Have you been watching Legion on FX? Have you seen the frightening clues that point to a powerful villain from X-Men canon?
In comics David Haller (aka Legion) is Professor Charles Xavier’s son who suffers from multiple personalities. Each personality controls one of David’s mutant powers.
The Omega level mutant is the inspiration for the twisted FX drama but so far there’s only reference to the X-Men mythology but is there another creeping up on us?
David has been called a mutant by a mysterious group known as Division 3 and by other mutants led by a woman named Melanie Bird (Jean Smart) but there’s no reference of Professor X, X-Men or other famous code-names. David has a sister. This David is very different from his comic book counterpart but is the veil peeling away to reveal he may be closer to the Legion of comics that we thought.
Is the real villain of this drama one of these classic enemies from comics?
Before we continue here’s a SPOILER ALERT!
If you have not been watching Legion go catch up now then rejoin us.
Seriously.
OK.
Here it comes.
David is haunted by images of a bald, bloated man with red eyes as the room goes shades of a red light. We suspected this might be the Shadow King.
This week’s pivotal episode points to other suspects.
A confident David leaves the protect of Melanie’s compound to go on a solo mission against Division 3 to save his sister. The D3 operatives have been interrogating her to get to David.
When Melanie and her team arrive at D3’s secret base to help they find dead soldiers, video evidence of David unleashing his power on the soldiers and the leader (David Selby) of the base who warns, “it wears a human face.”
Bird’s also determine David is infected by an entity.
But what?
Here the unusual suspects:
Mummadrai
This is a parasite that lives on the astral plane that copied Charles Xavier’s DNA effectively becoming his twin in the womb. Charles killed it in the womb but the creature rebuilt itself over the decades emerging as Cassandra Nova. In the Shi’ar mythology Mummadrai means opposite and the Nova/Mummadrai would possess Charles and hold a destructive influence on the Empress of his alien race.
Elias Bogan
This powerful mutant with powers of telepathy and possession was a Lord Imperial of the Hellfire Club. There’s a legend Bogan is the inspiration for the founding of the Club dedicated to power and indulgence and has “eyes of fire” when he unleashed his power on his victims. In comics Bogan never encountered David but came up against the X-Men including former Hellfire Club members Emma Frost and Sage.
The Shadow King
This being of pure psychic energy feeds off hatred and fear from humanity. This entity first appeared as Amahl Farouk, the first evil mutant Professor X ever encountered before he formed the X-Men. Xavier and Farouk met in person in Cairo, Egypt where Farouk controlled a criminal empire then fought a psychic duel on the astral plane. Farouk would later possess the New Mutant known as Karma. She become morbidly obese during his possession. Farouk later seized control of Legion and took the body of a dead FBI agent named Jacob Reiz. The scary mystery man with red eyes on the television series appears to be most similar to the Shadow King at this creepiest. In this week’s episode Bird’s team saw visions of the red eyed man on video and David’s girlfriend Syd saw the creepy entity but without the red eyes and light. Ironically Syd saw this creepy specter in a place David took her called the white room. In the comics there’s a White Hot Room, where the ghosts of dead Phoenix entity hosts reside including Jean Grey. The Shadow King is the most likely culprit and could be the closest connection to Xavier.
More questions:
David’s sister confessed he’s adopted. Does this mean we could finally learn that David is Xavier’s son? Will the Professor appear on the series? Is Melanie Bird really just a cover for someone else from the comics like Cassandra Nova?
Is it all in David’s mind…figuring this series out may twist your mind but it’s still worth the strange trip.
Legion continues Wednesdays at 10pm on FX.
By Editor