5 X-Men Stories To Read Before Watching Legion

Legion is set to bring 20th Century Fox’s X-Men franchise to television for the first time next week. The new series from Frago creator Noah Hawley stars Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey, Beauty and the Beast) as David Haller, a powerful mutant who believes he’s insane until one woman changes his life.

David Haller is a relatively obscure character from the Marvel Comics Universe. Known as Legion, David has had an interesting history, beginning with his lineage as Professor X’s son and ending with him writing himself out of the universe.

There’s only a few days left until Legion debuts, but it is never too late to do a little research. Here are five comics to check out ahead of Legion‘s debut.

New Mutants Classic Vol. 4

Where better to start learning about Legion that with his first appearance?

Legion first appeared in an issue of the original New Mutants series. The issue is collected in New Mutants Classic Vol. 4.

Until this issue, Professor X had no idea that he had a son. Legion’s mother, Gabrielle Haller, was a patient at a hospital Professor X worked at in Israel. The two fell in love for a time and Gabrielle did not tell Xavier that she was pregnant when they broke up.

Legion’s powers awoke when he survived a terrorist bombing. His personality became fractured into four uncontrollable and separate personalities. Gabrielle sought out Moira MacTaggert on Muir Island for help, and she studied and treated David away from Xavier.

Legion Quest

“Legion Quest” is the story where Legion went pretty much pure supervillain.

After the events of the “Muir Island Saga” – another Legion story that is worthy of your time but, unfortunately, not available in collected edition currently – Legion was left comatose.

Once Legion woke up, he had the idea to travel backwards in time and kill Magneto so that he would never cause trouble for Professor X.

Legion ends up killing Professor X instead, and before he ever put together the X-Men. This event splintered the timeline and created the dystopian “Age of Apocalypse” timeline, one of the biggest X-Men events of all time.

New Mutants: Return of Legion

After “Age of Apocalypse,” Legion disappeared for a while. It turned out he was trapped in the fragmented timeline even after the rest of reality returned to normal.

When the New Mutants reformed in the 21st century, Legion did as well. In the beginning, Legion’s personality was even more fractured that before and he was dangerous to everyone around him.

Eventually, the New Mutants were able to subdue Legion and, with the help of the X-Club, put his mind into some kind of order. It was later revealed that Magik had brought him to reality as part of a long plan for revenge against the Elder Gods.

Age of X

Once the issue with Magik and the Elder God was resolved, Professor X and Doctor Nemesis attempted to treat Legion disassociative identity disorder.

Legion’s mind took the treatment as an invasion. It created a new personality seeking to protect Legion.

The result was yet another reshaping of reality, this time into a world known as the “Age of X.”

In this universe, Legion was a hero who protects mutants from persecution by keeping them safe and isolated on an island nation, along with the other X-Men.

Eventually, Rogue discovered what was going on and freed the telepaths and they convinced Legion to turn everything back to normal.

X-Men: Legacy

If you only read one story about David Haller, it should be X-Men: Legacy by Simon Spurrier and Tan Eng Huat.

The story begins with David Haller dealing with the death of his father, Charles Xavier. David had recently found a sense of stability within his mind, but the shock of Xavier’s death caused new problems for Legion.

It also gave Legion a new sense of purpose and determination. X-Men: Legacy is about Legion rejected the paths put in front of him – playing hero with the X-Men or villain with the Brotherhood or some other mutant terrorist faction – and determining his own purpose.

Along the way, he creates a relationship with fellow mutant Blindfold and challenges all comers.