For all that sci-fi television has become much more experimental narrative formulas in the age of streaming, one corner of the genre remains surprisingly attached to tradition: superhero shows. Even the most adventurous and ambitious superhero TV shows seem to eventually fall back into old storytelling habits. Even the series that deliberately lean into strangeness for a selling point do so with the promise that everything will eventually click into place and the true heroes and villains of the story will meet for a final showdown no matter how morally ambiguous they’d been up until that point.
That makes an often overlooked 2017-2019 FX series is deserving of much more recognition. Before Disney+ explored superhero surrealism through MCU shows like WandaVision and VisionQuest and Prime Video lambasted the entire genre with The Boys and Invincible, Legion was already dismantling expectations. Creator Noah Hawley was tasked with making a Marvel adaptation, and instead delivered a series that treats every scene as a chance to experiment. The show’s 27 episodes are dripping with confusion, discomfort, and unpredictability, and it makes for some thoroughly entertaining viewing.
In terms of the show’s premise, Legion follows David Haller (Dan Stevens), a psychiatric patient who discovers his mental health struggles are linked to extraordinary mutant abilities. While the series is loosely connected to Fox’s X-Men movies and draws from Marvel Comics mythology, Legion‘s plot stands on its own, and Noah Hawley used that independence to turn what could have been a standard superhero TV show into something truly unique.
Legion Defied Every Narrative Expectation
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From the moment it begins, literally nothing about Legion plays into expectations surrounding its plot and narrative structure. For example, most superhero shows spend time establishing a status quo for reality before introducing something that threatens it. Legion makes reality itself the problem. Memories can be manipulated, seemingly ordinary spaces become mental prisons, and it’s always unclear whether a scene is actually happening or just playing out inside someone’s head. Because David’s mental state means he can’t trust his own experience, the same applies for viewers too.
This combination of atmospheric surrealism and an incredibly unreliable narrator defines how Legion‘s story is told. The show’s 27 episodes include some incredibly avant-garde installments. Season 1’s “Chapter 7” turns escape from a mental institution into a black-and-white silent film sequence, while “Chapter 10” in season 2 depicts the confrontation between David and central antagonist The Shadow King using dance. This psychedelic approach gives Legion‘s psychic conflict its own unique style, making the show’s superpowered struggles more unsettling than a simple exchange of energy blasts or city-leveling fist fight.
It’s not only the scene-by-scene storytelling in Legion that flips expectations on its head. The wider narrative also dismantles a core theme of almost all superhero shows: discovering immense power means inheriting a heroic destiny. David eventually comes to see himself as burdened with glorious purpose, but his self-perception as a savior and the reality of his place in the world couldn’t be more different. His certainty that he deserves love and redemption increasingly justifies the harm he causes others, inverting the traditional message that power, heroism, and responsibility all go hand-in-hand.
Several superhero shows that arrived after Legion have also embraced unreliable perspectives, unconventional formats, and morally compromised “heroes”. Few, however, are able to sustain the sense that even their storytelling methods can unexpectedly change at any moment across three whole seasons. Legion may not be the most accessible series out there, but its experimental style shapes the entire experience. Its underlying uncertainty is inseparable from its explorations of what ideas like “truth” and “reality” even mean when everyone’s perception is subjective, and this thematic interest in turn means it breaks almost every narrative rule.
Legion Is Not Your Average Superhero Show
Calling Legion a superhero show is accurate as a description of its source material. The show incorporates X-Men characters such as David himself, the Shadow King, and even Professor Charles Xavier. As a description of actually watching it, however, the “superhero TV show” label is incredibly misleading. Sure, there are genre staples like mutants, secretive organizations, and potentially catastrophic powers, but the show itself has little interest in using these elements to construct a good vs. evil superhero narrative about saving the day.
If one were to assess Legion in a vacuum without considering its X-Men roots, psychological horror is a much more appropriate genre label. David’s mind is a thoroughly unsafe place where childhood memories conceal terrifying intrusions from outsiders, and apparent understanding is often just a trick to disguise more secrets. Alongside psychological horror, Legion also works as an experimental sci-fi series, using concepts like psychic spaces and, eventually, time travel to explore identity, responsibility, and the desire to rewrite painful experiences.
There’s also romance to be found, but once again, this isn’t the kind of love story usually found in superhero shows. David’s relationship with Syd Barrett (Rachel Keller) initially seems like it will be the source of a glimmer of hope, that it’s going to be a tale of two isolated people finally finding connection. However, like everything else in Legion, the love story soon gives way to some unsettling explorations of themes like consent, bodily autonomy, and manipulation. Since David and other characters can violate boundaries in ways ordinary people physically cannot, this leads to some truly disturbing moments.
That makes Legion the perfect superhero TV show for anyone suffering from superhero fatigue. It’s not a superhero story: it’s a deep and complex drama that just so happens to center on characters who first appeared in comic books. Its three-season arc is a psychedelic tragedy that uses its character’s spectacular abilities as tools to explore some truly dark ideas. Legion may technically be a superhero series, but it’s one that feels ideal for viewers who openly balk at them.
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