Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast: Volume 1 (2018)

Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast: Volume 1 (2018)

Authors: Llexi Leon (story) / Ian Edginton (script) | Artist: Kevin J West | Page Count: 128

'Eddie is an embodiment of free will, a chaotic spirit, the unseen catalyst during crucial turning points in history. The spark that lights the flame.'

LotB's story is based on a 'free to play' mobile phone game that I've not played. The structure of the first collected volume feels very much like a series of game levels stitched together, with little care put into smoothing over the level changes. It also lacks a decent introduction, as if we're missing a crucial cut-scene.

In the story, Eddie is freed from bondage by a floating lady in a flowing dress, the Clairvoyant, a self-proclaimed 'sightless seer in the realm of the senses'. It seems that sometime before that, however, Eddie's soul was ripped from his body by The Beast, looking like he did on Iron Maiden's classic Number of the Beast (1982) album.

The mascot's stolen soul somehow became a glowing red crystalline substance that was shattered into shards and distributed to a group of nefarious individuals. Eddie's quest, therefore, is to retrieve his lost soul by defeating the holders of the fragments.

It wouldn’t take very much effort to change the whole thing into a forgettable X-Men story, with Jean Gray and Wolverine in place of the Clairvoyant and Eddie, time-hopping to retrieve shards of some gubbins that exists solely as an excuse to fight villains from different eras, which is pretty much all that Eddie does. The lack of a coherent narrative flow was bad enough, but it feeling like yet another mediocre Marvel title was my biggest problem with the book, overall.

The enemies and locations featured in the book are inspired by Iron Maiden record covers. As a teenager who was a huge fan of the band's music and aesthetic, and who used to sketch pictures of Eddie on school jotters (and occasionally during history class), the references to song titles and lyrics, and seeing the worlds of album covers brought to colourful comic book life, is kind of entertaining, specifically Derek Riggs' works. I've not followed the band's progress much in recent years, but besides the aforementioned Number of the Beast album, Powerslave (1984) was represented, as was Brave New World (2000) and A Matter of Life and Death (2006).

In-between beating seven shades of shit out of everyone he encounters, Eddie grunts unintelligibly. His mutterings are translated by the Clairvoyant; at times it reminded me of an even earlier part of my childhood, watching episodes of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo; "What's that Skippy? Sonny's in danger?!", etc.

I suppose it's a necessary evil, given that Eddie hasn't ever been known to speak (that I'm aware of, anyhow), but it's still a major problem that makes the book seem even more ridiculous.

On a side note, it's not without precedent to give a traditionally silent character a voice in a comic book. Akira Himekawa's version of Link in the Legend of Zelda mangas spoke actual words. It would be a different matter if it was to be audible, like in the LoZ cartoon, but on the page, and in service to the story, I feel it's an entirely forgivable act. In Eddie's case his ability to speak could've been as a result of taking a soul-shard back from an antagonist who could speak, or a gift from the Clairvoyant, or something equally as simple.

Anyhow, I've prattled on enough, I'm beginning to bore even myself. The TL;DR of LotB: Vol 01 would be: hackneyed Marvel-esque storytelling, but with some great artwork and lettering!

- The dialogue is frequently bad. -