X-Men Is Bringing Back the Legacy Virus (But What Is It?)

The X-Men have been through a lot in their over 60 years of existence. They’ve basically dealt with everything imaginable, from protests outside of the X-Mansion to giant robots made to murder them in particular. Teams like the Fantastic Four and the Avengers mostly just have to deal with supervillains, but the X-Men have to deal with a whole other level of hatred. Humans hate them for having powers that they don’t, and sometimes their fellow mutants hate them for their work in trying to create a peaceful world for mutants and humans. The X-Men can’t win and there’s no better example of that than one of the greatest threats to the mutant race — the Legacy Virus.

The X-Men are Marvel’s civil rights allegory, and at some point in the early ’90s, Marvel editorial decided to throw something new at the team. The Legacy Virus was meant to be analogous to the AIDS virus, except that for a while, it only affected mutants. AIDS was the scary disease of the ’90s, so it made sense for the X-Men — the team of the ’90s — to talk about the virus and how it affected mutants. The Legacy Virus was cured in 2001, so many younger fans don’t know what it is. However, that’s a problem because of recent events in Deadpool/Wolverine #3. The Legacy Virus is making a surprise return, so here’s a primer on the deadliest threat that mutantkind ever faced.

The Legacy Virus’s Origins Stretch Millennia into the Future

Once upon a time, Cyclops had a child with a Jean Grey clone named Madelyne Pryor. Little Nathan’s first years were quite rough, with Mister Sinister constantly trying to get his hands on him and the return of Jean Grey sundering his family. Eventually, Apocalypse entered his life and gave the baby a techno-organic virus, fearing that the young mutant would one fay destroy him. Cyclops unleashed his full power on Apocalypse, seemingly killing him, but that didn’t save Nathan. The only way to do that was to send him two thousand years in the future with Mother Askani — herself a future version of Rachel Summers, an alternate reality half sister to Nathan — where he would learn to use his powers to control the virus.

Nathan grew up in a hellscape ruled by Apocalypse and became the mutant soldier known as Cable. However, Apocalypse was able to clone the boy, creating Stryfe. Stryfe didn’t have the virus, meaning he had access to the full telepathic and telekinetic power of a child of Cyclops and Jean Grey, and was raised to be the heir of Apocalypse. This meant that he loved to figure out ways to kill, to separate the strong from the weak. Stryfe began working on the Legacy Virus at some point in this terrible future and brought it with him when he came to the present to destroy Cable, who was trying to make sure Apocalypse’s dark future never came to be. Stryfe ended up giving the virus to Mister Sinister in a canister that Stryfe claimed had thousands of years of Summers genetic material in it. One of Sinister’s lab assistants opened it, finding it perplexingly empty. This released the virus into the air, where it began its deadly spread among mutants.

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The Legacy Virus was made to target the X-gene. There were three different mutations. Legacy-1 attacked the transcription and replication of cells, making it into a fast-acting cancer. This version of the virus infected the younger sister of Colossus, Illyana Rasputin, who ended up dying. Legacy-2 was more in line with Stryfe’s original vision for the virus — he meant for it to cause a war between mutants and humans — and Legacy-2 would have exacerbated this by causing mutants to lose control of their powers, making them more dangerous than ever. It was much slower than Legacy-1, and also caused lesions, fever, cough, and overall weakness. Legacy-3 was believed to be a mutation of the virus that could spread to humans, but the only “human” known to get it was Moira MacTaggert, who later turned out to be a mutant anyway.

Moira did create a cure to a virus before disappearing and leaving a Shi’Ar golem to die in her stead. This cure only affected Legacy-3, though, and it wouldn’t be until later that Beast would come up with a cure that would deal with all strains of the virus. However, the only way for the cure to work was for the first person to use it to die, their mutant cells becoming fuel for the cure that would allow the cure to spread quickly through the Earth’s atmosphere. Colossus volunteered to take the cure because of the death of his sister and the Legacy Virus was cured.

The Legacy Virus Could Have Destroyed Mutantkind

Mutants faced a lot of threats from humanity, but they had never faced anything that was a hundred percent lethal. Everything else could be fought in some way, but until the various cures for the Legacy Virus were found, there was no fighting it. Even the advanced medical equipment of the X-Mansion, bolstered by intergalactic Shi’Ar tech that was light years more advanced than anything on Earth, had little to no affect on it. The Legacy Virus was a death sentence for any mutant that contracted it.

It was completely random in its transmission, as it seemed to affect some mutants and not others. This was all part of Stryfe’s plan for the virus; not only did he want humans to go after the out of control infected, but also fracture the mutant race from within, leaving only the strong to survive. It was a monstrous disease, made to destroy an entire species, whether it be by its symptoms or the consequences of its spread.

What do you think about the surprising return of the Legacy Virus? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!