.....X-MEN LEGACY #263.....

   X-MEN LEGACY #263
STORY BY Christos Gage

ART BY Rafa Sandoval, Jordi Tarragona

COLORS BY Rachelle Rosenberg

LETTERS BY VC - Cory Petit

COVER BY Mark Brooks

PUBLISHER Marvel Comics

• The Final Chapter In The Story Featuring Classic X-Villain Exodus.

• Wolverine’s X-Men Are Joined In Battle By Cyclops’ Young X-Men Recruits…To Disastrous Results!

The start of this new direction for "X-Men Legacy" under Christos Gage and David Baldeon sounded promising. "X-Men Legacy" has gone under many directions in the past few years, but a Rogue-helmed team of characters has worked rather well. With this final chapter of "Lost Tribes," though, Gage has the characters seeming a little disappointed. I can't say I blame them.

The big battle against Exodus concludes this issue with some of the students from Utopia joining in as promised in the previous chapter. The problem is, there's a remarkable lack of originality in this fight. It feels like little more than a pile on with more and more characters thumping the heck out of Exodus until he's defeated. (I'm pretty sure no one actually expected him to kill Cyclops in a book Cyclops doesn't normally appear in.) Once Exodus is stopped, we're still left with half of an issue to go and that's when things get positively strange.

The rest of the issue feels like a big gripe-fest with a lot of sniping between characters about how things went down and a lot of reiterating the schism between the two X-Men groups. It's a strange combination of exposition and angst and it doesn't hold up at all. Gage is normally much more subtle about his character beats (which feel very loud and obvious here) and his hints toward the future (and having Blindfold walk on panel and point-blank state that prophecies are not yet fulfilled is anything but subtle), which makes "X-Men Legacy" #263 rather disappointing. Add in the general moping nature of the wrap-up of "Lost Tribes" and it's making me rethink my interest in "X-Men Legacy" if this is the tone of the book in the months to come.