Legion (Marvel Comics)

Legion
Cover to X-Men #40. Art by Andy Kubert. Legion, Art by Andy Kubert
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	New Mutants #25
Created by	Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz
In-story information
Alter ego	David Charles Haller
Abilities	Psychokinesis, Pyrokinesis, Telepathy, ability to pull psyches, astral forms, into his own mind.

Legion (David Charles Haller) was a Marvel Comics character, the estranged son of the X-Men’s Professor X. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Bill Sienkiewicz, he first appeared in The New Mutants #25 (August 1985).

David was the son of Charles Xavier and Israeli Holocaust survivor Gabrielle Haller. He suffered from multiple personality disorder, each of personas controlling one of his many mutant powers.

Legion eventually utilized his powers to time travel to the days when his father shared a friendship with the supervillain Magneto. He intended to murder Magneto, but accidentally killed Xavier, ushering the "Age of Apocalypse" timeline. Legion died returning the Marvel Universe to its normal continuity.

Character history

David Haller is the son of Charles Xavier and Gabrielle Haller, who was one of his patients in an Israeli mental facility while Xavier was secretly using his psychic powers to ease the pain of Holocaust survivors.

David was the sole survivor of a terrorist attack when he was very young and he unconsciously used his vast powers to pull the minds of the terrorists into his own. That incident fractured his psyche and he was eventually remanded to the care of Moira MacTaggert at the Muir Island mutant research facility.

During his time at Muir Island, David was possessed by the Shadow King who used his powers to psychically increase the amount of hatred in the world and fed off the malignant energy. The X-Men and X-Factor teams worked together to fight the influence of the Shadow King and succeeded. During this incident, the trauma of battling the Shadow King broke Xavier's legs confining him again to his wheelchair and leaving David in a coma.

A couple of years later, David awoke from his coma with his fractured mind healed and with a new goal in mind: he would help his father realize his dream of human-mutant coexistence by destroying Magneto, the greatest opposer of the dream. He went to Israel and created a black dome in the desert. Inside the dome, he created a portal to take him 20 years into the past where Xavier and Magneto were still orderlies at the mental hospital.

Several X-Men followed him, but were unable to prevent David from attacking Magneto with a psychic knife. David's attack was noticed by Xavier, who stepped into the path of the attack and died.

The current reality ceased to exist, replaced by a time in which Apocalypse awakened early, roused by the mutant activity and proceeded to conquer the world creating the alternate timeline known as the Age of Apocalypse.

With the help of the Age of Apocalypse's X-Men, the time traveler Bishop managed to return to that point in time and take the shot intended for Magneto that Xavier would have taken. He then channelled that psychic energy back into David, showing him the horrors that he would have caused. The shock of this forced psychic bond killed both Legion and the alternate timeline version of Bishop.

Powers and abilities

Legion was an immensely powerful telekinetic, telepath and pyrokinetic. He was not without his weaknesses however, as he suffered from autism and multiple personalities. The manifestation of Legion's individual powers were generally associated with his different personalities. The Jack Wayne personality used telekinesis, Cyndi was a pyrokinetic, and Jemail Karami was a telepath. But before his death Legion demonstrated the abilities of time-travel, shape-shifting, and creation of a psychic knife; These powers are all psionic in nature so it makes sense that Legion can use them.

X-Men: Evolution

In the animated series X-Men: Evolution, Legion's backstory remains mostly the same, though David Haller is a fairly normal boy with no visible mutant powers, who has been kidnapped by a Scottish goth-punk type named Lucas. In reality, Lucas is David. In the series, David's body can somehow change (it's never explained) to match whatever personality is dominant, with personality and body shifts sometimes happening at random. Lucas lured Professor Xavier to Scotland and tricked him into locking David's other personalities away, leaving Lucas free to be himself. It's never explained what Lucas's goals are after this. The show was cancelled before his storyline could be further explored.

Ultimate Marvel

The Ultimate Marvel incarnation of Proteus appears to be an amalgamation of Legion and Proteus. While Ultimate Proteus possess the Classic Proteus' powers and has the same mother, Moira MacTaggert, he's also named David and his father is Charles Xavier. He also has his father's last name. Later in a cameo a character resembling Legion was one of four young mutants killed by Mister Sinister.

Trivia

Legion may be named after a Biblical demon of the same name. This is probable, due to the fact that Legion was supposed to be several demons inhabiting one human body, relating to the Marvel character's multiple personalities. His name appears to come from Mark 5:9, the demon quoting, "I am Legion, for we are many."

External links

• The Muir Island Saga crossover at UncannyXmen.Net
• The Legion Quest crossover at UncannyXmen.Net