Legion of X #1 Review/Spoilers

[Rift]

We open to Legion in the Altar, talking to an unseen Blindfold. He explains the Altar to her, and how Nightcrawler has a police station set up here. Except it's not a police station because they're not police. But they're totally police. They overhear Nightcrawler as he welcomes his coworkers. He also says that there's a cronut tree, which. Yeah.

So the Legion consists of Cortez, Pixie, Lost, Juggernaut, Gorgon, Nemesis, Maggot, Chamber, X/Zorn and someone called Xabi. (AKA ForgetMeNot.) He assigns people to cases, one of them being to investigate possession - likely the Skinjacker. Nightcrawler calls him a little #$%&. Nightcrawler, meanwhile, will meet with Storm.

Back to Legionaries. He reveals to Blindfold that he stores his extra minds and identities away, which will in no way backfire horribly down the line, I'm sure. Then he finally reunites with Ruth and they kiss. He notes that she doesn't have a physical body; she says that she doesn't want it anymore. Being a precog sucked, so she's gonna life in this weird dream dimension instead. Probably so she can dream of holding Hellion and having it come true. But alas, Hellion only has two hands - he can't be there for everyone.

Data page time: we get the three laws again, but they have little amendments underneath to explain them more.
1. Make More Mutants: You can't force people to make babies, and he thinks the best way to enforce the law is to just let the Five do their thing. That's lame.
2. Murder No Man: Provoking non-mutant actors is also a no-no, that they must examine intent of a murder before they condemn, and ensure that death doesn't lose its meaning, lest life follow suit.
3. Respect this Sacred Land: "Sacred land" is now extended to mean "all of mutantkind." So stuff like murder, abuse and rape are still illegal. Theft should probably fall under that, and they're apparently going to get involved with that. But earlier, Nightcrawler said theft wasn't illegal, so?
4. The Spark: Try new things.

On Arakko, Nightcrawler playfully grovels at Storm's feet, to which she jokingly threatens to stick lightning up his ass. They meet up with Ora Serrata - an eyeless snail-blob-thing on top of a giant eyeball. She's part of the Great Ring, and her job is to kill those who commit the greatest sin of their society - running away from the Rite of Challenge (kicking ass in the Siege Perilous.) She's here to grab anyone who runs away from the challenge, as well as to record all challenges in the Circle Perilous. Ora has summoned Nightcrawler to retrieve a god of mischief who escaped and is likely hiding on Krakoa.

Back at Krakoa's tiki bar, Xabi is talking to a short guy with smoke coming out of his ears. They're not going to arrest him for his crimes on the mainland, but he has to come with him to the station to talk things over. The guy gets mad and makes a smoke monster come out of his ears. Juggernaut busts through the wall to fight the monster, but he can't grab onto smoke. But it doesn't matter, because Xabi just tasers the mutant and knocks him out.

At the Gardens, Pixie and Lost meet with Spike (not the one from X-Men: Evolution), who is a victim of the Skinjacker. He explains what happened: he and his friends (Glob Herman, and two other people) go to the beaches weekly to paint Rockslide, because it makes Santos really happy. Spike was suddenly trapped in a world of darkness. When he came to, his arm was mutilated. Healer notes that the healer tried to use painkillers, but Spike's healing factor metabolized them too fast. The Skinjacker was in so much agony, he dropped a clue: a finger.

Pixie tries to get him to come down to the station and talk, but Spike freaks out. He doesn't want to be targeted by the Skinjacker again. Pixie considers drugging him with her dust, but Lost is like, "nah, it has to be his choice." She gives Spike a speech and convinces him to come along.

Back on Arakko. Weaponless Zsen (who has a weapon) is like a judge for the Circle Perlious. Ora tells her to get the head of Uqesh. The tl;dr is that he was the Seat of Law before Ora usurped him. He used his power to summon 30 gods for help during the siege of Amenth, but they sucked. Deities are generally hated on Arakko, as an expression of divinity is a challenge to the people.

Robed mutants come in, accused of worship. Zsen brings out Uquesh's head to summon one of their gods, and the audience rushes in to kick his ass. Ora says that this is Krakoa's fault - after being brought here, the gods came slinking out to seduce them. But they're not against gods - they just want a god that's worthy of their worship.

The Arakkis kick the god's ass, and Ora makes him vanish. She gives Zsen over to Nightcrawler to help him find their missing deity, but warns them that she'll get involved, herself, if they're not swift.

Back on Krakoa, Legion goes to the Quiet Council meets with Warlock. He says that Ruth picked up a memory in the astral plane, of Nimrod killing Warlock's dad. Nimrod also took things from his corpse. The dad's terror left a powerful psychic echo. Xavier's still a dick to his son, and Legion also kind of makes Warlock's issues with his dad about him.

Back on Arakko, Kurt and Zsen get to know each other. Nightcrawler briefly alludes to the Chuck Austen run when he was named Pope or whatever, but says that he's not a priest. And speaking of Austen, Zsen straight-up says that they should get it on. Zsen also has blade armor-things on her arms - enhancements from the Vile for being so good at war. Her title of Weaponless refers to how her mutation ("weapon") isn't good for fighting. Her mutation is to "paint with truth."

They head to the police station (except it's not a police station, even though it totally is) and meet up with the rest of the not-police. They've determined that the Skinjacker is a Hellion (but not HELLION) named Switch.

Back in the dreamscape, Legion hugs Blindfold. She worries about attacks, but he tells her to be less paranoid. He backhands his dad again. Blindfold is immediately proven right when Mother Righteous comes in and starts speaking like some Victorian chimney-sweep.

I know this might be difficult to follow, but this issue seems to have more pages than the norm, and there's a lot of jumping around. But the tl;dr is that Nightcrawler and Zsen are looking for a deity of mischief, while the others are investigating Switch.

Notes:

• The Legionaries are cops. Except they don't want to be called cops to avoid controversy with people on Twitter. But they're totally cops.
• The concept of the Spark is still so vague.
• There's a guy with a flaming head and a sleeveless shirt in the background of one shot. Match cameo?
• Spike mentions ORCHIS. So I guess they're common knowledge among Krakoans?
• Synthetic intelligence has a presence to the dreamspace/astral plane/dream world, which surprises Legion
• Mercury and Loa cameo, holding hands. Dust also cameos, hanging out with them
• Spurrier's OCs Xabi, tries to flirt with Spurrier's other OC, Lost. I have no problem with that. It's way better than the time(s) Taylor made an OC and immediately tried to hook them up with a long-established character.
• It's implied Xavier didn't want Juggs to join the Legionaries, but was overruled by the Council. Nightcrawler implied Xavier doesn't believe everybody can be redeemed. Spurrier really hates Xavier, I feel. He's taking the worst traits of Xavier and amplifying them. It's such a stark contrast to other books, especially Sabretooth.