Note: This review is originally from 2004 when DC comics released I Am Legion V1. I’m rerunning it this week since Devil’s Due is releasing their version of this book this week. It’s been edited slightly from it’s original published form.
There’s this old VHS tape out there of some comic artists talking about their art. It included Art Spiegelman, Will Eisner and Frank Miller among many artists. One of the things that really stands out in my memories is Bernie Wrightson talking about horror and what is really scary. He said horror wasn’t a madman with an ax or all blood and guts. To him, horror was the man dressed up in a nice suit except for one little bit of blood on the tie. When your mind ran wild thinking about the blood and where it came from, that’s horror.
Horror in I AM LEGION is Ana, the little girl on the cover of the book. She’s the German’s unstoppable weapon. And boy, is she creepy though out the book. The girl, while in the care still of her parents, seems to silently revel in her power. What is that, you ask? She is legion. She can possess any body and control it as her own. The Nazis experiment with Jewish prisoners and see how many she can control. If they can control her, the can possess a totally expendable army that has only one mind and will fight until it’s dead.
How much can or do the Nazis control her? While she seems to be playing with them, she also has bodies in London that the Germans seem to know nothing about. A high up detective and Colonel in the army are her puppets as well but they seem apart from what the Germans are trying to achieve. While the Nazis are trying to control her, we’re left with the feeling that these are all just playthings for her. Axis and Allies don’t mean anything but, instead, she looks at all of humanity as possible puppets.
While Ana toys with humanity, we meet an number of men who have to figure out her place in the world. On both sides of the war, these men are trapped in a war that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Stanley Pilgrim is the most interesting of them, a retired detective brought back to solve a murder that doesn’t make sense. Fabien Nury only gives us hints at Pilgrim’s background and what happened in his past. That’s the great thing about this book. Nury doesn’t spell everything out. He lets the readers discover things as they read the book and we’re left to draw some of our own conclusions about the characters. Whether we’re right or wrong is left for another time.
The biggest disappointment of this book is the format. Humanoids used to publish these large album graphic novels from overseas. These things were over twice the size of American comic books that really showed off the work of some great artists. I loved finding shops that stocked Humanoids books even though I never knew where to start with them. Cassaday’s artwork would have benefited from the larger format that Humanoids used to publish but it’s missing and we see his work on the same size scale of PLANETARY or ASTONISHING X-MEN.
I AM LEGION is the beginning of a fantastic horror story that is layered with the many characters. While there’s little interaction among the various police and military groups among this book, the excitement is seeing how they’ll eventually interact and who will fight for and against Ana.
Written by: Fabien Nury
Drawn by: John Cassaday
Colored by: Laura Martin