Tag (comics)

Several fictional groups of mutants have used the name the Hellions in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The Hellions have always been portrayed as rivals of various teams of younger mutant heroes in the X-Men franchise, initially as actual villains and later on a team that was more of a school rival than actual enemies of the X-Men.

The first and most notable incarnation of the Hellions were students of Emma Frost and the Hellfire Club's Massachusetts Academy, and were rivals of the New Mutants. The original Hellions first appeared in ''New Mutants'' #16 (June 1984), created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Sal Buscema. This version of the Hellions ended after an attack by Trevor Fitzroy and a squadron of Sentinels that killed several Hellions.

Two later groups known as the Hellions or New Hellions both fought against various X groups such as Generation X and X-Force. In ''New X-Men: Academy X'' (2004), a new group of Hellions were introduced. This time they were a part of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning – the Hellions were one of several factions that the students were divided into including the New Mutants, with whom they had a rivalry. The Hellions were also the focus of a miniseries titled ''New X-Men: Hellions'' (2005). After the majority of mutants lost their powers in the '' Decimation'' storyline, the students were combined into one squad as the number of mutants was greatly reduced.

During the Krakoan Age, as part of the ''Dawn of X'' publishing initiative, a new ongoing series titled ''Hellions'' launched in March 2020 which focused on the most dangerous mutant outcasts. It ended with issue #18 in December 2021 during the ''Reign of X'' publishing initiative.

Hellions (Massachusetts Academy)

The original group of Hellions were apprentices of the Hellfire Club and students of its White Queen (Emma Frost). While attending classes at Frost's Massachusetts Academy, these young mutants secretly trained in the use of their powers in an underground complex beneath the school. They were longtime rivals of Professor Charles Xavier's students, the New Mutants, and once held their own against the X-Men. The original Hellions were:

* Catseye (Sharon Smith), an American girl who could transform into a purple feline or semi-feline state and shift her size between that of a house cat or a panther. This granted her razor sharp claws, enhanced senses and physical attributes, plus a prehensile tail. Catseye originally believed she was a cat with the ability to transform into a human.
* Empath (Manuel de la Rocha); a handsome, yet cruel and arrogant young Spanish man with the ability to sense and manipulate the emotions of others.
* Jetstream (Haroum ibn Sallah al-Rashid), from Morocco, could generate bio-thermal energy that allowed him to propel himself through the air and move at superhuman speeds. Aided in flight by bionically implanted jets that focus his energies and a cybernetic guidance system.
* Roulette (Jennifer Stavros), an American girl from Atlantic City who could psionically influence probabilities, usually through colored disks of energy she generated and threw towards her targets: white disks for good luck, black disks for bad.
* Tarot (Mari-Ange Colbert), a good-natured girl from Lyons, France who had the ability to see past and future events of other people due to a combination of her mutant powers and her tarot cards. She could also materialize and animate tangible images of the 2-D avatars/images on her tarot cards. Once materialized they were completely under her mental control and could do her bidding, including aiding her in battle and flight.
* Thunderbird (James Proudstar), the younger brother of deceased X-Man John Proudstar (the original Thunderbird), who possessed similar superhuman physical attributes, senses, and a healing ability. He reformed and has served on the several X-Men teams under the codename Warpath, and is currently a member of the X-Men.

White Emma Frost had another potential Hellion in Firestar (Angelica Jones), but kept the girl from joining the team on field missions while grooming her to be Frost's personal assassin. Firestar eventually learned of Frost's plans and left the Massachusetts Academy.

After suffering a severe trauma at the hands of the Beyonder, a number of the New Mutants were transferred to the Massachusetts Academy by Magneto (then headmaster of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters), due to their apparent need for psychic therapy from Emma Frost. While at the academy, the transferred New Mutants — Cannonball, Wolfsbane, Karma, Cypher, Magik, and Magma — were inducted into the Hellions. They soon returned to Xavier's School after their recovery and the revelation that the White Queen had employed Empath to coerce Magneto into allowing the transfer. After an alliance between the X-Men and the Hellfire Club and Magneto's ascension to the Inner Circle as its White King, relations between the Hellions and the New Mutants improved.

Magma, realizing that she held feelings for Empath, eventually returned to the Hellions and the Massachusetts Academy; the two would later leave the team to travel to her home in Nova Roma. James Proudstar also left the Hellions, re-emerging with Cable and the remnants of the New Mutants in X-Force.

Superstrong and durable Beef (Buford Wilson) and bioelectricity-projecting Bevatron (Fabian Marechal-Julbin) were later additions to the group. They were present when the Hellions unsuccessfully challenged the New Warriors over the allegiance of their former member, Firestar.

The original Hellions, however, came to an end when Trevor Fitzroy and a squadron of Sentinels attacked a Hellfire Club function; Jetstream and Beef were killed immediately, while Tarot, the rest of the Hellions and many guests that were erroneously believed to be unnamed Hellions were captured and drained of their life energies by Fitzroy. Emma Frost's guilt over her students' deaths led to her eventual reform.
These Hellions were some of the many deceased mutants resurrected via the Transmode Virus by Selene and Eli Bard during the "Necrosha" storyline running through ''New Mutants'', ''X-Force'' and '' X-Men: Legacy''. They survived and are once again acting as a team.

With the establishing of the new sovereign mutant nation of Krakoa, the original Hellions and Bevatron, now free of the Transmode Virus, have all taken up residence there.

Emplate's Hellions

The next group of Hellions was organized by the parasitic Emplate to attack Generation X, the new class of Emma Frost's students. This group appeared twice, in ''Generation X'' (1994) #11–12 and 57, with slightly different members:

* Bulwark (Oswald Boeglin) - Bulwark could expand his muscle mass. He would reappear alongside Emplate, but was later captured and killed by the revamped Weapon X program. He was only a member during the team's first appearance.
* D.O.A. (George Baker) - D.O.A. is an energy vampire much like Emplate and his skin is invulnerable to most damage.
* Gayle Edgerton - A psychic vampire and the former girlfriend of Generation X's Chamber. Emplate took her powers back when she switched sides after she helped capture Chamber. She was only on the team during its first appearance.
* Murmur (Allan Rennie) - Murmur could open teleportation portals within his line of sight. Depowered.
* Nocturne (Bridget Warner) - Nocturne controls an ebon energy. She was part of Emplate's second team.
* Vincente (Vincente Cimetta) - Vincente can change his body from solid to liquid or gas. He can make his gas state poisonous to inhale. An alternate version had previously appeared as a member of the Age of Apocalypse's Generation Next.
* Wrap (Nick Bisley) - Wrap possesses super strength. He is an energy being whose bandages hold him together. He was part of Emplate's second team.

The New Hellions

A group of self-proclaimed "New Hellions" emerged to fight X-Force, in ''X-Force'' #87–90, whose members included some from the team's past:

* Bedlam (Jesse Aaronson) - Bedlam can produce a bioelectrical field that disrupts electrical systems. He briefly defected from X-Force to join his brother and the New Hellions.
* Feral (Maria Callasantos) - Feral possesses superhuman speed, agility, reflexes and senses. She has a limited healing factor, claws and a tail. A former member of X-Force, she was killed by Sabretooth after being depowered. After her death she was given the chance to return as a ghost under the service of deities and demons.
* King Bedlam (Christopher Aaronson) - Jesse Aaronson's older brother, with whom he shares the same kind of disruption powers.
* Magma (Amara Aquilla) - Magma could control fire, heat, magma and tectonic plates. She needs to be in her magma form to use these abilities to their full potential. She is a former New Mutant.
* Paradigm - Paradigm was a mutant infused with techno-organic material extracted from the alien Phalanx. His head is shown being used to infiltrate the Beast's files. Cyclops destroyed it.
* Switch (Devon Alomar) - Switch is able to switch minds with an individual in order to possess their body.
* Tarot (Mari-Ange Colbert) - Tarot is an original Hellion inexplicably resurrected; Tarot's life was somehow joined to King Bedlam. When he was depowered, she died again.

Xavier Institute

After the reopening of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning various training squads are formed. One such group of students, under the tutelage of headmistress Emma Frost, is dubbed "the Hellions". They have an intense rivalry with another such group, the New Mutants, echoing the relationship between the two original groups of the same names. Membership consists of:

* Dust (Sooraya Qadir) - Dust can convert her body into a malleable cloud of dust that she can manipulate at will and which grants immunity to magic. She was one of the 27 students at the Xavier Institute to retain her powers after M-Day. Dust was a member of the X-Men and a student at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, and was later a member of Krakoa.
* Hellion (Julian Keller) - The leader of the Hellions; possesses high-level telekinesis. He was one of the 27 students at the Xavier Institute to retain his powers after M-Day. He was a student at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning and a member of the X-Men, he later joined the nation of Krakoa until its fall. He is now known as the Krakoan.
* Icarus (Joshua Guthrie) - Icarus has the power of flight, a limited healing factor, and the ability to mimic any sound he hears. He was killed by William Stryker, and later resurrected on Krakoa.
* Mercury (Cessily Kincaid) - Mercury's body is composed of non-toxic inorganic liquid mercury that she can mold into any shape at will, stick to walls with and become protected from magical attacks. She is one of the 27 students at the Xavier Institute to retain her powers after M-Day. She was a student at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning and a member of the X-Men, later joining the mutant nation of Krakoa.
* Rockslide (Santo Vaccarro) - Rockslide can form animated rock bodies for himself that grants him superhuman strength, durability and endurance. In addition, Rockslide is able to violently detonate his entire body at will and then reform on command. Santo is one of the 27 students at the Xavier Institute to retain his powers after M-Day. He was a student at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning and a member of the X-Men. He died while in Otherworld and was resurrected on Krakoa without his soul. His body is now known as Wrongslide.
* Specter (Dallas Gibson) - Specter could merge with his shadow to increase his strength, speed and durability. In this shadow form, he could see in darkness and was immune to darkness-based attacks. Shortly after the squads are formed, he was transferred twice, ending up on the Corsairs squad. He was depowered during M-Day and living with his grandparents. He is currently dating Graymalkin.
* Tag (Brian Cruz) - Tag could place a psionic imprint upon himself or others that attracted or repelled other people. He was depowered during M-Day. Brian dies on the bus that is bombed by William Stryker. He was resurrected on Krakoa.
* Wither (Kevin Ford) - Wither can decay organic matter by his "death touch". He is one of the 27 students at the Xavier Institute to retain his powers after M-Day. After this, he comes under the influence of Selene and is killed by Elixir. He was resurrected on Krakoa.

The four issue miniseries ''New X-Men: Hellions'' (2005), by writers Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir with art by Clayton Henry, focused on the Hellions spending the summer in California.

Rich Shivener, in his 2014 essay "No Mutant Left Behind: Lessons from ''New X-Men Academy X''", wrote that "what's interesting is that both New Mutants and Hellions have qualities of heroism and villainy, not to mention diverse thinking and being. More importantly, ''New X-Men: Academy X'''s depictions of squad-based learning and formations, with respect to New Mutants and Hellions, further reflects practices among private schools, as well as military schools", of sorting students into groups or houses. In a review of the ''New X-Men Academy X – The Complete Collection'' trade paperback, Eric Alex Cline of ''AIPT'' thought the Hellions were the only characters to "show promise" and that the Hellions limited series in the collection was "easily the best part of the book". On the limited series, Cline commented that "while the actual villain of the series is rather bland, he helps set the stage for the Hellions to get some solid character development. Some of the most interesting conflicts take place between the mutant teens and their human parents who sometimes fail to protect their children, and who even show prejudice toward them. It's a cool situation to see handled on the page, especially since the mutant metaphor doesn't always stretch that far".

After M-Day, the cataclysmic event that decimated the world's mutant population, only 27 of the 182 students enrolled at the Xavier Institute retain their powers, and the remaining students are folded into a single training squad, the New X-Men. For the Hellions, only Tag and Specter were depowered.

All-New Hellions (Hellfire Academy)

After the events of Avengers vs. X-Men, the new Black King of the Hellfire Club, Kade Kilgore, creates the Hellfire Academy, a school for training mutants to be villains. Kilgore recruits for his school some former students of the X-Men and creates a new team of Hellions.

Krakoan Hellions

A ''Hellions'' title was launched March 2020 as part of the ''Dawn of X'' publishing initiative during the Krakoan Age. Written by Zeb Wells, and drawn by Stephen Segovia, the initial cast comprised Empath, Havok, Mister Sinister, Nanny, Orphan-Maker, Psylocke, Greycrow, and Wild Child. For the majority of the series, Segovia was the lead artist "but key chapters were also illustrated by Carmen Carnero, Ze Carlos, and Roge Antonio, among others". On the setup of the series, Wells commented:

I wanted to pick at some of the complicated issues that were caused by the mutant society coming together. I really like what nowiki/>Jonathan Hickman">Jonathan_Hickman.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Jonathan Hickman">nowiki/>Jonathan Hickmanhad done, where as long as you're a mutant you can come live on this island because it was going to be a utopia. But there are some very weird characters who have done some very terrible things. I didn't want it to seem like that would be brushed under the carpet, I wanted to dig into that. We could play with the larger issues of what a society does with the people who can't fit in, or don't want to fit in.

The series was cancelled in 2021 with issue #18 (December 2021) as its last. ''Hellions'' established some of the groundwork for Hickman's ''Inferno'' (September 2021 – January 2022) event. '' CBR'' noted that the series retired Greycrow's "racist" Scalphunter codename, which debuted during the 1986 Mutant Massacre">Comic Book Resources">CBR'' noted that the series retired Greycrow's "racist" Scalphunter codename, which debuted during the 1986 Mutant Massacre storyline, in the second issue of the series and that Greycrow had major "character development" with a shift towards redemption and heroics during this series. In January 2021, Wells highlighted that Greycrow "carries the themes of the book most explicitly". The character jumped out to Wells during the series "earliest brainstorming stages" – Wells stated, "I see a character who came from pain and violence and then repeated the cycle again and again and never stopped to ask if that is who he really wants to be. And now he's seeing the world change around him, but not sure if ''he'' can change".

''Hellions'' was #6 on ''Entertainment Weekly'''s "The 10 best comics of 2021" list — Christian Holub opined that since the Krakoan Age relaunch, "the most compelling" X-Men series "was definitely ''Hellions'', which assembled the weirdest, most misfit mutants ..and tried to find a place for them in paradise. From team leader Mr. Sinister's constant backstabbing to Psylocke's psychic swordplay, ''Hellions'' delivered one entertaining story after another until this month's 18th and final issue, which managed to wrap up all of its plot threads and put a cathartic capper on its various characters' quests for redemption". Following issue #18, Lia Williamson of ''AIPT'' noted that "''Hellions'' ends the series just as it began: it's emotional, it's weird, and it's delightful" with the final scene focused on a "touching moment between Kwannon and Greycrow, the emotional backbone of this series", which "ends the series on a hopeful note and quite frankly, a happy one". Williamson viewed the series as "both the underdog and sleeper hit of the X-Men relaunch" – "now that the series has reached its conclusion, it's safe to say that it's the closest to perfect an X-Men series has been in the Krakoa era".

Brandon Zachary for ''CBR'' commented that "each of the Hellions is arguably in a better place emotionally and mentally than where they were at the beginning of the series, even if some of their personal situations have become worse. ..The Hellions represented the possibility that mutants could grow from their darker impulses and tendencies, and become better people. And while the team as it was constructed might be done, the concept was clearly a success". In a retrospective at the end of the Krakoan Age, Scott Redmond for ''ComicsXF'' highlighted the ''Hellions'' as a stand out title. Redmond commented that the series "looked at how those that are broken, outcast, wrapped in darkness, fit into a so-called paradise. It was one of the first titles to really start to poke holes in the Krakoan system, that still was employing methods of punishment and control similar to the world they left behind. This series took characters that we should not want to even glance at and made them empathetic, funny, relatable, and came with heartbreak".

Cast

King Bedlam's Hellions

Following the fall of Krakoa, King Bedlam reorganized the Hellions. The team consistis now of King Bedlam, Jesse Bedlam, Boom-Boom, Locus and Fantomex. They are destroying O*N*E* bases that have to do with the supply and archives part of the organisation. They start in a server hall in Chicago.

Other versions

Age of Apocalypse

The original Hellions appear briefly in an alternate universe depicted in the ''Age of Apocalypse'' storyline as former agents of Apocalypse. After his death, they become renegades and are hunted down and captured by the X-Men on the United States government's behalf.

House of M

In an alternate universe depicted in the ''House of M'' storyline, the Hellions exist as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s "Hellion Squad", led by Danielle Moonstar and consisting of Hellion, Magik, Quill, Surge, Synch, and Wind Dancer. ''New X-Men'' (Vol. 2) #16

Issues

Volume 1

Collected editions

See also

*Hellfire Club (comics)
*Massachusetts Academy (comics)
*New Mutants

References

External links

Uncannyxmen.net article on the original HellionsUncannyxmen.net article on the New HellionsHellions Squad Page at UXN.net

{{Chris Claremont
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Marvel Comics superhero teams
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X-Men supporting characters