.gif)
Legion (Marvel Comics)
Encyclopedia
Legion is a Marvel Comics
character
, created by writer Chris Claremont
and artist Bill Sienkiewicz
.
David is the mutant
son of Charles Xavier
and Israel
i Holocaust
survivor Gabrielle Haller
. He has severe mental illness, including a form of dissociative identity disorder
(more commonly known as multiple personality disorder), with each of his personas controlling one of his many superpowers.
His stories typically revolve around bitterness towards his father, and in Legion Quest, a misplaced attempt to redeem himself in his father's eyes.
met Gabrielle Haller
while working in an Israel
i mental facility where she was one of his patients. Xavier was secretly using his psychic powers to ease the pain of Holocaust survivors institutionalized there. The two had an affair that resulted in the birth of a son David, in Haifa
. However, Xavier is unaware of this, and Gabrielle never told him.
, and remained in the care of Moira MacTaggert
at the Muir Island
mutant research facility. The trauma caused David's personality to splinter, with each of the personalities controlling a different aspect of his psionic power.
power, and Cyndi, a temperamental, rebellious girl who controls David's pyrokinetic
power. Wayne intended to destroy Karami's consciousness to preserve his own independent existence within David's mind. Neither personality succeeds, and Karami, Wayne, and Cyndi continue as David's dominant personalities.
During his time at Muir Island, David emerged from his catatonia. Soon after, David was possessed by the Shadow King
, who used his powers to psychically increase the amount of hatred in the world and feed on the malignant energy. During this time, the Shadow King, as David, killed the mutant Destiny
. The X-Men
and X-Factor
fought the Shadow King, and as a result, David was left in a coma.
tracked down David years later to get revenge for "his" murder of Destiny, he awakened with his fractured mind healed. David had a new goal, to help his father realize his dream of human-mutant coexistence by killing Magneto
, Xavier's greatest opponent, before he has a chance to amass power. He traveled twenty years into the past, when Xavier and Magneto were orderlies at the mental hospital. In the process, he loses his memory. Magneto then accidentally triggers his memory, causing David to go on a rampage, attacking Magneto and revealing the existence of mutants to the public decades too early. Several X-Men who were pulled back in time with him were unable to prevent him from attacking Magneto. Xavier, however, leaped into the path of the psi-knife (the focused totality of Legion's psionic powers) being killed in Magneto's place, causing the formation of the Age of Apocalypse
timeline.
Due to being trapped in the past by David's actions, Bishop
enlisted the aid of the new reality's X-Men to travel back in time to confront Legion again. Bishop seized Legion's psi-blade and drove it into his own chest, allowing Legion to see the future that he caused. In his last moments, David apologized for what he did. David's mother, Gabrielle Haller, described having a "maternal loss" afterward implying David had never been conceived.
While David was considered deceased, some of his alternate personalities remained trapped between life and death, manifesting as spirits. When the spirits started terrorizing Israel, Excalibur
was called to stop them. After learning that the spirits were refusing death, Meggan
used her empathy to calm their rage, convincing them to go "towards the light."
After escaping his cell, David flies off to kill Dani Moonstar. One of Legion's split personalities revealed that when Bishop used Legion's psychic blade, David was transported to the Age of Apocalypse timeline where he was caught and made a slave, but it didn't reveal how Legion managed to return to the present timeline. When Magik is absorbed into his mind as well, she begins killing off some of the more hostile personalities, including Jack Wayne, to get to Karma and Marci. Eventually Marci leads the girls to David, who has been locked away by the other personalities. They then manage to get a hold of the doll that controls his body; Karma and Magik return to their bodies, and David is taken into the care of the X-Men.
Following the aftermath of Utopia, the X-Club, along with Rogue and Danger are repairing David's mind by isolating the other personalities from each other, much to the delight of David. It is revealed by Karma, during a session with Kavita Rao
that Marci was a little girl from Westcliffe who helped David by keeping him company when he came back from the Age of Apocalypse, but one of the other personalities within Legion ended up murdering her, so Marci became permanently trapped within his mind. Before Karma
and Magik
left his mind, Karma killed the entity who murdered Marci using Magik's soulsword. Both lie to Kavita, saying Magik killed him. With nowhere to return to, and as the only independent and non-violent personality inside him, Marci is allowed to keep David company as a source of comfort and stability while the other personality fragments are separated and isolated from them.
, along with Sebastian Shaw
, Empath
, and Donald Pierce
.
's Nimrod Sentinels. With the Nimrod army relentlessly appearing from a portal hellbent on destroying the mutants on Utopia, Charles Xavier
is tasked with mobilizing his son to aid in their battle against the sentinels. This is because of the X-Men's need to employ Legion's unique powers, despite his apparent instability due to his multiple personality disorder. Legion is airdropped into battle, employing two of his many personalities, each containing a different power.
attempted to treat Legion's MPD, it resulted in the creation of a new personality that attempted to 'protect' Legion from this 'assault' on his mind, the new personality assuming the appearance of the deceased Moira McTaggert and using its ability to warp reality to create a new world where Legion could be the hero that he always wanted to be. Unfortunately, this 'heroic' status consisted of Legion being one of the mutants responsible for generating a force wall to cut the mutants off from continuous assault and prosecution from the rest of humanity, to the point that 'Moira' was creating random soldiers simply for Legion and the other mutants to kill them and create the impression that they were 'safe'. After Legacy- the alternate Rogue- was tipped off about the truth of this world, she was able to release Xavier and the other telepaths- 'Moira' having kept all telepathic mutants locked away in case they saw through her deception-, who subsequently convinced Legion to absorb 'Moira' back into himself and restore reality to its original form.
. At least the first, Jemail, was the mind of a terrorist that David somehow absorbed into himself. According to Karma, the only way he can absorb other people into his mind is if he is right next to them when they die or through psychic powers like telepathy. While two others, Jack Wayne and Cyndi made themselves known, it is unknown how many other personalities there were or could have been. The manifestations of Legion's individual powers are generally associated with his different personalities, with each personality controlling a different power. The cumulative powers of all his personalities make him one of the strongest mutants in existence.
He has manifested the powers of telepathy
through the personality of Jemail Karami, telekinesis
through the personality of Jack Wayne, pyrokinesis
through the personality of Cyndi and teleportation
through another unknown personality. Apparently, Legion's core personality finally took control of his splinter personalities' powers, since he manifested psionic abilities when he traveled back in time.
In the current New Mutants run, Legion is shown to be inhabited by thousands of personalities, each with its own superhuman power, some of which have manifest physically in such manners as lycanthropy and a prehensile tongue. According to Cannonball, this is a new part of his power. Some of the other powers he manifests include super speed, flight, X-ray vision, heat absorption, super strength, matter animation and sonic screams. Dr. Nemesis reveals that because his mind has become so fractured due to the many personalities, he instinctively created a doll named Moira, when one personality gets hold of the doll, it controls his body. Using the soulsword given to her by Magik, Karma went inside Legion's psyche and liberated an unknown personality imprisoned deep within him. This persona turned out to be Legion himself, displaying a different behavior and appearance, marked by his peculiar eyebrows. This "true Legion" persona could warp reality and wiped the Elder Gods from existence, later resetting the universe to the state it was in before they were released on earth.
and schizophrenic
by a number of writers.
. A man possessed by many evil spirits was asked by Jesus
what his name was, to which he replied "Our name is Legion, for we are many."
incarnation of Proteus is a combination of Legion and Proteus from the mainstream comics. While he possesses Proteus' reality warping power and has the same mother Moira MacTaggert
, he is named David Xavier and his father is Charles Xavier.
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
character
Character (arts)
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
, created by writer Chris Claremont
Chris Claremont
Chris Claremont is an award-winning American comic book writer and novelist, known for his 17-year stint on Uncanny X-Men, far longer than any other writer, during which he is credited with developing strong female characters, and with introducing complex literary themes into superhero...
and artist Bill Sienkiewicz
Bill Sienkiewicz
Boleslav Felix Robert "Bill" Sienkiewicz [pronounced sin-KEV-itch] is an Eisner Award-winning American artist and writer best known for his comic book work, primarily for Marvel Comics' The New Mutants and Elektra: Assassin...
.
David is the mutant
Mutant (Marvel Comics)
In comic books published by Marvel Comics, a mutant is an organism who possesses a genetic trait called an X-gene that allows the mutant to naturally develop superhuman powers and abilities...
son of Charles Xavier
Professor X
Professor Charles Francis Xavier, also known as Professor X, is a fictional character, a Marvel Comics superhero known as the leader and founder of the X-Men....
and Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
survivor Gabrielle Haller
Gabrielle Haller
Gabrielle Haller is a fictional character appearing in X-Men stories in the Marvel Comics universe. She was created by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, in Uncanny X-Men #161 .-Fictional character biography:...
. He has severe mental illness, including a form of dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
(more commonly known as multiple personality disorder), with each of his personas controlling one of his many superpowers.
His stories typically revolve around bitterness towards his father, and in Legion Quest, a misplaced attempt to redeem himself in his father's eyes.
Fictional character biography
Charles XavierProfessor X
Professor Charles Francis Xavier, also known as Professor X, is a fictional character, a Marvel Comics superhero known as the leader and founder of the X-Men....
met Gabrielle Haller
Gabrielle Haller
Gabrielle Haller is a fictional character appearing in X-Men stories in the Marvel Comics universe. She was created by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, in Uncanny X-Men #161 .-Fictional character biography:...
while working in an Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i mental facility where she was one of his patients. Xavier was secretly using his psychic powers to ease the pain of Holocaust survivors institutionalized there. The two had an affair that resulted in the birth of a son David, in Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
. However, Xavier is unaware of this, and Gabrielle never told him.
Powers manifest
When he was very young, David was among the victims of a terrorist attack, in which he was the only survivor. The trauma of the situation caused David to manifest his mutant powers, incinerating the minds of the terrorists. In the process, he absorbed the mind of the terrorist leader, Jemail Karami, into his own. Being linked to so many others at their time of death, he was rendered catatonicCatatonia
Catatonia is a state of neurogenic motor immobility, and behavioral abnormality manifested by stupor. It was first described in 1874: Die Katatonie oder das Spannungsirresein ....
, and remained in the care of Moira MacTaggert
Moira MacTaggert
Dr. Moira Kinross MacTaggert is a fictional character appearing in X-Men stories in the Marvel Comics universe. She works as a geneticist and is an expert in mutant affairs. Olivia Williams played a minor role of Dr. Moira MacTaggert in X-Men: The Last Stand...
at the Muir Island
Muir Island
Muir Island is a small, fictional island off the northern coast of Scotland in the Marvel Comics universe. It plays a prominent role in the X-Men comics and its related series.-History:...
mutant research facility. The trauma caused David's personality to splinter, with each of the personalities controlling a different aspect of his psionic power.
Struggle from within
Karami struggled for years to separate his consciousness from David's. Using David's telepathic abilities, he reintegrated the multiple personalities into David's core personality. Some of the personalities resisted Karami, and two proved to be formidable opponents: Jack Wayne, a swaggering adventurer, who commands David's telekineticPsychokinesis
The term psychokinesis , also referred to as telekinesis with respect to strictly describing movement of matter, sometimes abbreviated PK and TK respectively, is a term...
power, and Cyndi, a temperamental, rebellious girl who controls David's pyrokinetic
Pyrokinesis
Pyrokinesis, derived from the Greek words and , was the name coined by horror novelist Stephen King for the ability to create or to control fire with the mind that he gave to the protagonist Charlie McGee in Firestarter...
power. Wayne intended to destroy Karami's consciousness to preserve his own independent existence within David's mind. Neither personality succeeds, and Karami, Wayne, and Cyndi continue as David's dominant personalities.
During his time at Muir Island, David emerged from his catatonia. Soon after, David was possessed by the Shadow King
Shadow King
The Shadow King, also known as Amahl Farouk, is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The Shadow King exists as an entity of pure psychic energy that feeds on the hatred of humanity...
, who used his powers to psychically increase the amount of hatred in the world and feed on the malignant energy. During this time, the Shadow King, as David, killed the mutant Destiny
Destiny (Irene Adler)
Destiny is a Marvel Comics fictional character, known as an adversary of the X-Men. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist/co-writer John Byrne, the character first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #141...
. The X-Men
X-Men
The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...
and X-Factor
X-Factor (comics)
X-Factor is an American comic book series published by Marvel Comics. It is a spin-off of the popular X-Men franchise, featuring characters from X-Men stories. The series has been relaunched several times with different team rosters, most recently as X-Factor Investigations.X-Factor launched in...
fought the Shadow King, and as a result, David was left in a coma.
Legion Quest/Age of Apocalypse
When MystiqueMystique (comics)
Mystique is a fictional character associated with the Marvel Comics' franchise X-Men. Originally created by artist David Cockrum and writer Chris Claremont, she first appeared in Ms...
tracked down David years later to get revenge for "his" murder of Destiny, he awakened with his fractured mind healed. David had a new goal, to help his father realize his dream of human-mutant coexistence by killing Magneto
Magneto (comics)
Magneto is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is the central villain of the X-Men comic, as well as the TV show and the films. The character first appears in X-Men #1 , and was created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby...
, Xavier's greatest opponent, before he has a chance to amass power. He traveled twenty years into the past, when Xavier and Magneto were orderlies at the mental hospital. In the process, he loses his memory. Magneto then accidentally triggers his memory, causing David to go on a rampage, attacking Magneto and revealing the existence of mutants to the public decades too early. Several X-Men who were pulled back in time with him were unable to prevent him from attacking Magneto. Xavier, however, leaped into the path of the psi-knife (the focused totality of Legion's psionic powers) being killed in Magneto's place, causing the formation of the Age of Apocalypse
Age of Apocalypse
"Age of Apocalypse" is a 1995 - 1996 comic book crossover storyline published in the X-Men franchise of books by Marvel Comics. The Age of Apocalypse briefly replaced the universe of Earth-616, although it was later retconned as having occurred in the alternate universe of Earth-295, it had...
timeline.
Due to being trapped in the past by David's actions, Bishop
Bishop (comics)
Bishop is a fictional comic book superhero, appearing in books published by Marvel Comics, in particular the X-Men family of books...
enlisted the aid of the new reality's X-Men to travel back in time to confront Legion again. Bishop seized Legion's psi-blade and drove it into his own chest, allowing Legion to see the future that he caused. In his last moments, David apologized for what he did. David's mother, Gabrielle Haller, described having a "maternal loss" afterward implying David had never been conceived.
While David was considered deceased, some of his alternate personalities remained trapped between life and death, manifesting as spirits. When the spirits started terrorizing Israel, Excalibur
Excalibur (comics)
Excalibur is a Marvel Comics superhero group, an off-shoot of the X-Men, usually based in the United Kingdom. Conceived by writer Chris Claremont and artist/co-writer Alan Davis, the original Excalibur first appeared in Excalibur Special Edition , also known as Excalibur: The Sword is Drawn.The...
was called to stop them. After learning that the spirits were refusing death, Meggan
Meggan
Meggan Puceanu is a fictional character, a mutant superhero in the . She first appeared in Mighty World of Marvel #7, , and was created by Alan Moore and Alan Davis....
used her empathy to calm their rage, convincing them to go "towards the light."
Return
Sometime later, Legion is discovered alive and trapped in a concrete box by the reformed New Mutants as they are investigating a possible mutant case in Westcliffe, Colorado. After accidentally absorbing Karma and trying to protect a little girl called Marci, who is trapped within his mind as well, David, now beset with an army of split personalities, tries to take control of his body through a doll named Moira, which enables its 'holder' to gain control of David's body and use his or her powers at will. Moira has come into Marci's possession and is coveted by the other personalities, particularly the more vicious and free-wheeling ones—especially Jack Wayne, who had become the ringleader for the struggle of control over David's body and powers.After escaping his cell, David flies off to kill Dani Moonstar. One of Legion's split personalities revealed that when Bishop used Legion's psychic blade, David was transported to the Age of Apocalypse timeline where he was caught and made a slave, but it didn't reveal how Legion managed to return to the present timeline. When Magik is absorbed into his mind as well, she begins killing off some of the more hostile personalities, including Jack Wayne, to get to Karma and Marci. Eventually Marci leads the girls to David, who has been locked away by the other personalities. They then manage to get a hold of the doll that controls his body; Karma and Magik return to their bodies, and David is taken into the care of the X-Men.
Following the aftermath of Utopia, the X-Club, along with Rogue and Danger are repairing David's mind by isolating the other personalities from each other, much to the delight of David. It is revealed by Karma, during a session with Kavita Rao
Kavita Rao
Dr. Kavita "Vita" Rao is a fictional character, a geneticist in the Marvel Comics universe of the X-Men. She first appeared and featured prominently in the first story arc of the monthly series Astonishing X-Men in 2004.-Hope:Dr...
that Marci was a little girl from Westcliffe who helped David by keeping him company when he came back from the Age of Apocalypse, but one of the other personalities within Legion ended up murdering her, so Marci became permanently trapped within his mind. Before Karma
Karma
Karma in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh philosophies....
and Magik
Magik (comics)
Magik is a Marvel Comics character, associated with the X-Men. She is the younger sister of the Russian X-Man Colossus.-Publication history:...
left his mind, Karma killed the entity who murdered Marci using Magik's soulsword. Both lie to Kavita, saying Magik killed him. With nowhere to return to, and as the only independent and non-violent personality inside him, Marci is allowed to keep David company as a source of comfort and stability while the other personality fragments are separated and isolated from them.
Utopia
Legion is being cared for by Danger, who is assessing his personalities and has sedated him in the prison section of UtopiaAsteroid M
Utopia is the name of the sepratist mutant homeland created by the X-Men from the remains of Asteroid M which is the name of several fictional settings, each an asteroid converted by the mutant Magneto into his home/orbiting base, in the Marvel Comics Universe...
, along with Sebastian Shaw
Sebastian Shaw (comics)
Sebastian Hiram Shaw is a fictional comic book supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe, and an adversary of the X-Men.A mutant, Shaw possesses the ability to absorb energy and transform it into raw strength...
, Empath
Empath (comics)
Empath , is a fictional mutant in the Marvel Universe.-Publication history:Empath was created by Chris Claremont and Sal Buscema and first appeared in New Mutants #16-17 as a member of Emma Frost's original Hellions.The character subsequently appears in The Uncanny X-Men #193 , Firestar #2-4...
, and Donald Pierce
Donald Pierce
Donald Pierce is a comic book supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe. The character first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #132. He was created by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. Donald Pierce is a cyborg.-Fictional character biography:...
.
Second Coming
Legion appears in X-Men: Second Coming as one of the X-Men fighting BastionBastion (comics)
Bastion is a supervillain that appears in the fictional Marvel Universe. The character was created by Scott Lobdell and Pascual Ferry and first made a cameo appearance in X-Men #52 . His first full appearance was Uncanny X-Men #333...
's Nimrod Sentinels. With the Nimrod army relentlessly appearing from a portal hellbent on destroying the mutants on Utopia, Charles Xavier
Professor X
Professor Charles Francis Xavier, also known as Professor X, is a fictional character, a Marvel Comics superhero known as the leader and founder of the X-Men....
is tasked with mobilizing his son to aid in their battle against the sentinels. This is because of the X-Men's need to employ Legion's unique powers, despite his apparent instability due to his multiple personality disorder. Legion is airdropped into battle, employing two of his many personalities, each containing a different power.
Rise of the New Mutants
It was revealed that Magik is the one responsible for bringing Legion back to Earth from the Age of Apocalypse, for the purpose of destroying the Elder Gods once and for all.Age of X
When Xavier and Doctor NemesisDoctor Nemesis
Doctor Nemesis is the alias of James Nicola Bradley, a fictional comic book superhero appearing in books published by Marvel Comics. He was a derivative version of the eponymous Golden Age character that originally appeared in Ace Magazines' Lightning Comics. He is a co-creator of the original...
attempted to treat Legion's MPD, it resulted in the creation of a new personality that attempted to 'protect' Legion from this 'assault' on his mind, the new personality assuming the appearance of the deceased Moira McTaggert and using its ability to warp reality to create a new world where Legion could be the hero that he always wanted to be. Unfortunately, this 'heroic' status consisted of Legion being one of the mutants responsible for generating a force wall to cut the mutants off from continuous assault and prosecution from the rest of humanity, to the point that 'Moira' was creating random soldiers simply for Legion and the other mutants to kill them and create the impression that they were 'safe'. After Legacy- the alternate Rogue- was tipped off about the truth of this world, she was able to release Xavier and the other telepaths- 'Moira' having kept all telepathic mutants locked away in case they saw through her deception-, who subsequently convinced Legion to absorb 'Moira' back into himself and restore reality to its original form.
Powers and abilities
Legion is an Omega-level mutant that has multiple personalitiesDissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
. At least the first, Jemail, was the mind of a terrorist that David somehow absorbed into himself. According to Karma, the only way he can absorb other people into his mind is if he is right next to them when they die or through psychic powers like telepathy. While two others, Jack Wayne and Cyndi made themselves known, it is unknown how many other personalities there were or could have been. The manifestations of Legion's individual powers are generally associated with his different personalities, with each personality controlling a different power. The cumulative powers of all his personalities make him one of the strongest mutants in existence.
He has manifested the powers of telepathy
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
through the personality of Jemail Karami, telekinesis
Psychokinesis
The term psychokinesis , also referred to as telekinesis with respect to strictly describing movement of matter, sometimes abbreviated PK and TK respectively, is a term...
through the personality of Jack Wayne, pyrokinesis
Pyrokinesis
Pyrokinesis, derived from the Greek words and , was the name coined by horror novelist Stephen King for the ability to create or to control fire with the mind that he gave to the protagonist Charlie McGee in Firestarter...
through the personality of Cyndi and teleportation
Teleportation
Teleportation is the fictional or imagined process by which matter is instantaneously transferred from one place to another.Teleportation may also refer to:*Quantum teleportation, a method of transmitting quantum data...
through another unknown personality. Apparently, Legion's core personality finally took control of his splinter personalities' powers, since he manifested psionic abilities when he traveled back in time.
In the current New Mutants run, Legion is shown to be inhabited by thousands of personalities, each with its own superhuman power, some of which have manifest physically in such manners as lycanthropy and a prehensile tongue. According to Cannonball, this is a new part of his power. Some of the other powers he manifests include super speed, flight, X-ray vision, heat absorption, super strength, matter animation and sonic screams. Dr. Nemesis reveals that because his mind has become so fractured due to the many personalities, he instinctively created a doll named Moira, when one personality gets hold of the doll, it controls his body. Using the soulsword given to her by Magik, Karma went inside Legion's psyche and liberated an unknown personality imprisoned deep within him. This persona turned out to be Legion himself, displaying a different behavior and appearance, marked by his peculiar eyebrows. This "true Legion" persona could warp reality and wiped the Elder Gods from existence, later resetting the universe to the state it was in before they were released on earth.
Mentality
Legion has also been described as both autisticAutism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
and schizophrenic
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
by a number of writers.
Origin of name
Legion is named after the Biblical demon LegionLegion (demon)
Legion is a group of demons referred to in the Christian Bible. The New Testament outlines an encounter where Jesus healed a man from Gadarenes possessed by demons while traveling, known as Exorcising the Gerasenes demonic.- In the Bible :...
. A man possessed by many evil spirits was asked by Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
what his name was, to which he replied "Our name is Legion, for we are many."
Ultimate Proteus
The UltimateUltimate Marvel
Ultimate Marvel is an imprint of comic books published by Marvel Comics, featuring reimagined and updated versions of the company's superhero characters, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, and the Fantastic Four. The imprint was launched in 2000 with the publication of the series...
incarnation of Proteus is a combination of Legion and Proteus from the mainstream comics. While he possesses Proteus' reality warping power and has the same mother Moira MacTaggert
Moira MacTaggert
Dr. Moira Kinross MacTaggert is a fictional character appearing in X-Men stories in the Marvel Comics universe. She works as a geneticist and is an expert in mutant affairs. Olivia Williams played a minor role of Dr. Moira MacTaggert in X-Men: The Last Stand...
, he is named David Xavier and his father is Charles Xavier.
Age of X
Legion is a member of the Force Warriors, a select group of telekinetics who rebuild the "Force Walls" (telekinetic shields that protect Fortress X) on a daily basis. Unlike his 616 counterpart, there is no trace of the other personalities shown. When Magneto reveals that he too has questions regarding the origin of Fortress X, Legion and the Force Warriors arrive and relieve him of his command. It is then revealed that the Age of X was in some small way created by Legion himself. A flashback reveals that in the 616 universe Professor X was arguing with Dr. Nemesis regarding the laters containment and deletion of Legion's other personalities in an effort to stabilize him. While Dr. Nemesis claimed that everything was going according to his plan, Professor X was unconvinced and entered Legion's mind. There he found the other personalities dead and their rotting corpses left in their containment units. This surprised Dr. Nemesis who claimed that when a personality was deleted it should simply disappear. Professor X was then attacked by what he called a "psychic antibody" a natural defense against Nemesis's deleting of the personalities. The antibody then took on the face of Moria MacTaggart and claimed that it would make a world where Legion could be happy. Professor X tried to warn Nemesis about the antibody's power but was unable to. The antibody then reshaped Utopia into Fortress X and inserted itself as Moria and the supercomputer X. Before Legion or Professor X could get any answers out of "Moria" the Force Walls fell and the human armies began their attack.Television
- Legion appears in the X-Men: EvolutionX-Men: EvolutionX-Men: Evolution is an American animated television series about the Marvel Comics superhero team the X-Men. In this incarnation many of the characters are teenagers rather than adults...
episode "Sins of the Son" voiced by Kyle LabineKyle LabineJonathan Kyle Labine is a Canadian actor. His brothers Tyler Labine and Cameron Labine, also work in the entertainment industry.- Filmography :-External links:...
. Legion's backstory remains mostly unchanged, although David Haller is a fairly normal boy with no visible mutant powers. In the episode, David appears to be kidnapped by a Scottish gothGothic rockGothic rock is a musical subgenre of post-punk and alternative rock that formed during the late 1970s. Gothic rock bands grew from the strong ties they had to the English punk rock and emerging post-punk scenes...
/punkPunk subcultureThe punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film, which grew out of punk rock.-History:...
named Lucas, but in reality Lucas is David. David's body can somehow change to match whichever of his multiple personalities is dominant, with personality and body shifts sometimes happening at random. The mechanism behind this ability is never fully explained, although it is possible that David is using strong psionic abilities to alter people's perception of his appearance rather than actually changing as MastermindMastermind (Jason Wyngarde)Mastermind is a Marvel Comics supervillain, an adversary of the X-Men. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby, he first appeared in X-Men #4 . He was given his "real name", Jason Wyngarde, by Chris Claremont and John Byrne.The original Mastermind was a mutant with the power to...
had done when first trying to avoid being discovered. His personalities sometimes appeared in two places at once, supporting the control-of-perception theory. Only three personalities were shown. As David has no obvious powers of his own, Lucas possesses telepathic and telekinetic powers, as well as pyrokinetics while Ian is a young mute boy who can create fire. As Lucas is shown capable of both telepathic and pyrokinetic powers, it is possible the Lucas persona may have access to the powers of other personalities (if any beyond these three exist). Lucas lured Professor Xavier to Scotland and tricked him into locking David's other personalities away, leaving Lucas free to be himself. It was never explained what Lucas's goals were after this. The show was canceled before his storyline could be further explored.. - Legion is mentioned in the Marvel anime version of X-Men. He is the root cause of something called "David Haller Syndrome". This condition affects mutants that develop a secondary mutation causing multiple personalities, uncontrolled physical mutation, and Psychological instability. There is a vaccine which Beast created to stop its progress. It should also be mentioned that one of the main antagonists of the series, Takeo, is the son of Charles Xavier and a scientist in mutant research. This character is similar to Legion in many ways, except for design and name.