Legacy Virus

In the fictional Marvel Universe, Legacy was a devastating plague that ripped through the mutant population, killing hundreds, and mutating so that it affected baseline humans as well, until it was cured almost overnight by the sacrifice of Colossus. The Legacy Virus storyline ran through various Marvel comics titles from 1993 to 2001.

Description

The Legacy Virus was actually a viroid, and was released by Stryfe, a terrorist from approximately 2,000 years in the future. It originally existed in two forms, Legacy-1 and Legacy-2, but later mutated into a third form, Legacy-3; all were airborne agents.

Legacy-1 and Legacy-2 searched for the "x-factor" -- the sequence of mutant genes that gave a mutant their superpowers -- in a target. If it did not find an activated "x-factor" in the target, the viroid would die off, leaving the person completely unaffected. If, however, it did find the "x-factor," it would begin inserting introns (junk DNA sequences) into the transcription codings of the victim's m-RNA. The purpose was to so thoroughly mess up replication and transcription that the end result would be that the victim would die when their body could no longer create healthy cells. Legacy-1 attacked general transcription and replication of all cells, a messy and non-selective process that resulted in something akin to a fast-replicating cancer. This is the version that Illyana "Magik" Rasputin, sister of Piotr "Colossus" Rasputin, was infected with. Legacy-2, however, was much closer to Stryfe’s original template and more in tune to his desire to stir a species war between humans and mutants. Its attacks were selective, working only on the x-factor genes. The net result was that a victim would eventually lose control of their superhuman powers, in addition to developing (at a far slower rate) the skin lesions, fever, cough, and overall weakness characteristic of Legacy-1. This is why St. John "Pyro" Allerdyce lived for years after infection.

Legacy-3 was a complete fluke, accidentally created in the body of the mutant woman known as Infectia. Infectia’s powers allowed her to scan and visualize the genetic structure of a living being, and then alter it according to her own whims; she was essentially a walking genetics laboratory. Infectia had herself been infected with the Legacy Virus, which her own powers tried to stave off. In doing so, they caused a replication error in the Legacy-2 viroid that was killing her. The pre-coded conditioning which Legacy-1 and -2 both had -- to not infect if no x-gene was found in the host -- was stripped from the viroid. When Henry "Beast" McCoy opened the containment chamber Infectia had been in (an act of compassion -- she had wanted one final look at the night sky), he inadvertently released this new "free agent" strain, which was capable of infecting any living being that fit within the parameters of its general original template (i.e. hominids only, not canines or felines or etc.). Moira MacTaggert, long-time ally of the mutant X-Men and one of Marvel Earth's top geneticists, seems to have been the first non-mutant human to be infected with Legacy-3. She passed on the data she'd gathered to McCoy (before being killed by an explosion at her research station, caused by the shapeshifting terrorist Mystique), and McCoy was able to devise a cure, though one that had a price.

Mystique had also created (or had created for her) a strain of the Legacy viroid that only attacked and killed non-mutant humans, leaving mutants completely untouched.

History

During the X-Cutioner's Song crossover, the villain Stryfe gave Mister Sinister a canister that he claimed contained two thousand years worth of genetic material from the Summers bloodline. When Sinister opened it after Stryfe was apparently killed by Cable, he found nothing inside. Far worse than that, the canister actually contained a plague, Stryfe's "Legacy" to the world.

When Colossus's sister Illyana fell ill and died, he left the X-Men and joined Magneto's Acolytes, but later returned. His teammate Beast developed a cure for the virus, but in order for it to be quickly dispersed, a mutant had to sacrifice themselves. Colossus did not want any more to die as Illyana had, so he injected himself with the Legacy cure and activated his mutant powers (transforming into organic steel), which super-charged the Legacy cure and killed him.

The X-Men found him lying on the floor, dead, but Legacy had been stopped. Much later, it was revealed he had been resurrected by alien technology and was being used as a 'guinea pig' for a formula that would reverse mutations, before being rescued by the X-Men.

Unfortunately, this rapid cure had unforseen geo-political effects. Thousands of Legacy-infected mutants and mutates had been quarantined on the island nation of Genosha, ruled by Magneto at the time. The instant cure gave Magneto a vast army overnight, and he plotted world conquest in the Eve of Destruction crossover.

External links

Quarantine: the Legacy Virus Page (http://panther.bsc.edu/~bassaf/quarantine/)