Legion of X #7 pg 7 (Diaz art, Spurrier story) - Legion, Warlock, Cypher and Blindfold investigate Astral Blooms

From the storyline of THE ABYSS GAZES ALSO comes this page from Legion of X #7.

I was able to get a bunch of these pencil pages of Netho Diaz’s art fairly cheap for Simon Spurrier’s Legion of X storyline issues #7 - 10. Kind of wish I kept a better watch when they were coming out as I would have grabbed them all, as the art and story for this particular set of books was jam packed and really quite beautiful. Netho Diaz seems to now be splitting duties on the current (as of 2024) main X-men title with Ryan Stegman as main artist, so I am really glad I jumped on early with Netho Diaz’s work and look forward to seeing what he continues to create in the X world.

This particular page starts one of the many on-going storylines that were in play during the Legion of X series (2022 - 2023, maxi series of 10 issues). The story involved some of my favorite characters, like Blindfold, Legion, Cypher, Warlock and the Phalanx. In this page, it is revealed that the Astral Blooms they are finding on the mutants of Krakoa, are coming from this Astral Plane (Legion’s Altar - mindscape) and are actually the ashes of Warlock’s father Magnus, which are keeping an eye on this dimension and starting to form a Technarchy, which may ultimately build into a spire to attract the Phalanx to absorb this data and life, even if it’s in the idea space like Legion’s mind the Altar. The storyline adds to the highlight of father and son (or parental) relationships in the world of X, rarely is it ever positive. We continue to explore David (Legion) and Xavier, Warlock and Magnus (Phalanx), Nightcrawler and his adopted mother, Margali Szardos and Mother Righteous’s relationships.

The themes are great and Diaz’s artistic expression captures this mindscape and the character’s emotions so well. His design work for Legion’s Altar is so great like living in an M.C. Escher painting (seen in many of the surrounding pages and throughout the series, not as much here). I really enjoyed seeing Warlock’s stripped down form, as described by Blindfold in an earlier page “unburdened by technology . . . yes . . . here we see what lies behind the froth and quicksilver”. And the color work ultimately done on the final page is great, we get Blindfold only in blue as she only exists as a spirit in the Altar and stays away from being reborn on Krakoa, and Warlock in gold; reading way into it, but a nice reference to the two X-Men teams of the 90’s. Glad to add more Diaz work to my X collection featuring some great characters in a series that was really well done.