Legion (David Charles Haller) was the Marvel Comics character responsible for creating the alternate timeline known as the Age of Apocalypse.

Legion was an immensely powerful telekinetic and pyrokinetic, with the ability to pull astral forms into his mind. He was also autistic and schizophrenic.

David Haller is the son of Charles Xavier and Gabrielle Haller, who was one of his patients in an Israel mental facility while Xavier was secretly using his psychic powers to ease the pain of Holocaust survivors.

David was the sole survivor of a terrorist attack when he was very young, and he unconsciously used his vast powers to pull the minds of the terrorists into his own. That incident fractured his psyche, and he was eventually remanded to the care of Moira MacTaggert at the Muir Island mutant research facility.

During his time at Muir Island, David was possessed by the Shadow King, who used his powers to psychically increase the amount of hatred in the world, and fed off the malignant energy. The X-Men and X-Factor teams worked together to fight the influence of the Shadow King, and although they succeeded, the Shadow King broke Xavier's legs, confining him again to his wheelchair, and leaving David in a coma.

Three years later, David awoke from his coma, his fractured mind healed, and with a new goal in mind: he would help his father realize his dream of human-mutant coexistence by destroying Magneto, the greatest opposer of the dream. He goes to Israel and creates a black dome in the desert. Inside the dome, he creates a portal to take him 20 years into the past, where Xavier and Magneto are still orderlies at the mental hospital.

Several X-Men follow him, but are unable to prevent David from attacking Magneto with a psychic knife. David's attack is noticed by Xavier, who steps into the path of the attack, and dies.

Reality ceases to exist, replaced by a time where Apocalypse awakens early, roused by the mutant activity, and proceeds to conquer the world, creating the alternate timeline known as the Age of Apocalypse.

With the help of the Age of Apocalypse's X-Men, the time traveler Bishop managed to return to that point in time and take the shot intended for Magnus that Xavier would have taken. He then channelled that psychic energy back into David, showing him the horrors that he would have caused. The shock of this forced psychic bond killed both Legion and the alternate timeline version of Bishop.

External links

• Legion's entry at "Bring on the Bad Guys!"
• The Muir Island Saga crossover at UncannyXmen.Net
• The Legion Quest crossover at UncannyXmen.Net