David HallerLegion

When mutant abilities manifest, their arrival can have dangerous, demoralizing, or catastrophic results. This is why Charles Xavier dedicated his life to helping young mutants accept and develop their powers, aiding them in finding their own place in the world. Unfortunately for David Haller, an Omega-level mutant, his complex abilities have made his life a whirlwind since he was a child. He also just happens to be Xavier’s own son—something the Professor was unaware of for quite some time.

Haller has been through many phases, but his dissociative identity disorder means he’s also wrestled with a variety of personalities, each with their own abilities and dispositions, hence the name Legion.

The Making of a Mutant

Years ago, mutant psychic Charles Xavier had a brief affair with an Israeli woman, Gabrielle Haller. Unaware Gabrielle was pregnant, he left Israel a short time later. Haller concealed their son’s existence from Xavier, later becoming the Israeli ambassador to Great Britain and marrying Daniel Shomron. After moving to Paris for Gabrielle to serve in the Israeli diplomatic service, their home was invaded by an anti-Semitic assassination team, who killed Shomron before ten-year-old David’s eyes. The terror catalyzed his mutant powers, which he used to destroy the assassins’ minds.

While doing so, he unwittingly psychically connected with their thoughts and emotions as they died, shattering David’s mind into multiple personas (and giving him dissociative identity disorder) and rendering him catatonic. The consciousness of the assassins’ leader, Jemail Karami, was absorbed into David’s mind. After years of being merged, Karami’s consciousness separated from David’s, remaining trapped within David’s psyche, but gaining control of David’s telepathic power. Using this power, Karami learned of David’s gentleness and gained an understanding of sympathy and goodness by reading the minds of Gabrielle and others. Seeking to restore David’s mind to normalcy, Karami began reintegrating these personas into David’s core persona, which was frozen as a ten-year-old desperately in need of parental care.

When some of the personas resisted—most notably the swaggering Jack Wayne (commanding David’s telekinesis) and the temperamental Cyndi (controlling David’s pyrokinesis)—a war erupted within David’s mindscape. The multiple personas eventually called themselves Legion.

Endless Ability

Initially, each of David’s different personalities has their own abilities, from telepathy to pyrokinesis to telekinesis. Over the years, he has proven to have an endless array of identities living and growing inside him—with a boundless list of differing mutant abilities—making him a formidable force indeed.

David’s Doom

David often has the same foes as the X-Men, such as the Shadow King, Mojo, Bastion, and Mystique. But, in many ways, he is also his own greatest enemy, having to constantly battle with so many different personalities raging inside of him.

Mutant Mercy

Throughout the years, David has called the extended X-Men family his own, including especially close relationships with Dr. Moira MacTaggert and Dr. Nemesis (James Bradley).

A Journey Inside the Mind

By his late teens, David’s catatonia transitioned to autism, and Gabrielle entrusted David’s care to Moira MacTaggert, a longtime colleague of Xavier. However, when David’s powers began manifesting on the physical plane, he uncontrollably absorbed the consciousness of two MacTaggert associates, Tom Corsi and Sharon Friedlander.

Needing psychic assistance, MacTaggert summoned Xavier to her Muir Island research facility. Xavier brought a number of his students with him, including New Mutants members Danielle Moonstar, Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair), Cypher (Doug Ramsey) and the alien technarch, Warlock. David absorbed the consciousnesses of MacTaggert, Wolfsbane, Cypher, and Gabrielle; then after Xavier learned David was his son, he and Moonstar entered David’s mind willingly to help him. Working together, Jack Wayne, Jemail Karami, and Moonstar restored David’s mind to near-normalcy and returned the absorbed consciousnesses back to the physical plane. However, Cyndi, Wayne, and Karami remained as separate personas within David’s mind. While they were able to periodically speak through David’s body, David’s core persona retained control. Although no longer autistic, David remained at the psychological, emotional, and intellectual level of a ten-ear-old child.

After being introduced to Xavier, David remained with MacTaggert on Muir Island to receive care and training. Sometime later, Wayne and Cyndi rebelled against their “imprisonment” within David’s mind and attacked MacTaggert and Wolfsbane, which garnered the New Mutants’ attention. Tracking Legion to Ullapool, Scotland, the Mutants used Magik (Illyana Rasputin)’s demonic magic to scare Wayne back into submission and restore David’s persona to dominance. David protected children in MacTaggert’s care when the cyborg Reavers assaulted Muir Island, but his baser personas sowed chaos amongst both sides of the struggle. Legion telepathically attacked precognitive Destiny (Irene Adler), only to see future visions of an apocalyptic alternate reality, Reality-295. Unable to cope, Legion slew Destiny with a telepathic blast and sadistically broadcast her death to Destiny’s lover, Mystique (Raven Darkholme). However, Destiny’s consciousness survived in David’s mind. Later attempting to locate missing mutants (including the X-Men), MacTaggert placed Legion in the telepathy-enhancing Cerebro, which caught the attention of the malevolent psychic entity, the Shadow King, who used David’s powers to help him possess all of Muir’s inhabitants. Legion joined the island’s sub-team of the X-Men.

Shadow King forced the residents to battle in gladiatorial duels and to fight the X-Men and Cyclops’ X-Factor when they invaded the island to battle the Shadow King. Facing defeat, the Shadow King possessed Legion and used his powers to destroy the Muir facility and attempted to kill Xavier’s students. After Xavier arrived, he psychically battled the Shadow King until he and his students disconnected the Shadow King’s connection to Polaris (Lorna Dane), who was unwillingly serving as his energy nexus, seemingly destroying the Shadow King. Unfortunately, this act also left Legion comatose, his mind apparently destroyed by the battle despite Xavier’s psychic attempts to restore it. The brain-dead David was sustained by life support in a Tel Aviv hospital. However, when Mystique attempted to kill him in revenge for Destiny’s murder, David woke, his mind apparently restored and devoid of all personas except his (and Destiny’s consciousness). While the US government’s X-Factor battled Mystique, David interpreted Destiny’s words as advice to go back in time to slay Xavier’s arch-rival, Magneto (Max Eisenhardt), to prevent their two-decades-long ideological war. Legion stopped the battle between Mystique and X-Factor by teleporting X-Factor away and then traveled to the Negev Desert to prepare for his time travel mission.

His preparations drew the attention of the Israeli army and the X-Men. However, when he departed for the past, Legion unintentionally brought four X-Men with him. When Legion made his move against Magneto, the X-Men intervened. After overpowering the X-Men, Xavier intercepted a lethal psychic attack meant for Magneto. Having prevented his own birth, Legion ceased to exist and Reality-295 seemingly overwrote Reality-616. Eventually, the temporally-displaced Lucas Bishop worked with Reality-295’s Magik and Destiny to travel to the past to save Xavier. Bishop turned Legion’s psychic attack back upon himself, Legion’s own energies consuming him; this act saved Xavier, thereby reinstating Reality-616’s original timeline. Possibly due to the anomalous manner of Legion’s death, both Destiny and Legion’s spirits ended up in the Otherplace, a timeless interdimensional limbo, where they served its then-ruler, Margali Szardos, as defenders of mankind against the forces of darkness. Much later, David somehow returned to the physical plane, his mind shattered into thousands of good and evil personas thanks to Bishop’s attack.

Found by the young Marci Jane Fogerty, one of Legion’s evil personas murdered the girl, absorbing her consciousness. David began seeking out the New Mutants, “the fixers” that had helped repair his mind before. Taking dominance, Marci returned home to her parents in Westcliffe, Colorado; the other townspeople forced Marci’s mother, Melanie Beth Fogerty, to lock Legion in a concrete cage, afraid that more mutants would infest the town. Believing they were without other options, Marci’s father, Brett Marcus Fogerty, anonymously called the X-Men, claiming a young mutant was endangering the town. Danielle Moonstar and Karma (Xi’an Coy Manh) went to Westcliffe to investigate the possible mutant activity. Not learning anything from the townspeople, Karma reached out with her mental powers to contact Marci, locating her within Legion’s mind; the contact caused Karma’s consciousness to be absorbed as well. The townspeople locked Moonstar in the town’s jail and restrained the comatose Karma in the back of a town bar, her out-of-control powers absorbing anyone nearby into Legion’s mind.

Concurrently, Magik (Illyana Rasputin) sought out the X-Men, specifically the former New Mutants, to tell them that Moonstar and Karma were in danger. Once in Colorado, the team split up to investigate. Magik and Magma (Amara Aquilla) found Legion’s body being animated by Karma’s consciousness, while Cannonball (Sam Guthrie) and Sunspot (Roberto Da Costa) found Karma’s catatonic body. Within Legion’s mind, Karma found Marci and tried to protect her from Jack Wayne and Legion’s other, monstrous personas, each with a distinct mutant power. The bad personas wanted to prevent Haller’s mind from being healed again, so they could be free to murder wantonly. While protecting Marci, Karma was unaware that the personas within Legion’s mind were actually trying to obtain Marci’s doll (“Morrie/Moira”), which David instinctively created, allowing the persona holding it to obtain dominance.

Once the bad personas gained possession of the doll, Legion’s body lashed out with the power of whichever persona held it, ultimately defeating Magik and Magma and killing Marci’s parents before trying to kill Moonstar. Cannonball and Sunspot prevented Jack Wayne, now in control of Legion’s body, from raping and killing Moonstar, then confronted Legion outside the jail. Disobeying Cannonball’s orders, Magik teleported to Karma’s side, willingly entering Legion’s mind, where she began slaying his evil personas, including Jack Wayne. The rest of the team sought out and battled Legion’s body, while Magik located Karma, Marci, and David. Magik obtained control of the doll by threatening to kill more personas. Locating the persona that killed Marci, Karma exacted revenge by slaying him with Magik’s sword, at Magik’s prompting.

Once David had control of the doll, the X-Men temporarily used a device to flat line his brain waves until they could return him to San Francisco, where they began psychically sequestering and cataloguing his personas in psychic “cells” within David’s mind. To date, seven psychic surgeries have contained 53% of his personas. The X-Men’s scientists (X-Club) believe that once healed, Legion may be able to cause spontaneous mutations, serving as a cure for the mutants whose X-gene has been dormant since “M-Day” depowered the majority of mutantkind. Following a debriefing of the battle, Magik was censured for the destruction of five of Legion’s personas (Karma’s participation in this was kept secret), and Charles Xavier was kept separate from himto avoid provoking a negative response from Legion.

However, a Sentinel attack upon the X-Men forced Cyclops (Scott Summers) and Xavier to free David, who utilized a special helmet to select and control various personas and powers to battle the Sentinels. Believing Dr. Nemesis’ culling of Legion’s sub-personas akin to murder, Xavier entered Legion’s mind to show Nemesis the damage being done and encountered a psychic “antibody” in the form of Moira MacTaggert created in response to the erasure of personas. “Moira” trapped the X-Men in a bubble of altered reality where it hoped to protect and heal Legion’s mind. In Reality-11326, an anti-mutant coalition ruled and had hunted mutantkind to near-extinction.

Gathered in Fortress X, created by Magneto from multiple Manhattan skyscrapers, mutants were surrounded by a force field reinforced daily by the Force Warriors, revered mutants with telekinesis whose ranks included a respected, heroic, and fully-integrated Legion. The field they restored protected the mutants from daily military assaults by the human coalition. To prevent anyone from learning what she had done, Moira drugged Charles and other telepathic mutants and locked them in a hidden brig deep inside Fortress X. However, maintaining such a massive ruse proved too much for Moira, and inconsistent details led some to question reality and set Xavier free, who telepathically showed all present their lifetime memories were actually only a week within the bubble.

While initially resistant to returning to a reality where he was sick, Legion absorbed Moira into his mind and reinstated reality. Realizing he had been stressing separation over reintegration, Nemesis changed his approach, creating a wrist-mounted “switchboard” device (with the help of the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards and technological genius Madison Jeffries) that stimulated cells in Legion’s thalamus, allowing a one-way link between him and a sub-persona for a few seconds, letting Legion use its power set without being controlled by its persona.

However, while testing each power set, it was discovered that six personas (Styx, Susan in Sunshine, Time-Sink, the Bleeding Image, Chain, and Endgame) manifested physically when Legion ended the Age of X They agreed to hide throughout the world to avoid being re-absorbed by Legion, wreaking global havoc. Xavier, Legion, and a group of X-Men (Gambit/Remy LeBeau, Rogue/Anna Marie, Frenzy/Joanna Cargill, and Magneto/Max Eisenhardt, who had been sent by X-Men leader Cyclops to kill Legion if he lost control) tracked the six errant personas across the globe, often battling them for Legion to reclaim them, unaware the soul-stealing Styx, a self-styled lord of the dead and the most dangerous of the autonomous personas, was orchestrating the various battles.

Meanwhile, Styx kidnapped Xavier. X-Men followed him in Paris, France, where Styx used Xavier’s telepathy to cast complex mental illusions to confuse the X-Men. Styx also sent bomb-laden mental slaves to allow none but Legion to approach him. When Styx tried to steal Legion’s soul, he learned the “Legion” he had captured was actually Rogue, secretly transformed by the true Legion using the reabsorbed Chain’s duplication abilities. Upon physical contact, Rogue’s similar psyche-stealing abilities negated Styx’s, returning all the stolen spirits to their proper bodies; however, their abilities caused a feedback loop between the two, linking them physically and psychically. When Legion absorbed Styx, Rogue was also inadvertently absorbed.

Xavier entered Legion’s mind to sever the link between the two, which allowed Rogue to temporarily absorb all of David’s personas and abilities simultaneously before exiting David’s mind. She learned additional personas and power sets were apparently being born within Legion constantly. Traumatized by the experience, Legion recovered under Xavier’s care.

David recovered from his catatonic state at some point and was seen on the shores of Ibiza, Spain together with his father. He suffered intense pain—as other psychics did—as the Phoenix arrived to choose its host. After waking up, Professor Xavier sent him away to a commune for spiritualists in the Himalayas. Studying under a guru, Merzah the Mystic, David gained a greater level of control over his powers and split personalities. At one point, David expressed the suspicion and anger he felt towards his father for abandoning him, but was told by Merzah that "Professor X doesn’t fail the people he loves" and while David thought about that, one of his sub-persona managed to take control for a short time before being subdued by Merzah.

Eventually, the evil personalities took control of David’s body and started to wreak havoc wherever they went. David took the chance to hide, restoring control over his body. During a peaceful moment, David was attacked by the People’s Liberation Equality-Ops (P.L.E.) and discovered from an unseen entity that he was in China. The entity used the remains of a dead goat to build itself a body to help David.

One of the splinter personalities, calling itself Tyrannix the Abominoid, got inside David’s mind. The stranger insulted David’s father and killed some of the People Liberation Equality-Ops, angering David. David used his passion to defeat Tyrannix, drained him of his power, and used it to knock out the P.L.E. Reading the stranger’s mind, David discovered it was full of hate towards him, his father, and mutants in general. He also learned of imprisoned mutant twins and decided to help them. After returning Tyrannix to his cell, David told him that the gift of telepathy (which that splinter personality controlled) was his, and from then on, he would take it from him whenever he chose.

Four days later, David arrived in Japan to seek out the twins. Following a faint psychic trace, he was lead to a trap—an astral projection in the form of a giant raven that knocked him out. Once awake, David found out that the twins, Karasu-Tengu and Sojobo-Tengu were not captives but the heirs of one of Logan’s enemies, Ogun, a yakuza leader that was told Legion would come to destroy their clan. David watched as the twins were forced to rip out the soul of someone who insulted their father. Then the twins were given orders to find who sent David and then kill him.

While the twins did their work, David used his powers to protect himself from their telepathic probe and asked them if they like what they do. The twins admitted that they found it revolting. David and the twins talked about loyalty and respect for their elders, and the young mutant explained how he was seeking to uphold his father’s legacy and dream. Meanwhile, in his mind, David tried to find a persona to defeat his captors. David tried to convince the twins that they were too young for the life of crime and violence and regardless of the debt they owed their adopted father, this was not a life fit for children. The twins asked what alternative David’s father would offer. This reminded David of the danger room and that his father used to put children in it. David was confused at the start but then he told them that just because their father had done two things right, it didn’t mean he was infallible nor did it mean they have to do things the same way.

His conversation with the twins strengthened his appreciation for Xavier, his dream, and David’s part in it. Now more confident and mentally stronger, David overcame one of the four personas he failed to drain earlier and used its power to free himself. He thanked the twins and explained that they should have a childhood and a choice—that genes do not decide their way of life—and that nobody should be forced to fight if they do not want to. David asked the twins to accompany him in his journey and they accepted. However, when the X-Men arrive soon after, they believed that David was going to hurt the children and ask Legion to turn the twins over to them.

David was not happy with being called by his code name, and believed that the X-Men put the mutant twins in danger, a matter that he felt was proven by the fact that they taught children how to fight. His disagreement over their methods led David to plot against the X-Men. Beginning by putting Wolverine’s mind on “stand by,” David fought the X-Men with the help of the twins, almost defeating them until Blindfold stepped in. The girl introduced herself to David as his nemesis and used her telepathy to cut him off from his powers. A new persona angrily attacked Ruth, telling her to get out. David and the twins then hid in an ammo hut, but Chamber pursued and destroyed the structure. Empowered by the belief that the twins needed him, David defeated another sub-persona and used its power to protect them but apparently perished while doing so. He was, in fact, alive and watched as the X-Men gathered the twins.

For a week, David tried to contact his mother but was uncertain what to say to her. Later, he used his powers to locate and teleport Dire Wraiths to the front door of the Jean Grey School so he could infiltrate the building and find Blindfold to learn what attacked her in his mind. David also discovered Blindfold’s origin and upon reaching her, he was pulled away by Karasu, who revealed that Sojobo was acting strange. After reading a message she gave him, David came to realize that the “Eyeball Guy” was in fact Blindfold’s murderous brother, Luca. Worse, he killed Sojobo and possessed his corpse to infiltrate the school so that he could murder his sister.

With newfound determination, David teleported to save Ruth. He chased Luca throughout the school, but the murderer was prepared for him. Karasu, not knowing that her brother was really dead, thought that David was trying to hurt him and attempted to aid Luca. David was angered when Luca considered killing Karasu. A new persona taunted him over his anger, claiming that his father would be ashamed of him, which caused David to lose his confidence and allowed the persona to briefly take control. David “awoke” to find the X-Men in front of him about to attack, but Blindfold attacked Luca first, forcing him to flee. Wolverine offered Legion a place to stay so they could help him, but David still disagreed over the X-Men’s policy towards training children and turned Logan down.

While leaving, David encountered Karasu who expressed her hatred for him over what happened to her brother. When David reached the gate, he saw Ruth waiting for him and asked her what made her wake up, to which she answered that he called and warned her not to go deep in the darkness. While wondering what he should be careful from, the new persona told him that the grand evil that Luca foresaw, the one that will wipe out mutantkind, was none other than David himself and Blindfold was destined to kill him to stop it. David asked him how he came to know all of this and “Fiend” answered that he knows everything, revealing himself in the form of Charles Xavier and called David “my son,” which horrified David greatly.

David lives up to his word to make the world a better place by locating and framing the group that corrupted Luca by bringing the Dire Wraiths to earth to be arrested by S.W.O.R.D., all while forming a romantic relationship with Blindfold. Later, he helped a new mutant whose power was to take credit for other people’s work.

While on a date with Ruth, David took her to the moon and told her about the new persona inside his mind and that all the other personalities were terrified of it. He also told her when it helped him, he saw a glimpse of the future and from that vision, he knows that Aarkus, after reading a book, will start killing all mutants, and they can stop him before he does that by making sure that he doesn’t wake up. Ruth disagreed, saying that they can’t do this to someone who didn’t do anything yet. David told her that he would not become reactive like his father and revealed to her that he already made sure Aarkus would’t wake up five hours ago.

She told him that she knew that he needed her approval to gain enough strength and self-belief to drain a persona to gain the power he needed. Ruth was disappointed and asked David to send her home. David tried to justify what he did, but Blindfold asked again to be returned home. David sent her and Aarkus back. He also told her to tell the X-Men to do what they could to help him and told Ruth that he thought he loved her. After that, David started to read the book Luca wrote about the vision he saw about the future.

To avoid killing Blindfold and cause many other deaths, David wiped himself out of existence, but in fact remained within Ruth Aldine’s mind. Somehow, people still remembered him.

Recently, David came back to life once more.