X-Men Legacy: Sins of the Father by Carey, Eaton and Briones

Since Professor Xavier was shot in the head by a villain, his life was saved, but in the process, he lost many of his memories. In an effort to seek out his lost memories, he returned to where he was born, where his father died, and found out that what he thought were his memories were actually implanted in him. But by whom?

And the answer is: longtime foe of the X-Men Mr. Sinister may have had much to do with the shaping of Charles Xavier's mind and personality- much more than he ever thought. Mr. Sinister was recently killed by the X-Men, but now he's revealed a longterm plot to come back from the dead, and it's up to Professor X, along with Gambit and Sebastien Shaw, to ensure that Sinister stays dead. But there's a woman who wants to host Sinister in her body for her own reasons, and she's a third factor in the equation.

After dealing with Sinister's mind, Charles Xavier returns to the Mansion where he once gathered the X-Men, but it is in ruins- the X-Men have relocated across the US to California. He goes there to talk to Cyclops, whose memories and opinion of his one-time mentor and teacher are no longer very good, and runs afoul of the White Queen, Emma Frost, now Scott's lover and co-head of the School. She forces Charles to deal with the bad decisions he's made, the ones where he manipulated people for what he saw as their own good, and completely disabuses him of the notion that he was any better than she ever was.

She also restores his connection to the emotional content of his memories, and forces Xavier to deal with what she sees as his whining. But can Xavier ever accept what he's done as wrong? And how will he feel about Emma and Cyclops running the school?

The book ends with two more, shorter stories, one in which the early X-Men's connection with the government is explored via Professor X's conversation with a former government colleague, and another where the Classic New Mutants fight off a robot built by the Mad Thinker at an ice-skating rink. There is one more story, a parody in which both Professor X and Magneto approach Stan Lee asking for a vacation from their ongoing storylines.

This is a harsh book, but since I read it *after* I read Illuminati, I had a hard time *not* cheering the harsh slaparound that Professor X got from the White Queen, because now I felt he deserved it for what he'd done and the attitudes he's been showing lately in the comic. Perhaps he didn't do it as much in the earlier comics (although this story makes that seem wrong), or it was a more innocent time, and comics readers didn't think through the consequnces of a character using their powers that way. Or they were inculcated to thinking they could trust someone with that kind of power as long as he wasn't doing it for shits and giggles.

But now, readers are no longer that kind of innocent, and its hard to view Professor X's past that kindly. No, he wasn't mucking around with people's minds for fun, but the fact that he would do it at all save in the direst of circumstances really takes you aback, and has caused me to question my views of the character. And the other characters in that universe seem to have woken to that view as well, which certainly makes me feel better about them. It sure makes it easier to understand where all the hatred of Mutants comes from in the Marvel Universe: If someone can rearrange your mental landscape any time he feels like it, how easy is it to trust them?

I liked this book, I like the fact that Marvel is taking a harder look at their characters and their past actions. It's not all that easy a book to read, but the reactions of the present day heroes to the actions of others in the past is spot-on and appropriate. Recommended.