Legion (Marvel Comics)
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| Legion | |
 Cover to X-Men #40 (1995). Art by Andy Kubert. |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | New Mutants #25 (Mar 1985) |
| Created by | Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | David Charles Haller |
| Species | Human Mutant |
| Team affiliations | Muir Island X-Men |
| Notable aliases | Daniel Haller |
| Abilities | All the abilities of Charles Xavier plus:
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Legion (David Charles Haller) is a Marvel Comics character, created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Bill Sienkiewicz. He first appeared in The New Mutants #25 (August 1985).
David is the mutant son of Charles Xavier and Israeli Holocaust survivor Gabrielle Haller. He suffers from severe mental problems including a form of 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.
Contents |
[edit] Fictional character biography
Charles Xavier meets Gabrielle Haller while working in an Israeli mental facility where she is one of his patients. Xavier secretly uses his psychic powers to ease the pain of Holocaust survivors institutionalized there. The two have an affair that results in the birth of their son David, in Haifa. However, Xavier is unaware he has a son, as the two break up, and Gabrielle never reveals the truth.
When he is very young, David is involved in a terrorist attack, in which he was the only survivor. The trauma of the situation causes David to unconsciously use his vast powers, incinerating the minds of the terrorists. He simultaneously absorbs the mind of the terrorist leader, Jemail Karami, into his own. As his mind is linked to so many others at the moment of their deaths, the incident renders him catatonic, and he is eventually remanded to the care of Moira MacTaggert at the Muir Island mutant research facility. The trauma that David suffers splinters his personality, with each of the personalities controlling a different psionic power.
Karami struggles for years to separate his consciousness from David's. Using David's telepathic abilities, he re-integrates the multiple personalities into David's core personality. Some of the personalities resist Karami, and two prove to be formidable opponents: Jack Wayne, a swaggering adventurer, who commands David's telekinetic power, and Cyndi, a temperamental, rebellious girl who controls David's pyrokinetic power. Wayne intends 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.[1]
During his time at Muir Island, David emerges from his catatonia, and his psionic abilities emerge. Soon after, David is possessed by the Shadow King, who used his powers to psychically increase the amount of hatred in the world and feeds on the malignant energy. During this time the Shadow King, as David, kills the mutant Destiny. The X-Men and X-Factor fight the Shadow King, and as a result, David is left in a coma.
When Mystique tracks down David years later to get revenge for "his" murder of Destiny, he awakens with his fractured mind healed. David also has a new goal in mind: he will 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 travels 20 years into the past, when Xavier and Magneto are orderlies at the mental hospital, however he loses his memory in the process. Magneto, then, accidentally triggers his memory and he goes on a rampage attacking Magneto and showcasing to the world 20 years earlier that mutants existed. In Legion Quest issues, it is said that in this timeline, he disguises himself as his father and forces himself onto his mother, Gabrielle, who was still vulnerable after having just left the mental hospital. Several X-Men follow him but are unable to prevent David from attacking Magneto. Xavier, saving his friend's life, steps into the path of the attack and dies.
The normal reality ceased to exist, replaced by an alternate timeline known as the Age of Apocalypse, in which Apocalypse has conquered much of the world. With the help of the Age of Apocalypse's X-Men, the time traveler Bishop travels back in time and saves Xavier. He channels the psychic energy back into David, showing him the horrors that he might have caused. The shock of this forced psychic bond destroyed all of Legion's other personalities and regrouped his original mind and David went into a coma.
However, some of his personalities manifested as spirits and Excalibur were called in when they started terrorizing Israel. In the end, Meggan reasoned with the spirits and sent them "towards the light".
After the events of M-Day, Legion woke from his coma and seemed to have gained control over his abilities, if not harmonized them with the other personalities he now has.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Legion is an immensely powerful mutant that has multiple personalities. At least the first, Jemail, was the mind of a terrorist that David somehow absorbed into himself. While two others, Jack Wayne and Cyndi made themselves known, it is unknown how many other personalities there were or could have been. The manifestation of Legion's individual powers are generally associated with his different personalities, with each personality controlling a different power. When he awakens from his coma later on, with no other personalities appearing, David appears to have a much broader spectrum of abilities at his control.
Legion has also been described as both autistic and schizophrenic by a number of writers, although this may relate to the common mistake of referring to multiple personality disorder as schizophrenia.
[edit] Other versions
[edit] Ultimate Legion
The Ultimate incarnation of Proteus is a combination of Legion and Proteus from the mainstream comics. While he possesses Proteus's reality warping power and has the same mother, Moira MacTaggert, he is named David, and his father is Charles Xavier.
[edit] In other media
[edit] X-Men: Evolution
In the animated series X-Men: Evolution, Legion's backstory remains mostly unchanged, although the David Haller is a fairly normal boy with no visible mutant powers. David is kidnapped by a Scottish goth/punk named Lucas. In reality, Lucas is David.
In the series, David's body can somehow change (it's never fully explained) to match whichever of his multiple personalities is dominant, with personality and body shifts sometimes happening at random. It's possible that David is using his strong psionic abilities to alter people's perception of his appearance rather than actually changing. His personalities sometimes appear in two places at once; again, it is possible that he is altering people's perception rather than physical matter.
Only three personalities were shown: David, who doesn't appear to have any powers on his own; Lucas, who possesses telepathic and telekinetic powers; and Ian, a young mute boy who can create fire. As Lucas is also shown making fire, it's 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.
