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[Spoilers] Lux: Issue Nr. 5 - Feedback, Discussion and Questions

LordRedStone Nr1·9/11/2019, 7:34:15 PM·12 votes·21,918 views
https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_US/comic/lux/

Intro

The second comic by Riot Games and Marvel comes to a finale! The last issue of LUX is here. There's not much happening, but it's still a deep dive into the lore. This was a fun series to do, but I don't think I'll post about every issue for the following Zed comic. Of course, I'll always be here, theorizing, but I'll leave the big threads for someone else, especially since my exam in linear algebra is coming up. As I said, the final issue revealed some interesting things we talked about the last time here and also here. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so I should put a spoiler warning here:

Spoilers! Last warning!

   

Summary

https://universe-meeps.leagueoflegends.com/v1/assets/images/comic-series/luxcomic/Luxcomic-issue-5-link.jpg

The issue starts with the second-most awaited fight in popular culture (right after Cleganebowl): Garen vs Sylas. After some shittalk, Lux lets Garen know that his sword is dangerous if Sylas touches it, so he grabs a halberd from a guard instead. He knocks Sylas down with it, who in turn takes magic from another downed rebel and blasts Garen with it. Behind him, Jarvan appears and holds him in a stranglehold. As Sylas frees himself, the fight seems won: Sylas and the mages scatter and retreat.

Lux, with her bloodied knife https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/611606335112347668.png?v=1 then follows Sylas and a group of refugees down in the sewers, but ultimately lets them go.

We then cut between the burial of King Jarvan III and the escape of Sylas through the sewers and into the wild. Jarvan IV now promises to persecute all mages with a force never seen before. And true enough, the mageseekers are back with even more power. Cui Bono? Lux and Garen walk through the city and witness these incidents while discussing if it's "fair". Garen also reveals he was tasked by Jarvan with helping the mageseekers. Luxanna then has the idea to help the mageseekers in her position as Crownguard, but uses it as an excuse to take children out of the city. They lead her to a safe house in Dregbourne, where she finds a group of adult mages. Among them is the young girl from the first issue who was stopped by Garen. Lux proves to them she is a mage too and promises them a way out of the city. They leave through the sewers.

In the meantime, Garen interrogates another boy found by the mageseekers. He also enters the sewers.

The young mage gifts her staff to Lux, to remind her that she is a mage and a good person. When they reach the exit, they find it blocked by Sylas. The group turns around - only to find Garen behind them. A confrontation between siblings follows. Garen is clearly in denial, doesn't want to see that Lux is helping mages, but she then forces him to admit and say it. His sister is a mage. And a Demacian.

In the end, Lux blows up the exit and Garen lets them flee. He reports back to Jarvan, even covering Lux. On the last panel, we see how Sylas regroups in the wild while we see Lux narrating to match the ending to the beginning.

   

People & Places

Lux https://universe-meeps.leagueoflegends.com/v1/assets/images/demacia-sketches/lux-demacia-sketch.jpg

All in all, I'm fine with Lux' development over the course of this series. She started to take responsibility and stood up for what she is. As a wise man once said: Let me give you some advice, mage. Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you. Her staff is now there to remind her that she is indeed a mage and a good Demacian.

Luxanna also now arrived at what I think is her canon personality. With the end of this comic, For Demacia and Last Light we now have three instances where she helps others, especially those "afflicted" with magic. This is what she does, helping Demacians and teaching them to control their gift.

I assume she's not going to change a lot until the end of the arc - actually she might have reached the end here. Even if the upcoming Novella carries her a little further, she has a lot of content. Not only is her basic setup finished (Sona and Lucian crying in the distance), but she also appears in two additional stories, a 5-issue comic and an animation, and that's not even counting a possible appearance in the first-ever League Lore novella.

Garen https://universe-meeps.leagueoflegends.com/v1/assets/images/demacia-sketches/garen-demacia-sketch.jpg

This issue revealed the truth we were all looking for: Garen's sun-steel sword is indeed the source of magic, not Garen himself. Since we already saw heavy hints towards Morgana in the last issue, I think it's safe to say this magic came from Kayle. Swain also hints that they carry it into battle.

Garen also shows growth in this issue: He can't repress his memories anymore, he has to accept that his sister is a mage. And he does not only that, but also accepts her as Demacian and then lets them leave. Later, in For Demacia we see that he's still processing all of it, but he knows that Lux is loyal and will do everything for Demacia.

He's not as far along his path as Lux is, but he also took an important step in this comic. Can't wait for that Novella to come around.

The Revolution https://universe-meeps.leagueoflegends.com/v1/assets/images/turmoil_bg.jpg

I think the revolution is far from over. We know that Turmoil takes place around one month after Sylas broke out, so if you haven't read it, do so. One conclusion that we didn't know at the time is that the king in that story is actually Jarvan IV, since his father died here. It also means that Sylas is still active out there and recruiting like in his color story. All in all I think this set up a nice foundation of the mage rebellion in Demacia for the writers to build upon. How King Jarvan the fourth now deals with the rebellion should be an interesting topic. Someone should write a book about that, idk a short one, not really a novel but something like that maybe...

   

Where are the Demacian champions?

That was a topic that came up on the boards recently, and I hope we will find out in the future.

  • Lux, Sylas, Garen, Jarvan IV, and Xin Zhao all appear in the comic or the Aftermath of it. So far, so good.
  • Shyvana, Galio, Kayle, and Morgana are all mentioned indirectly. Only Shyvana is a mystery, since the other three are _remain_ing inactive right now. Some of Jarvans comments indicate she left him? There are some issues that could be explored here, e.g. why Galio hasn't woken up with that many mages running around. Fingers crossed for the novella.
  • Quinn, Vayne, Fiora, Poppy, Sona, and Lucian are the Demacian champions that have nothing to do with the comic. I'll exclude Sona and Lucian since they are both missing parts of their lore, but these still are 4 champions we haven't heard anything of. Especially Quinn could be an effective weapon to the rebellion. Again: Fingers crossed for the novella.

   

Continuity issues

I've seen some confusion with the continuity / timeline. As I tried to clarify that before, I'll try that again with the new information we now have. The most important change from that post is that their ages in the comic are given with 19/25 (Source.) Since Lux uses her wand in For Demacia, it must be after the comic. I've heard people say it must be before, since she is basically an exile now, but I do think she can return to Demacia and continue work with the Illuminators / Radiant Ones. Maybe she'll even found the order of the Radiant Ones? After all, they would do exactly what she is doing in this issue. Also, the scene from the first issue, where we saw the Great City of Demacia all but destroyed - when does that happen? We never saw it again in the comic, but it must be in the third issue, when she carries Garen to the infirmary of the sisters - after Sylas just blasted him with the magic of one of them.

   

Open Questions

If you felt that the ending was not very satisfying, you'd be right! I was missing a climax too and furthermore, it (deliberately) left a lot of open questions.

Is Lux now forever exiled? How are they going to deal with the rebellion that basically just started? What about Quinn, Galio, Shyvana, Fiora, Poppy, everyone else? Who killed the king? What’s the agrarian economic policies of the feudal economy? Why haven't we heard anything about the Illuminators? What would Taric think about his own country? How did that advice from the envoy of the Arbormark turn out?

Keep in mind that this is not the end of Demacian content, we should see a Novella soon (tm). In that regard, the comic did exactly what it was supposed to do: It pulled me even deeper into the lore (if that's even possible), give me more!

Thanks again for sticking with me through this series! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Next up is Zed as well as the Novella! ######Did I tell you there is a Novella about Demacia coming?

44 Comments

RiotWAAARGHbobo9/11/2019, 7:49:34 PM20 votes

This was a fun series to do, but I don't think I'll post about every issue for the following Zed comic.

Zed "Do not deny me."

Jeddy0179/11/2019, 11:06:26 PM7 votes

I love the sibling hug. Despite everything, Garen still cares for his sister & supports her. It was a sweet moment.

Galiö9/11/2019, 8:06:22 PM5 votes

To keep it short

J4: did not like what they did with his character, at all.

Lux: I'm conflicted about her because although she went through a good amount of changes, I still feel as if she did not change much.. a life changing moment of accepting that she is a mage felt like it was not much of an accomplishment (how I interpreted the moment)

Garen: I felt this comic did well in making Garen not as awful of a person with Demacias newer anti mage dynamic... but still seems as if he lets injustices and unfairness slide and is awful just by being a bystandard.

Sylas: I feel he had no development since there wasnt much depth added to him after establishing 'I'm downtrodden and will force people to respect me, because they were meanies and now I can't help but be a meanie for myself and my people by extension'.

I am a big Demacia fanboy and I am a little disappointed in the issues. I still enjoyed it overall as they were released but I felt they were a bit shallow for re-read value and the art is not THAT impressive for Marvels work and it was only a few issues with large breaks in between... so there should have been a large period of time for development and illustration.

Sorry that this isnt the most positive review but I am hoping for more 'oomf' in the comics for the future.

BoringLittleF9/12/2019, 10:22:10 AM4 votes

So, how exactly is Lux going to help mages out there?

Lead them? She has no survival or organizational skills, so she would be useless as a leader and her speeches sound pathetic to someone who really has their and their loved ones' necks on the line.

Teach them magic? They were obviously more or less familiar with their gift since they formed a community long before shit hit the fan, so her freshly learned lessons would probably be nothing they don't know - and they may be even better at hiding since they didn't have a rich family to cover their ass.

Motivate people not to go with Sylas? What does she have to offer instead? Be nice and follow the rainbow? She doesn't have compelling arguments against joining Sylas aside from "He's bad because he used me to avoid death sentence :(".

Now, Sylas has been handled really poorly as well. He wasn't shown as a caring or charismatic leader and 80% of his lines are just 50 shades of "swine". Even the concept of him being a bad leader was undercooked - it was literally one frame suggesting he surrounded himself with mages to use them as his batteries, but it went nowhere and even little miss Perfect Lux didn't bother to mention it.

Also, that entire scene with trying to make JarvanIV eat a rat was really cheap and the authors shouldn't have kept mentioning it. Seriously, Sylas, you have enough bulk in you to throw a fully armored man over your shoulder and you're so thick crossbow bolts get stuck in you. Those were some protein-rich rats.

He could have put Jarvan in super heavy chains and made him walk through the entire city to show how the tables have turned. It wouldn't be as cringy.

Jaspers9/12/2019, 10:29:09 AM3 votes

Story was good, art by Billy Tan as good as ever.

Conclusion was lackluster however. We didn't get a answer to who killed J3. J4's character seems less honourable considering his previous character and company he keeps, Garen knowing is fine but seem to conflict with other stories. Lux's story didn't actually seem to end, she just kinda went away and that was it.

The final scenes of a book about Lux was on Sylas. How did that happen? I don't care about what Sylas is doing, he's a murdering murderer. Lux is the heroine, I want to know what she is doing/going.

BaWsMaNn9/11/2019, 11:13:58 PM2 votes

Continuity issues I've seen some confusion with the continuity / timeline. As I tried to clarify that before, I'll try that again with the new information we now have. The most important change from that post is that their ages in the comic are given with 19/25 (Source Since Lux uses her wand in For Demacia, it must be after the comic. I've heard people say it must be before, since she is basically an exile now, but I do think she can return to Demacia and continue work with the Illuminators / Radiant Ones. Maybe she'll even found the order of the Radiant Ones? After all, they would do exactly what she is doing in this issue. Also, the scene from the first issue, where we saw the Great City of Demacia all but destroyed - when does that happen? We never saw it again in the comic, but it must be in the third issue, when she carries Garen to the infirmary of the sisters - after Sylas just blasted him with the magic of one of them.

Personally I think it is impossible that For Demacia occurs after the comic's events as it is mentioned Jarvan III is alive and it is meant to occur just after Jarvan and Shyvana return to Demacia after the events of their backstories if the words of the For Demacia story itself are to be believed. Also, if I recall correctly, it is mentioned that they are younger in the For Demacia story than the comic. What are your thoughts on this?

IlyaK19869/12/2019, 1:43:29 PM2 votes

Really didn't like this comic compared to warmother. Lux was just a really boring protagonist for most of the series, and Sylas being the ginormous ham he was being had to carry the entire comic until the ending. Furthermore, considering just how many Demacian/Demacian-related champs there are that went unused (Poppy, Quinn, Fiora, Morgana, Kayle, Lucian, Vayne, Shyvana, Sona), it felt like such a huge letdown of wasted potential. Of all stories that could have been told about Demacia, it felt like we got the blandest one possible, starring the blandest characters that had to be carried by Sylas's sheer force of personality.

And I voted squarely for the Zed comic being better, because ninjas could be very badass if done well, especially considering it may take place during the Noxian invasion, so there can be god knows which stories told.

raquiavelli9/11/2019, 11:35:45 PM2 votes

I'm sad it's over!

Also I'm a little sad that the "spy" part of Lux's life isn't a thing anymore, it's one of the things that first attracted me to her character (quoting REALLY loosely here, but "she was allowed to use her magic for Demacia... but far outside it's borders;" what a terrible thing - your home country and fam hates you and banishes you, but you still help them! Also, spies are cool. Womp womp that's it's all gone now.) I want to see what's next for her, and am very worried about how many people outside of Garen and Tiana KNOW she is a mage. The last issue, where the mageseekers or doctors were asking her about the magic that knocked out Garen, were their surprised faces because she said it was her, or because someone busted through the door? (How do we read comics?) And what is this novella I'm seeing teased here?!?!?!?!?!! I want.

Garen....I'll wait for the next development. This comic certainly gives him more depth than a FOR DEMACIAAAAAAA! quarterback/jock type, but i'm not sure what's next. At least we know for sure it's his sword that's magic, and that he's not in complete denial about Lux being a mage. He wasn't that interesting to me before this comic, but now he's just a little more.

J4, meh. I'm not surprised that he's acting like a complete ass after his lover leaves (what happened to Shyvana?), his betrothed that he's then settling for skips out on him to hang with a criminal, said criminal escapes because of her ( the ex-betrothed), and then in the ensuing rebellion his father is killed. I don't like it, but i'm not surprised - that's a lot of "bad" to deal with in quick succession. Demacia is the "no magic" land after all, and these events would reinforce that for the un-magiced and Demacian zealots alike. I thought that even the way he was drawn looked darker (but again, how does one read comics?) What is his age here? He seems immature, and not ready to rule. I'm not sure "he's doing the best he can," can't he take like, I dunno, a couple minutes and think things over? He can forgive Zhao (not sure how to link to Aftermath here), does he need to fight the entire country to figure things out? The only thing he was taught about ruling was warfare and getting married and having babies? Come on dude!!!!!!!!

Sylas, for me, became a whole lot more unlikable during the course of this comic. I was kind of excited to see how the rebellion would play out when he was first released (hi Demacian Bad Boy!) but seeing how it started and how unlikable he is, just, no. I didn't read him as a villain at his release, started to during The Recruit, and that's cemented now. He's not a good dude.

Speaking of dudes, WHERE GALIO AT?! He likes Lux, but I've often wondered how he deals with being a magic-being in the land of no magic. How much knowledge of self and surroundings does he have? He still wants to protect Demacians, but I don't think they would do the same if they knew how he actually "worked." All the sads.

Not sure how to end this, but a big question for me is who killed J3. It's blamed on Sylas, but who did it really? Someone who has it out for mages possibly?? Or just someone rooting for unrest in Demacia? The world may never know.

The Iceborn9/12/2019, 8:53:54 PM1 votes

Good Job on the Thread!

Baron Von Bangin9/13/2019, 5:07:59 PM1 votes

I think the most frustrating thing about the comics, for me, was that Shyvana had ZERO screen time. She was released right when Rito decided to just stop doing extended lore altogether. Now here we are, almost 10 years later with a PRIME opportunity to give her a cameo. But nope, we got a throw away line of dialogue about her. Maybe. Until it's retconned again.

I'd really love to get back into the lore of this game but it's always SO unstable that we can barely get any tidbits about champions we've loved for almost a decade. And I guarantee you that when the Shyvana VGU comes out in 3 years it'll completely undo any lore we've latched about her at all. Like, I still hate she's not a half-dragon anymore, but a horrible mutated magical abomination a mage morphed a dragon into. Yuck.

It's honestly hard to care about any of this lore at this point. We had everything cancelled, all plot points unhooked (GOLLY, I WONDER WHAT HAPPENED TO KAT'S DAD. JUST 10 MORE YEARS TIL WE FIND OUT, BOYS!), and then get fed a half story to make up for it. Sweet.

I was thoroughly underwhelmed.

DrawDiaGrams9/28/2019, 5:21:58 PM1 votes

I really liked the Ashe Comic but I don't like the way the characters look in Lux, personal preference thing.

darkdill9/12/2019, 6:52:34 AM1 votes

I like how this ended, with Lux officially ditching Demacia to help out mage refugees. Now we need a comic that shows how she becomes an Elementalist. [slayer-jinx-wink]

Berry The Shovel1/9/2020, 1:20:58 PM1 votes

Do you guys think that Garen will join our boy Sylas? I mean unlike Jarvan he doesn't see mages as these "monsters" so they might come to terms

Hunkmenlordy9/12/2019, 11:16:51 AM1 votes

Why this series has anything to do with Taric

FSRER9/12/2019, 11:43:11 AM1 votes

Zed will be better, only if Jhin is involved (let's get real here, eveyrything that has Jhin in it, is amazing).

Now, for this issue I have only one question. Who killed Jarvan the third? Personally, i think the black rose is involved because in history, they never missed a chance to create chaos that would benefit themselves and their payers (which means Noxus in this case). As for the champions that weren't involved, we could come up with excuses for them. Vayne is hunting for monsters, Quinn is a scout that probably is in the borders, Poppy is searching for the Hero and Fiora apparently is drinking her tea while Sylas is wreaking havoc outside. Now, I thought about Galio myself and how useful he actually is for Demacia. He did not wake up when an entity consumed all the magic that has been absorbed by Demacia's walls and thousands of mages fighting so, is when will he wake up? Do we have to wait for Morgana and Kayle to fight in Demacia again for him to wake up? Or he will wake up in the future (and will fight for Demacia and thus we saw it destroyed in the first issue)? And now that I think of it, what will Sylas do now? And what will be the future relationship of Demacia with the mages guild (outside demacia, can't remember their name) will they cooperate and so Sylas only hope would be to flee either to noxus or somewhere further away to be saved? Or will Demacia turn hostile against that guild and they will have to fight Sylas and them?