There have been several groups of fictional characters in the Marvel Comics universe who have been known as the Hellions. These groups were rivals of various teams of younger mutant heroes in the X-Men franchise.
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. Years later, another group of Frost's students, this time at the Xavier Institute, would name themselves "the Hellions"; they too would be rivals of a group calling themselves "the New Mutants".
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| Hellions | |
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The Hellions battle their rivals, the New Mutants, in their first appearance. Cover to The New Mutants #16 (June 1984), art by Tom Mandrake. |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | The New Mutants (vol. 1) #16 (June 1984) |
| Created by | Chris Claremont Sal Buscema |
| In-story information | |
| Base(s) | Massachusetts Academy |
| Member(s) | White Queen (teacher) Beef Bevatron Cannonball Catseye Cypher Empath Firestar (unofficial) Jetstream Karma Magik Magma Mirage Roulette Tarot Thunderbird Wolfsbane |
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 the Professor Charles Xavier's students, the New Mutants, and once held their own against the X-Men. The original Hellions were:
White Queen 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.[1]
After suffering a severe trauma at the hands of the Beyonder,[2][3] 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.[4] While at the Academy, the transferred New Mutants - Cannonball, Wolfsbane, Karma, Cypher, Magik, and Magma - were inducted into the Hellions.[5] However, 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.[6] After an alliance between the X-Men and the Hellfire Club[7] and Magneto's ascension to the Inner Circle as its White King,[8] relations between the Hellions and New Mutants improved.
Magma, realizing she held feelings for Empath, eventually returned to the Hellions and the Massachusetts Academy;[9] the two would later leave the team to travel to her home in Nova Roma.[10] James Proudstar also left the Hellions, reemerging with Cable and the remnants of the New Mutants in X-Force.[11]
Superstrong and durable Beef (Buford Wilson) and bioelectricity-projecting Bevatron (Fabian Marechal-Julbin) were later additions to the group, and were present when the Hellions unsuccessfully challenged the New Warriors over the allegiance of their former member, Firestar.[12]
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,[13] while Tarot, the rest of the Hellions and many guests, erroneously believed to be unnamed Hellions were captured and drained of their life energies by Fitzroy.[14] 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 are apparently killed again at the end of their battle with the New Mutants.
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 only once,[15] and consisted of:
Bulwark would soon reappear alongside Emplate,[17] but was later captured and killed by the revamped Weapon X program.[18]
A second group led by Emplate also made a brief appearance.[19] In addition to D.O.A. and Vincente, who now had the ability to change the chemical composition of his vaporous form, their ranks consisted of Wrap, another mummified mutant whose body was made of raw energy which increased his strength, and a female who could release psionic bolts of "ebon" energy which disrupts the central nervous system of her targets and destabilizes molecular bonds in inorganic materials.
Of note is the fact that Emplate never called his group the "Hellions"; this name was only attached in Marvel Comics' advertising.
A group of self-proclaimed "New Hellions" emerged to fight X-Force, whose members included some from the team's past:
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Emma Frost with the new Hellions. Cover to New X-Men: Hellions #1, art by Clayton Henry. |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | New X-Men: Academy X #2 |
| Created by | Christina Weir Nunzio DeFilippis |
| In-story information | |
| Base(s) | Xavier Institute for Higher Learning |
| Member(s) | Emma Frost (advisor) Hellion Mercury Rockslide Tag Dust Icarus Wither |
After the reopening of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning and the formation of various training squads, one such group of students, under the tutelage of headmistress Emma Frost, was dubbed "the Hellions".[20] They had an intense rivalry with another such group, the New Mutants, echoing the relationship between the two original groups of the same name. Membership consisted of:
Specter (Dallas Gibson) was part of the initial lineup (which didn't include Dust or Icarus), but was not in the finalised team. Anole (Victor Borkowski), like Specter, never formally joined the Hellions Training Squad, but was mentored by Emma Frost until he ultimately changed advisors to Northstar.
After M-Day, the cataclysmic event that decimated the world's mutant population, only 27 of the 182 students enrolled at the Xavier Institute retained their powers, and the remaining students were folded into a single training squad, the New X-Men. The Hellions were however fortunate, with only one member - Tag - depowered. Wither ran away from the Institute after injuring a fellow student; he is currently homeless and has come under the influence of Selene.
The original Hellions appear briefly in the Age of Apocalypse universe as former agents of Apocalypse. After his death, they became renegades and were hunted down and captured by the X-Men for the United States government. Their fates after being remanded into government custody is unknown.
During the Scarlet Witch's reality warp in the House of M storyline, Wind Dancer, Hellion, Synch, Surge, Quill, and Illyana Rasputin are members of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Hellion Squad, led by Danielle Moonstar.