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.
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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 can transform into a purple cat-like form. This granted her razor sharp claws, enhanced senses and physical attributes, and 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, can generate bio-thermal energy that allows him to propel himself through the air and move at superhuman speeds. He is 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 can psionically influence probabilities, usually through colored disks of energy: white disks for good luck, black disks for bad.
Tarot (Mari-Ange Colbert), a good-natured girl from Lyon, France with the ability to see past and future events of other people due to a combination of her mutant powers and tarot cards. She can also materialize and animate tangible images of the 2-D avatars/images on her tarot cards. Once materialized, the cards are 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 as Warpath, and is currently a member of the X-Men.
Emplate's Hellions
The next group of Hellions was organized by Emplate to attack Generation X, Emma Frost's new group of students.
Bulwark (Oswald Boeglin) - Bulwark is able to expand his muscle mass. He was later captured and killed by the revamped Weapon X program.
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.
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.
Wrap (Nick Bisley) - Wrap is an energy being held together by bandages and possesses superhuman strength. 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 bio-electrical 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.
King Bedlam (Christopher Aaronson) - Jesse Aaronson's older brother, with whom he shares the same kind of disruption powers.
Magma (Amara Aquilla) - Magma is able to 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 a Transmode Virus extracted from the alien Phalanx. His head is shown being used to infiltrate 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. Icarus was among the students killed in an attack 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.
Rockslide (Santo Vaccarro) - Rockslide possesses a rock-like body that gives him superhuman strength, durability and endurance. In addition, Rockslide is able to violently detonate his entire body at will and then reform on command. Rockslide is one of the 27 students at the Xavier Institute to retain his powers after M-Day.
Specter (Dallas Gibson) - Specter can merge with his shadow to increase his strength, speed and durability. In this shadow form, he can see in darkness and is immune to darkness-based attacks. Shortly after the squads are formed, he was transferred twice, ending up on the Corsairs squad.
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 [Jonathan Hickman] had 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 John 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".
King Bedlam's Hellions
Following the fall of Krakoa, King Bedlam reorganized the Hellions. The team now consists of King Bedlam, Jesse Bedlam, Boom-Boom, Locus, and Fantomex.
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 Apocalypse's death, the Hellions 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.