Nightcrawler, Legion, Juggernaut, and more form a mutant police force in Legion of X

As Marvel’s ‘Destiny of X’ relaunch of the X-Men line begins shaping up for its March and April rollout, the publisher has announced the details of another of the titles planned for ‘Destiny of X’ with the revelation of the cast and creative team of April’s Legion of X.

Written by Si Spurrier with art from Jan Bazaldua and covers from Dike Ruan and Bob Quinn, Legion of X focuses on Nightcrawler and Legion as they form a new team based around the religious ideas Nightcrawler put forth in Legion of X’s preceding title, Way of X, based around the concept of preserving the rights of mutants to “pursue happiness and hope.”

A teaser image, released with the announcement, sums up this mission succinctly, saying “We keep the peace. We keep the law. We keep the spark.” Meanwhile, the smaller, semi-hidden text reads “A new way.”

Originally announced as the ‘Legionnaires,’ the Legion of X team also includes magical mutant teleporter Pixie, precognitive mutant Blindfold, the unstoppable Juggernaut, and long-lived mutant scientist Doctor Nemesis, along with others still to be named, all operating out of a base on the psychic plane known as ‘The Altar.’

“For the first time, the Marvel Universe has this densely packed, beautiful (and beautifully volatile) population of superhumans, out in the open, all in one place,” Spurrier states in the Legion of X announcement.

“It needs peacekeepers, sure… but it’s a mistake to think of them as simply cops,” he continues. “You don’t get far in Krakoa if the limit of your imagination is beating people up or reaching for a gun. Mutant civilization needs those who think differently.”

As for what may lie in store for the Legion of X team, Marvel’s announcement promises both old foes and new villains, describing several planned stories for the title, including “a hunt for a missing Arakkii god, a skinjacker possessing innocent mutants, and a villain worth praying for.”

Spurrier himself states that Legion of X is one of the key building blocks of the next phase of the Marvel Universe, hinting at a major story to come – perhaps the recently teased ‘Judgment Day event.’

“It’s no exaggeration to say that the events you’ll encounter in Legion of X are dominos being flipped whose chains of repercussions will feed the greatest earthquake in modern comicdom, which is rumbling devastatingly down the pipe towards you even now,” Spurrier warns cryptically.

What does this all mean? We’ll start to find out when Legion of X #1 arrives on April 20. Stay tuned to Newsarama for Marvel’s full April 2022 solicitations, coming later this month.

Legion of X is just the latest X-revamp in a series of them for the new ‘Destiny of X’ era. Marvel has previously announced details for new titles Immortal X-Men, a new X-Force, a relaunched Marauders, a revamped Excalibur called Knights of X, and new Gambit series written by X-Men legend Chris Claremont.

Plus Wolverine is adding Deadpool as a series co-star, and Marvel dropped teasers for X-Men Red and a new 2022 version of the early 2021 fan vote that selected the last member (Polaris) of the core X-Men superhero team, and the X-Men (in some capacity) will be involved with the Avengers and the Eternals in Marvel’s 2022 big Marvel Universe event Judgment Day that the publisher says will change the mutant world’s relationship with the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes forever.

All of those titles are the reason Newsarama created our list of all new X-Men comics, graphic novels, and collections arriving in 2022.

I’ve been Newsarama’s resident Marvel Comics expert and general comic book historian since 2011. I’ve also been the on-site reporter at most major comic conventions such as Comic-Con International: San Diego, New York Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many weird pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)