is to feel like this was rushed – a hastily slapped together stepping stone to get to Spurrier’s next big thing – but upon reflection, we are supposed to feel robbed. We are supposed to feel like we’ve had someone suddenly, irrevocably ripped away from us – one who insists on her world’s rules and not the ‘reversible death’ rules of superworld. We’re supposed to feel just like David does. We get why he instantly vaporizes the arsehole attackers, which leads us perfectly into that next big thing. Both of his parents have been killed, but he’s only paid back his mother’s killers. Next stop, his father’s killer. Cyclops. Cyclops and his stupid, stupid X-face mask. That’s something I’m looking forward to seeing.
I’ve come to realize what’s bothering me about Tan Eng Huat’s artwork, and it’s absolutely an irrational bugfuck response on my part. He does have a tendency to draw most women’s hair as greasily pasted o their heads, but what bothers me is that they don’t tuck their hair behind their ears, and their ears stick out all annoying-like with hair on either side of them (even Emma Frost, who would give a shit about that) and that’s something that’s driven me nuts since I was in high school, for no logical reason at all. I just hate it. I hate it on the same visceral, pointless, nonsensical level I hate sandals, especially on men. It’s possible I have a psyche as fractured as David’s, and The Delusionaut or Zero G. Priestly are floating around in my head hating bad hair choices, too.
When Tan is on, he’s fantastic – David’s stunned shock in the immediate aftermath of his mother’s shooting is perfect. If he’d just stop doing that thing with the hair, it’s possible I’d have no problem with him at all. The wacky mindscape characters within David’s head are also interestingly designed, even in minor roles, and it puts me in the mind of what I liked about Dial H before it became completely impenetrable.
So X-Men Legacy #15 is interesting and solid, but my head’s still spinning about all the tension build-up swerving into a few nice moments and a sudden bang to end it all. It’s left us a bit unhinged. Just like David. And if there’s anybody I wouldn’t mind seeing him going after, it’s the smug thing that was once Cyclops.
