Legacies Reveals Landon Shares Supernatural Powers with an X-Man

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Legacies: [SPOILER]'s Death Is a Nod To a Classic X-Men Storyline

By Tim Adams

Published Mar 8, 2019

The latest episode of Legacies finally revealed Landon's supernatural powers, and they're tied to one of the X-Men's classic storylines.

WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for "The Boy Who Still Has a Lot of Good To Do," the latest episode of The CW's Legacies.

Fans of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals spinoff, Legacies, have been dying to find out what the deal is with the mysterious Landon. Is he a supernatural like Hope, Rafael and the rest of the students at The Salvatore Boarding School for the Young and Gifted? Or is Landon just an ordinary teenager who has gotten himself involved in things he'll never understand?

The latest episode, "The Boy Who Still Has a Lot of Good To Do," finally provided an answer by not only killing Landon, but also linking his big resurrection to a fan-favorite X-Men storyline.

Ever Heard The Legend Of The Phoenix?

The majority of "The Boy Who Still Has a Lot of Good To Do" revolved around Alaric, Hope and Kaleb investigating the disappearance of Landon, Rafael and MG when the three young men went to visit MG's family. Though MG was reluctant to reconnect with his parents, Landon kept pushing for a family reunion. This turned out to be a bad idea since MG's religious father wasn't aware his son was back from the dead as a living vampire.

After being shunned by his father, MG lashed out at Landon, causing him to lose control over his vampiric bloodlust. While all of this was going on, Rafael was chained to a tree because of the full moon changing him into a werewolf. Rafael was forced to watch as MG unleashed his fangs deep into Landon's neck, killing him.

The final moments of the episode brought Hope, Alaric, Kaleb, MG and Rafael together in the woods at the site of Landon's death. As they stood over his corpse, Landon's body began to emit smoke and suddenly burst into flames. All that was left after the fire ended was a shell made of hardened ash around the body. If that wasn't crazy enough, Landon emerged from the shell good as new.

"What's going on?" Landon asked his shocked friends as he stood up. Alaric replied, "You ever heard of the Legend of the Phoenix?" which of course is a reference to the powerful mystical bird that is also associated with Jean Grey, the X-Men and "The Dark Phoenix Saga."

Chris Claremont and John Byrne's "The Dark Phoenix Saga" saw Jean Grey become corrupted after becoming the host of the Phoenix Force following her death. The story arc concluded with Jean's dying again after sacrificing herself, though it would later be revealed the Jean that was driven crazy by the Phoenix was actually a duplicate, with her original body still intact. Marvel recently brought Jean back from yet another death in the Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey miniseries.

Legacies may have finally solved its Landon mystery, but it also raises all-new questions. How did Landon gain the power of the Phoenix? If he were to die a second time, would the Phoenix continue to bring him back to life? Also, does Landon now have any other cool powers, like shooting flames from his hands or flight? Hopefully, Landon will only share being a host for the Phoenix with Jean Grey, and not her convoluted and complicated history with the entity.