In Marvel Comics, Legion is the incredibly powerful, but often neglected, mutant son
of Professor Charles Xavier, who basically has as many super-powers that writers want
to stick inside his nutty little brain.
Over the years, he's helped save the world, but also nearly destroyed it a few times too.
Now that the character has his own surreal live-action series, it's time to dig deep
into the comic pages and explore the the untold truth of Legion.
Off the team
Superhero teams are filled with weirdos with superpowers looking for redemption, and they
don't get weirder than Marvel's various X-teams.
One look and you'll see that they're stocked with animal-themed berserkers with metal bones,
a guy named Cyclops who has two eyes, and an occasional creep with way, way too much
skin — whose superhero name is also Skin — which is somehow a useful power.
Legion has occasionally hung around with the X-Men, and was almost a regular member of
X-Factor as well.
But that plan fizzled out when writer Peter David put his foot down.
Even in a world where readers are meant to accept superpowered characters running around
in skin-tight outfits, David felt nobody would be able to accept that a character too unstable
to leave a mutant sanctuary island could serve as a superhero.
Of course, mental stability isn't exactly a trademark of most superheroes…
"I'm Batman!"
...but Legion was just too much to handle in the early '90s.
Of course, unstable superheroes would become a trademark of later Marvel comics.
But with every known and unknown superhero power lurking in his brain, why would Legion
need a team anyhow?
That's like saying Justin Timberlake really needed N'SYNC.
It's madness.
Magneto stole his inheritance
Ask any mad supervillain and they'll tell you that asteroid bases don't come cheap.
If you want to go big, you have to threaten world governments, rob a whole lot of banks…
or just steal a pile of gold from a traumatized Holocaust survivor, like in Uncanny X-Men
#161.
The reason that arch-frenemies Professor X and Magneto met in the first place is a lady
named Gabrielle Haller, who shows up when Magneto is volunteering at an Israeli hospital.
Because the woman is abnormally traumatized, they call in noted "miracle worker" Charles
Xavier to help her out.
Xavier discovers her terrible past at the hands of Nazis, who only kept her alive because
she knew the location of a major stash of gold.
Never ones to miss an opportunity, Baron Strucker and HYDRA attack, intent on finding the gold,
and Xavier and Magneto have their first real team-up while trying to rescue Gabrielle.
Like anyone on a long road trip, Magneto and the Professor realize that their beliefs don't
really mesh, so Magneto ends up liberating Haller's stash of gold.
Xavier, meanwhile, ends up getting the girl… which ultimately leads to Legion's birth.
Destroy all humans
The Marvel Universe is full of people who can read your thoughts, control your thoughts,
and just generally mess with your thoughts on a hundred levels.
The X-Men alone boast Professor X, Emma Frost, Jean Grey, and Psylocke.
This metric-ton of mind-powered mutants came into play when the villain Shadow King took
control of Legion, and revealed that he was a threat to the entire world.
Among his other weird abilities, the Shadow King is able to feed off of negative energy.
So, in Uncanny X-Men #278, he sets plans in motion to hijack Legion's body and, along
with the captured mutant Polaris — who also happens to be Magneto's daughter — manages
to increase fear and hatred across the entire globe.
Shadow King's manipulations revealed some particularly troubling stuff about Legion's
power.
Basically, he's always just a single thought away from ending life as we know it, and he's
possibly the most powerful Omega-level mutant, somewhere in the range of Mister Fantastic's
nerdy kid Franklin, and Billy Corgan.
The Age of Apocalypse
You know that whole thing about stepping on a butterfly in the past and changing the future
in terrible and unexpected ways?
"Oh, oh I wish, I wish I hadn't killed that fish."
Apparently, Legion doesn't.
During one of his more lucid periods, Legion realized that he was suffering from some pretty
heavy abandonment issues.
Rather than join a support group for people who've been abandoned by their psychic dads,
Legion decided that if Magneto hadn't always been fighting his pop, then he would have
made more time for Legion.
His solution was simple: kill Magneto.
In the pages of X-Men #41, Legion hopped into the past and tried to kill Magneto.
But Xavier ended up sacrificing himself to save Magneto instead.
Without the powerful Professor X creating the X-Men to constantly thwart the evil mutant
Apocalypse, there was no one to stop the villain from taking over America and ushering in the
creatively-named "Age of Apocalypse."
As for Legion, he became a living version of the grandfather paradox, as he could now
no longer be born because of his time-traveling shenanigans.
Or until another writer wanted to use him again.
God killer
So, Legion can drive every human on Earth insane, and time travel to usher in the literal
apocalypse, but topping the list of dangerous things that Legion can do with his powers
is probably his ability to kill gods.
In New Mutants #21, the mystical mutant Magik needs to defeat the Elder Gods who tormented
her while she was stuck in Limbo, who have just come through a portal and are threatening
to destroy Earth.
Apparently, Magik learned a lot about devil's bargains while she was trapped with demons,
so she summons Legion, specifically so he can destroy gods… which he does with a single
thought.
In her words, part of Legion is "the god-mutant," which is a pretty intense thing to put on
a business card.
While it's frightening to think of Legion as the face of any kind of divinity, his power
to destroy both gods and men is unquestionable.
He's been erased
It's an open secret that death has lost any real meaning in comic books, and it's always
just a matter of time and action figure sales until writers and editors find some way to
bring dead heroes back to life.
Like most super-people, Legion has died before — multiple times, in fact.
But what makes him different from other characters is that he's actually been erased from existence.
The first time happened during the Age of Apocalypse storyline, which we've already
discussed.
The next time Legion peaced out, it was by choice.
In X-Men Legacy #24, he looks at the damage he's caused, and — worrying that he'd do
still more in the future — decides to erase all traces of himself.
Despite his ultimate power, remnants of Legion remained behind for whatever writer wants
to tangle with them next.
He's biblical
One of the more provocative aspects of Legion as a character is that his name is intentionally
derived from the Bible.
Specifically, a passage about a man possessed by demons who runs into Jesus, who asks the
possessed man his name.
His response was quoted, appropriately enough, by a demon-dude named Blackheart in Marvel's
first Ghost Rider movie:
The bible's "Legion" is chock full of demons, too strong to be held by chains, and kept
in isolation, so Marvel's version isn't too far off.
The biblical Legion has a happy ending when Jesus is able to exorcise the demons out of
his body and into a herd of 2,000 pigs, who quickly drown themselves, which PETA would
probably have some huge problem with.
Conversely, it seems that the comic book version of Legion can never be fully cleansed of his
personalities, and must suffer with his demons every day.
It's possible that his biblical name points to an eventual redemption, but until then,
the character will remain trapped in his fascinating personal hell.
Bad for Legion — great for fans of surreal comic book television.
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