Extra-large review for an extra-large issue.
Look, ill say it now. Jason Aaron is the man. It honestly seems like everything he writes is amazing. If you speak to me in person about comics for more than 10 seconds I will tell you to read Southern Bastards by him and Jason Latour. That comic does things to me emotionally that I cannot handle and as I’ve said before, if you can evoke any emotion (let alone a crushing unsettling depression) ill love your comic. Jason Aaron can do that, and with ease it seems, which makes his writing that much more engaging.
After starting up his own series Scalped which debuted on the Vertigo publication, he went on to reinvent the Thor series and recently, Jason has seemingly been hired by Marvel to write all the good things. His Thor run changed the game when he made Jane Foster (the love interest of original Thor) become the new wielder of Mjolnir, but at a high cost, as she had previously been diagnosed with breast cancer and every time she transforms the hammer purges all chemicals from her body, including the radiation therapy. I know its just a comic but that still hits hard and I feel that’s a skill that Jason Aaron has in spades. Other than Thor, he also writes the new Star Wars comic from marvel, which, surprise surprise is awesome as well.
That being said, I should probably focus on what he has now done for Marvel with Legacy #1. To understand what he has achieved a little back story on what is happening in marvel publications is needed. Marvel are now reverting to original numbering, instead of having many iterations of one super hero comic, it’s now Captain America #700. With this happening the status quo for many story lines have neatly wrapped up and most are starting new, even though 700 comics, isn’t exactly new. So as this happens, Legacy #1 is now released and within its pages, contains a small taste of comics becoming affected by this reordering and refresh.
This comic is a collection of 15 different comics, each having their new plot lines teased eloquently while having an overarching plot throughout that somehow ties the main plot together thematically. It seemed like a daunting task, and normally when something like this, it’s just a scrapbook of efforts from the writers, writing their perspective heroes and put back to back to make a little preview. This is why I’m surprised, but also not surprised they got Jason Aaron to man the entire thing, he’s one of the only writers that would be capable and do it flawlessly.
That what he did, and it worked. Its not to say that the art wasn’t amazing, because it was. Even though Jason took over the writing credits, the same artists of their perspective comics still drew this ‘preview’ as to show the reader what they would be getting in regards to the art and just in typical marvel fashion, it was all top notch.
Mystery, intrigue and humour was spread throughout and if you’re looking for a good stepping off point for what seems to be some of Marvels more interesting and engaging comics in recent times, then this comic is perfect. Thanks to this comic, I now know what ill be looking forward to every week.