Review by Ian Keogh

It might not always have seemed so during the previous three books, but Simon Spurrier had an ultimate plan for almost every character and environment introduced, and pretty well all of them recur here. The problem at hand after the events of Revenants is that David Haller’s hate and resentment had an internal embodiment that’s now been loosed as a random weapon of mass destruction gradually infecting the world’s entire population. There is an exceptionally powerful being with the possible means to stop it, but will the cure be worse than the disease?

Haller’s known as Legion due to the various personalities found within his mind, echoing a biblical quote, and these are both his blessing and curse. By controlling them he can be functional and efficient, but if that control lapses, as it did when his hate escaped, there are problems.

Two contrasting forms of storytelling fill For We Are Many. Tan Eng Huat (sample page) has been present in every book to date, and his remains a cluttered look, drawing the eyes all over the shop instead of toward a focus within the panel. Koi Pham provides a greater clarity, a delicacy of line, and less exaggerated characters, and his final chapter here is his best work on the series, featuring a pre-battle heart to heart between Haller and Blindfold, his simpering girlfriend.

Hanging over the strip from the start has been the apparent inevitability that either Legion or Blindfold will die in preventing his somehow destroying all mutants. Spurrier’s always been leading here, and delivers, but in the same manner as threats have been previously established. There’s Haller explaining a fragmentary plot at length via the dialogue, some overwrought narrative captions, and Haller again battling his own mind. It’s not very good, but it leads to an ending that is and will surely run contrary to expectations, most of which have been engendered by Spurrier pulling the plot rabbit from the hat several times too often during the course of the series.

There are some who really enjoyed this run of X-Men: Legacy, and for them there’s the oversized hardcover Omnibus collecting it all.