You might call Legion the X-Men Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest go through Twin Peaks by way of Inception. It’s a mind trip and you will be absolutely be fascinated by the journey into the fragile, frightening mind David Haller.
Legion is inspired by the X-Men character but the new FX series goes beyond the films.
In the comics David Haller is the son of Professor Charles Xavier. David suffers from severe mental illness after childhood trauma. He has multiple personalities each controlling one of his mutant powers. This Omega-level mutant has the power of telepathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, time travel and he can warp reality.
The new FX series starring Dan Stevens as David adds four women to his life who do not appear in the comics. There’s only one reference to X-Men comics canon but it’s an important one.
Before we continue with our big burning questions here’s a SPOILER ALERT!
If you did not see the first episode of Legion stop reading now.
Seriously.
OK.
Here it comes.
David was identified as a mutant. We never have a reference to the X-Men or Professor Xavier but we may have two blatantly references to two major X-villains. More on that later.
David never had a sister in comics. Professor Xavier never knew he had a child with Gabrielle Haller, a woman he once fell in love with in Israel. David spent most of his life under Dr. Moira MacTaggert’s care on her Muir Island research facility.
In the first episode David is a patient of Clockworks, a psychiatric facility where he falls for a girl named Syd who may also be a mutant and and a sidekick named Lenny. Just when you think it’s about David’s therapy we cut to a very different facility.
David is interrogated in a mysterious facility by men who identify him as one of the most powerful mutants they’ve ever encountered…and they’re prepared to kill him if they can’t control him.
David may have body or mind swiped with Syd to escape Clockworks but now he’s being held and watched by Division One.
Syd/Cyndi? Is Syd inspired by Cyndi, one of David’s multiple personalities? Cyndi was the pyrokinetic. When Syd appeared in the second facility it appeared she manifested fire to kill David’s captors and help him escape leading to a woman named Melanie Bird, is she David’s savior or does she have her own agenda?
Is Division One an organization like the Weapon X Program? If Weapon X captures mutants like Logan with physical powers and turns them into living weapons, is Division One a program that captures mutants with mental powers?
Shadow King? When David’s powers manifest, the room turns red with dark shadows and he sees the scary image of a bald, overweight man. Is this the Shadow King? In comics this is being of pure psychic energy that feeds of hate and fear with the powers of telepathy, mind possession and immortality. The Shadow King took the form of a bald, massive man named Amahl Farouk and held a criminal network. Farouk was the first evil mutant Charles Xavier ever encountered. In Cairo, Egypt Xavier was attaked by Farouk and they fought a psychic duel on the astral plane. Farouk tormented by X-Men and New Mutants over the years, often taking possession of their teammates. The Shadow King once possessed David to spread hate and fear across the planet to feed his hunger.
The Devil With Yellow Eyes is referenced in David’s nightmare recaps and therapy sessions. Could this devil be the Shadow King or another familiar X-villain with yellow eyes, Mystique. Raven Darkholme and her son Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler, both look demonic and have yellow eyes. Could the shapeshifter be messing with David’s fragile mind with her powers of disguise?
Just when you think you’ve seen everything in the superhero genre, director Noah Hawley takes us on a strange trip into the mind of a misunderstood minor mutant on a harrowing, humorous journey that leaves us…astonished.
By Editor