FX has unveiled the first official trailer for the highly anticipated psychological thriller series Legion. The show is a collaboration between FX and Marvel and is essentially an X-Men TV series, albeit a wholly unique take on what you might think an X-Men TV series would be. Downton Abbey alum Dan Stevens stars as David Haller, a troubled young man who has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals for years, and who begins to wonder if the voices he hears and visions he sees might be real after a strange encounter. In the comics, Haller is the son of none other than Professor X, so you can see how this would be mighty alluring material to mine.

The twist, however, is that the show hails from Fargo creator Noah Hawley, who chose to stage Legion from David’s point of view. As such, it’s not immediately made clear that what David is seeing is real, and so we get something as twisty and delightfully insane as this trailer here. It basically looks like Mr. Robot but with superpowers.


Hawley hatched the idea for the show with X-Men: Days of Future Past and Apocalypse writer/producer Simon Kinberg, and he, Bryan Singer and Lauren Shuler Donner serve as executive producers on the series alongside Hawley, so there’s quite a bit of connective tissue here to the X-Men movie universe. However, much like Marvel’s Netflix series, this looks to be a very different flavor of X-Men, and I for one cannot wait.

Watch the Legion trailer below. The series also stars Rachel Keller, Jean Smart, Katie Asleton, Jeremie Harris, Amber Midthunder, Bill Irwin, and Aubrey Plaza. Legion will debut on FX in early 2017.

Here’s the official synopsis for Legion:

Legion follows David Haller, a troubled young man who may be more than human. Diagnosed as schizophrenic, David has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals for years. But after a strange encounter with a fellow patient, he’s confronted with the possibility that the voices he hears and visions might be real. Legion debuts in early 2017 and is produced by FX Productions and Marvel Television.

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Image via FX