Warning! Spoilers for Way of X #2 ahead!
Professor Xavier’s son David Haller, aka Legion is one of the most powerful mutants in the world, and now the X-Men’s enemies have figured out how to use his mind to destroy the mutants. David, who is often mistakenly referred to as “schizophrenic” in the comics, has a vast collection of alternate personalities housed inside his brain, all of whom possess different powers. While in the past he has struggled to control these personalities and not let them control him, enemies have seen the potential that these myriad personalities can present in devising a strategy to take down the mutant nation of Krakoa.
The son of Charles Xavier and Gabrielle Haller, Legion has been both hero and villain to the X-Men throughout his lifetime. His most notable story came in the 1994 story “Legion Quest,” which saw him travel back in time in an attempt to destroy Magneto. However, he accidentally killed his father instead, creating the “Age of Apocalypse” timeline. While he was initially presented as having three distinct personalities, more recent stories have established that there are actually thousands of different personalities in his head, and what powers he displays are dependent on which personality is in control of him at a time. Most of his personalities’ powers are psychic in nature, but others grant him abilities such as super strength, flight, time manipulation and even the ability to belch acidic gas.
In Way of X #2 by Si Spurrier, Bob Quinn, Java Tartaglia, Clayton Cowles and Tom Muller, Legion reveals to Nightcrawler that the organization of anti-mutant scientists known as Orchis has taken David’s brain hostage and are keeping it in a facility in Saudi Arabia. They’ve used machines and drugs to lock David out of his own mind, and unleashed all of his personalities within his mindscape. Without David around to pacify the personalities, they run rampant within his mind. Nightcrawler and his fellow X-Men realize that this reality Orchis has created is supposed to be a simulation of Krakoa — a land where autonomous beings with different powers have an infinite amount of time. They eventually turn on each other, turning their society into a violent, hellish civilization meant to model the collapse of the mutant nation.
Believing the downfall of Krakoa is inevitable, Orchis uses Legion’s mind to figure out a way to accelerate the process by introducing the advanced Sentinel Nimrod into the equation. The presence of Nimrod speeds up the fall of the society exponentially. Prior to forming the nation of Krakoa, Xavier learned from the reincarnating mutant Moira MacTaggert that Nimrod defeats mutants and takes over the world in a potential future. Xavier has been vigilant about knowing when and where Nimrod will be created, and has taken actions like sending X-Men to destroy an Orchis facility near the sun and having Psylocke destroy a whole system of artificial intelligence. Though Orchis does not know the possible future that Professor X knows about, the simulations they run in Legion’s brain is sure to alert them to the importance of creating Nimrod.
Though all mutants appear to be united on Krakoa, the simulation seen in Legion’s brain raises the question of whether or not this can last. In the first issue of Way of X, Doctor Nemesis tells Nightcrawler that the most aggressive mutants are likely to step forward and craft the social ideals that rule the society. The ritual of Crucible, where de-powered mutants are murdered in a gladiatorial arena and resurrected with their powers, tracks with the projected future of mutants eventually tearing each other apart. It remains to be seen if Nightcrawler will share what he has seen with his fellow X-Men and how it will affect Krakoa’s future. But the visions seen in Legion’s brain prove that if the mutants do not work together, the humans will be able to easily bring about their downfall.