Lately, Marvel has been bombarding the big Screen and the television screen with huge amounts of content. Within the past few days at SDCC, Marvel has confirmed a third season for Daredevil on Netflix, and released trailers for Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Defenders, and just few months ago Marvel confirmed that The Punisher would be getting his own Netflix series. On top of that their entire line of comic based movies have seen massive success. Today at SDCC, Marvel released its first trailer for the new FX series Legion, a show that will bring their X-Men series to the small screen in live action.
Legion will be based off the Marvel character of the same name who first made his appearance in 1985 in the Marvel Comic New Mutants. In the comics, David Charles Haller (A.K.A. Legion) is the son of Charles Xavier, the leader of the X-Men, and Gabrielle Haller, a catatonic Holocaust survivor who was being treated by Charles who used his psychic abilities to help ease the trauma and horrors she had undergone. The two fell in love, but Gabrielle never informed Charles of her pregnancy and had the child in secrecy. Legion suffers from a severe mental illness, which includes a form of dissociative identity disorder. Each identity that Legion takes on controls one of his superpowers, including telepathy, pyrokinesis, time travel, and reality warping, essential making him one of the most powerful, but entirely unstable mutants on the planet.
The show will star Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) as the schizophrenic Legion and includes stars such as Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) and Katie Asleton (The League). The trailer highlights how unstable and psychotic Legion is, showing him twitching and fidgeting while looking disheveled, as if he hasn’t slept for days. The trailer also showcases his immense power, showing him destroying a room in what appears to be a psychotic episode, and having objects move around him when he shows signs of frustration. There is also a particularly amusing dance number, which adds to the sense that Legion has more than a few screws loose in his powerful mind. Just based off the trailer, I am already excited for Stevens’ portrayal of Legion in the show. He had already proved his skill while playing Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey, but his excellent delivery and great facial expressions and body movement in the trailer really show his range. To go from early 20th century aristocrat to schizophrenic mutant deserves some major props.
Legion will make its debut early 2017 on FX.