“My name is Legion, for we are many” - The X-Men’s Legion Comes to FX
Now that the X-Men Cinematic Universe (XMU) seems to be moving in the right direction after their last summer block busters, X-Men: Days of Future’s Past and X-Men: Age of Apocalypse, 20th Century Fox and Marvel will be extending the XMU onto the small screen, with a series about the mutant Legion. The show will be produced by Noah Hawley, the man behind the FX adaptation of Fargo, Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer, and Simon Kinberg. Legion will tell the story of David Haller, played by Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens, a mutant diagnosed with schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, who learns that, after years of being in and out of psychiatric hospitals, the voices he hears in his head and the visions he sees may actually be real. Dan Stevens will accompanied by Parks and Recreations’ Aubrey Plaza, who will be playing Legion’s friend, Lenny, and Jean Smart and Rachel Keller from Fargo will be joining the cast as Melanie, a therapist. Following the trend of the other Marvel television properties that have been placed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Legion will be placed in the XMU, however, there will not be any huge cameos from well “iconic” mutants like Cyclops, Jean Grey, Professor X, etc. Hawley in an interview with HitFix said, he wants Legion to be a “stand alone kind of thing.” He wants the to keep those characters out of the series to help make it more unpredictable and creative, because like he said, some of those iconic characters “come with rules.” Hawley really wants this series to explore David’s character and his dark narrative.
In the comics Legion is the son of Professor Charles Xavier and Gabrielle Haller, and seems to constantly be at war with himself, the splintered pieces of consciousness and the personalities that he has absorbed and are trying to take control of his body. Because of his unstable mental state, Legion is made out to be an anti hero, who seems to be doing all the wrong things for the right reasons. After recovering from a coma and being possessed by the Shadow King, Legion decides that he wants to help his father realize his dream of peaceful human/mutant coexistence, and to do this he goes back in time to kill Magneto. Long story short he ends up killing his father Professor X and causing the Age of Apocalypse. And this caused another chain of events that led to him being hunted down by the X-Men. It seemed as if this would be his entire existence; a poor, misunderstood, anti-hero, who only wants to help, but can never get it right. But, after Rogue discovers that Legion has an ever expanding amount of personalities and powers that come with each of those personalities, safe guards are placed on Legion’s mind and many of the personalities are placed in cells through out his mind.
Noah Hawley most likely will not be drawing much from Legion’s earlier stories, but he will probably borrow elements from Legion’s most recent stories in X-Men: Legacy, written by Simon Spurrier (very much worth the read). This series focuses on Legion and his journey to self realization and conquering his, very real, inner demons. It’s almost like a coming of age series, where Legion learns new things about himself and how to stand on his own. I feel that this will be where Hawley draws most of the inspiration for the show, because it’s centered around Legion’s own personal journey. Also a major plot tool in the comic book series was that they showed the reader what’s happening in Legion’s mind, and it was illustrated as either a large high tech prison where personalities were locked, or as a mad house where monsters ran wild looking to take control of his body. Hopefully Hawley will use this same tool in his series.
The producers and Noah Hawley certainly have their work cut out for them with this project, but knowing that there’s producers like Hawley and Singer behind the wheel is extremely comforting.
