Legion of X is a 2022 comic book series published by Marvel Comics. It's written by Simon Spurrier, initially with art by Jan Bazaldua and color art by Federico Blee.
Set in the shared Marvel Universe, the series is part of the wider X-Men line and is one of several new books launched for Destiny of X, the third phase of the long-running Krakoan Age saga. It's effectively a Sequel Series for Spurrier's previous X-Men series, Way of X, which starred many of the same characters.
After defeating Onslaught, Nightcrawler and Legion have formed a squad with three jobs Keep the Peace! Keep the Law! Keep the Spark! They will preserve the culture, and way of Krakoa and mutant happiness with the help of Pixie, Dr. Nemesis, Dust, Forget-Me-Not, Juggernaut, and Blindfold.
The series ran for 10 issues before Sins of Sinister, a Bat Family Crossover set in a Bad Future, replaced it with a limited series called Nightcrawlers.
After Sins of Sinister, Before the Fall: Sons of X, a one-shot prelude to the Fall of X storyline, serves as a finale for Legion of X. Following that epilogue and the 2023 Hellfire Gala, Spurrier will be continuing Kurt's storyline into Uncanny Spider-Man.
Legion of Tropes
- Abusive Parents: While Margali's never been a saint, she willingly accepts a job from Orchis to transform mutants into bloodthirsty monsters, including her own adopted son. When Kurt finds her, Margali shows no remorse, instead taunting him and literally removing the hope from his soul before leaving him for Orchis to collect.
- Advertised Extra: Dust is on the first cover, and was mentioned in the publicity material, but plays a very small part in the series. Her role in the Legion means that she's rarely in human form or investigating alongside her colleagues.
- And I Must Scream: Uqesh the Bridge, Ora Serrata's predecessor, lives on as a severed head in a closed box, pleading for the mercy of death. His power is too useful to lose, though, so the box is opened whenever Arakko needs to force a troublesome god to manifest.
- Back for the Dead: Warlock's father, the Magus, returns in a flashback showing that Nimrod's killed him. Legion breaks the news to Warlock.
- Back from the Dead: Ruth Aldine (aka Blindfold) is back after being dead since Uncanny X-Men (2018).
- Badass Boast: Switch, the body snatcher haunting Krakoa, gives one regarding his exploits, both against Krakoa's mutants and against unsuspecting humans.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Averted. Mr Sinister believes that he and Dr. Nemesis have this. He's wrong, Nemesis flat out hates him.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Blindfold confronts Xavier in his dreams demanding he reconcile with David, as the latter's obsession over the former's neglect is holding him back from his full potential. She effortlessly dismantles his arguments and excuses; saying that David has far more capability than he gives him credit for not acting on the trauma his neglect and abuse inflicted and the notion he couldn't have known David existed is a transparent lie. This reduces Xavier to tears.
- Continuity Nod: Birdy, resurrected at the end of the Sabretooth (2022) series, is mentioned to be working with the Legion as a counsellor.
- Crossover Cosmology: The Marvel Universe already has many different deities from across human history. The first issue of Legion of X adds the Hurrian pantheon, worshipped by the people of the same name who lived in Iraq, Syria and Turkey around 2000 BC. That said, we only meet sky god Teshup the Thunderer, and after Ora Serrata carries out her judgment, he's not part of that universe any more.
- Deadly Gaze: Ora Serrata's power means that anyone she sees and actively looks at will cease to exist. She demonstrates on the unfortunate sky god Teshup the Thunderer.
- Decapitation Presentation: Uqesh the Bridge's still-living severed head is kept in a box on Arakko. His successor Ora Serrata has someone open the box and brandish him so that his powers can force Teshup to appear.
- The Disembodied: Blindfold was resurrected but rejected placement in her husk because her precognition brought her nothing but pain. Free of her physical form on the Astral Plane, she's capable of using her clairvoyance to instead remain in the present and detect psychic impressions from deep space, which is how she learns of Magus' death at Nimrod's hands.
- Do You Want to Copulate?: Once Nightcrawler confirms that he's not bound by a vow of celibacy, Weaponless Zsen makes her interest very clear.Weaponless Zsen: Good. You're very pretty. Your skin reminds me of a lichen that grows on the battlefields of Amenth. We ought to $%&#.Nightcrawler: Wuh.
- Dream Land: Blindfold describes the part of the Astral Realm that she, Kurt, and Weaponless Zsen travel to as the dreams of Krakoa and its people.
- Erotic Dream: Kurt is embarrassed when the Astral Realm reveals to Weaponless Zsen that he has these about her.
- For the Evulz: According to Switch in his Badass Boast:Switch: I've emptied bank accounts and past diktat through the mouths of leaders. I've made deals in borrowed blood. I've showed you— you smug $%&@#&$ with your perfect bodies and your polycules and your indifference to death— I've showed you how fragile your little identities really are. And yet? The simplest explanation never even occurs to you— It's fun.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Xabi's Heroic Sacrifice leaves him justifiably forgotten. Out of the team accompanying him, only Lost was wearing the earplugs that allow Xabi to be remembered despite his power, and they're shaken loose in the final battle.
- Grand Theft Me: Mutant bodysnatcher Switch is attacking Krakoa's population this way.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Forget-Me-Not pulled a date with Lost where they apparently hit it off. This leads to him acting jealously snippy when Lost demonstrates familiarity with Nightcrawler's home and how to enter it.
- Hands Go Down: In Issue #7, when Nightcrawler asks if anyone has any questions that are not about the horns that are now growing out of his forehead.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Warlock, corrupted by Nimrod, asks Doug to kill him before he destroys all of Krakoa. Doug can't bring himself to do it, so Xabi does.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Disgusted by seeing Legion share his power with Xavier, Mother Righteous checks on Vox Ignis, thinking they know not to share power. To her surprise, they're empowering Juggernaut the way most spirits of vengeance empower their rides.
- Keystone Army: Nimrod's Krakoan sentinels aren't entirely independent, and they fall within a couple of seconds when Xabi kills Warlock's and cuts off Nimrod's connection to the island. Not quickly enough to save Xabi from their retaliation, though.
- Kill the God: The first issue shows that the Arakkii use the head of Uqesh the Bridge to forcibly manifest any god that tries to proselytize their people. They then all engage in trial by combat, where the only option is to yield or die.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Ora Serrata, holder of Arakko's Seat of Law, is eventually revealed as a Dirty Cop and antagonist for the first arc. However, the arc is set prior to the war shown in the Judgment Day event, which started publication in other comics at the same time. A X-Men Red (2022) tie-in, released on the same day as the crooked cop reveal, revealed that Ora Serrata's still in her post at the end of the arc, when that conflict reaches Arakko.
- Mouthful of Pi: Margali Szardos incapacitates Dr. Nemesis by forcing him to try and calculate pi to the final digit.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: The Spirit of Variance that's bonded to Banshee is revealed to be a Spirit of Vengeance that decided Revenge Is Not Justice and seeks alternative ways to go about avenging innocents. It was persecuted by its peers as a mutation and they banded together to ensure its destruction.
- Mythology Gag: Pixie claims Magneto does an uncanny impression of Gandalf.
- Nay-Theist: The Arakkii, warriors that they are, refuse to worship any god that does not prove worthy of them by winning in combat against all of them at once.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: One of the many consequences apparent with moving Arakko to Mars is that there are a lot of opportunistic gods on the lookout for new worshippers. The Arakkii have been vehemently rejecting them multiple times, which is inconvenient because they do it all together.
- Oculothorax: Ora Serrata, holder of the Chair of Law on Arakko's governing Great Ring. A baby-like human body atop a single huge, floating eye. Her head is a couple of tentacles, like a slug's eyestalks, looping round to the back of her eye upon which she sits.
- Oh, Crap!: Hurrian deity Teshup the Thunderer, who has found new worshippers among the Arakki, gives a small "oh crap" when he's forced to manifest and face judgment. He's not wrong, either, as Ora Serrata annihilates him when he fails to triumph or yield a few pages later.
- Only in It for the Money: Margali Szardos doesn't care about Orchis' agenda either way, but she's helping them out because they're paying her.
- Poisonous Person: A downplayed example. Paulie "the Pall" DiCosta has some level of Power Incontinence, with smoke regularly emitting from his body. It’s revealed that long-term exposure to his presence led to his wife's death, either causing or aggravating lung cancer.
- Power Perversion Potential: In Issue #4, Zsen comments how Nightcrawler's tail contributed to make sex with him that great.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: As shown in Way of X, Kurt's a bit of a mess, Legion’s a total mess, Nemesis is a mad scientist, and Pixie and Dust are the ones trying to hold things together. Now they're joined by Xavier’s stepbrother Cain Marko and Forget-Me-Not.
- Red Is Heroic: The Team all has red in their outfits.
- Sequel Series: Directly follows on from Spurrier's Way of X series; is in turn followed by Spurrier's Uncanny Spider-Man
- Series Continuity Error: The Judgment Day tie-in issue (#6) expands on Isca's betrayal of Arakko and murder of Idyll the Future Seer, as initially seen in X-Men Red (2022). However, it depicts the wrong victim, her grandfather Idyll the Ancestor (as seen in flashbacks to Arakko's war with Amenth, decades in the past). He's identified as male in dialogue too, so it's not just an art error.
- Token Human:
- Juggernaut is the only member of the team that is not a mutant, being a human empowered by magic.
- Subverted with Weaponless Zsen - Kurt initially assumes she's human, as the Arakki refer to mutant gifts as "weapons", but it's just that her power isn't relevant to combat.
- Trial by Combat: The Arakki justice system involves challenges in the Circle Perilous. Not all challenges are combat, but many are. Losers yield or die. Fleeing a challenge is considered a great crime in its own right and deserters are hunted down for execution.
- Unseen No More: Ora Serrata's been mentioned in previous books featuring Arakki mutants, but has never actually appeared, remaining The Ghost. The first issue of Legion of X finally introduces her.
