Learn whether mutants are bound by Xavier’s dream or by trauma in issue #3 of Hellions, from Zeb Wells, Stephen Segovia, David Curiel, and Ariana Maher.
Austin Gorton: Welcome back to the ongoing baroque body-horror nightmare that is Hellions! We last left our crew of villainous misfits beset by Zombie Marauders led by their demented queen, Madelyne Pryor (with an injured Psylocke the target of her alpha dog-teammate Wild Child). Things pick up from there in Mister Sinister’s house of horror/orphanage, and is it just me, or did this series really dial up the grotesquery to whole new levels in this one (which, for this book, is saying something)?
Liz Large: This issue was on an entirely different level than we’ve seen so far, and I personally loved it.
No Love Lost
LL: From the dialogue to the art, there was a horror aspect to a lot of scenes this week, but I don’t think it ever seemed gratuitous. Segovia and Curiel do a great job balancing the fact that there’s a LOT of blood (and, let’s be real: also a lot of underboob) but making sure that all of it seems necessary. Speaking of necessary— this one issue gave more depth to Madelyn Pryor’s character than I expected, considering the breadth of the cast and the fact that she’s the villain of this arc.
AG: Agreed all around. For all of its (short) history, this book has toyed with some pretty dark, gothic tones, so all the body horror stuff here – from Havok slitting open his own mouth to talk (!) to Zombie Arclight eating her own hand (!!) felt like a natural evolution of the series, rather than something coming out of nowhere for pure shock. And similarly, while Madelyne has been in the series all along, this is really the issue where she takes center stage, and Zeb Wells is very effective at making her a fully-realized character.
What makes Madelyne so great is that, while her reactions to being wronged are, to say the least, a bit…extreme, she has justifiably been wronged – by Mister Sinister, by Scott, and the X-Men as a whole – which means there’s a germ of sympathy at the core of her character, and Wells gets that. Her sorrow & rage when a captive Greycrow ignores her – because she hates when someone denies her existence, however briefly – is palpable, and understandable, and it really grounds what is otherwise a very over-the-top character.
Let Me Tell You A Story
LL: I loved how well Madelyne’s case is laid out here. It’s a story of a woman who loved to fly and thought she had her own life, who gave it up to become a happy partner of a man, until his betrayal revealed her as a “nothing person”, which is how she became what she is now. It really does make it sympathetic. The callback in the imagery to her pre-Inferno nightmare—where her child and body parts are taken and given to Jean, who is by contrast a real person — was really effective and honestly heartbreaking. [Ed. note: Read Inferno]
Alex, meanwhile, has his own story, where he’s just a simple man who loved a woman who loved his brother more, despite the harm Scott did. Alex and Madelyne are both telling their lives as stories, and while the bare bones are true, they’re both thinking of themselves as the main character. They’ve been wronged, they’re the ones who matter, and their actions are justified. I’m assuming that Alex is under some sort of influence here, but in a tie back to the opening quote from Nightcrawler, the trauma really brings them together.
AG: At the start of the issue, it seems like Alex is reaching out to Madelyne in genuine concern, while by the end of the issue, it’s just as clear he is entirely in her telepathic/magical/whatever thrall. What really makes this issue work is that it’s not entirely clear exactly when that shift happens. And, speaking as an X-Men historian, hats off to the entire creative team for that “Madelyne transformation” sequence. This group has clearly done their homework.
But as much as this book is about body-horror, it’s also been a consistently funny book. And while it takes something of a backseat here, the humor is still present. All of which is a long-winded preamble to ask: was there enough Nanny in this issue for you?
LL: Tragically, we get merely the briefest of appearances by my favorite egg. On the positive side, she’s still on the floor, unable to get up, which absolutely sparks joy for me. In the negative column, the majority of the zombie Marauders are attempting to crack open the armor that she and Orphan-Maker are wearing because they’re hungry. I liked the parallel between the serious storytelling of Alex and Madelyne compared with Nanny’s attempt at explaining Orphan-Maker’s backstory—she gets less than two sentences out before the zombies are back to their snack attempts. If readers had any question who the leads are, I think we can safely rule out Nanny.
A Family Of Monsters
LL: The hunger of the zombie Marauders was interesting to me. While they’re obviously under the control of Madelyne, their memories and personalities do seem to exist. They have conversations amongst themselves, and are able to speak to Nanny, even though Madelyne isn’t supervising. Arclight is apologetic to Greycrow for what she’s about to do (to be clear, she’s going to eat him!)— they have a sense of, if not right and wrong, at least the consequences that their actions have on others. But their hunger that Madelyne has “gifted” them doesn’t really allow them to behave rationally. It’s a counterpoint to Madelyne, who’s hunger is less physical, but is similarly overpowering.
AG: Thematic parallels regarding hunger are all well and good, but I agree: we need more eggy goodness! Yet that will likely have to wait, because as the issue winds down, Madelyne’s specific goal is laid bare: to unleash her hunger on Krakoa, in the form of an army of Zombie Marauder clones (and to, uh, throw Alex’s head at his brother). It’s a great callback to the original Marauders’ mission (to march into the Morlock Tunnels and wipe out all the mutants there in the name of their master), with this series’ patented body-horror sheen applied to it. And with Empath dead, Nanny, Orphan Maker & Greycrow poised to become snacks, and Havok entirely in Madelyne’s thrall by issue’s end, there’s only two Hellions left to stop her!
LL: Yes! Last issue, Psylocke had been injured, and Wild Child was triggered by the injury to attack her. Which was a huge mistake on his instincts’ part, since she WIPES THE FLOOR with him. It was a very effective way for her to show her absolute dominance both strategically and from a power perspective, and I’m excited to see how this team-up goes now that she’s the “alpha”. The writer of the data page may have been a little prophetic in noting that the team will be loyal to her since they’ve been in the field together. And that’s how we end— with this unlikely duo headed to rescue their soon-to-be-snacks teammates.
X-Traneous Thoughts
- Krakoan reads BOW DOWN
- I still don’t think this is how canine pack behavior works!
- The dual “recruitment” sequences, in which Madelyne bends Alex to her will while Psylocke fights Wild Child for dominance, feature a pair of absolutely gorgeous full page splashes in parallel to one another, as Madelyne embraces Alex in full vampy glory while Psylocke gives Wild Child a taste of her psychic knife (which is, as Papa Claremont would have you know, the focused totality of her psychic powers).
- The mystery of the author of the text pieces continues! It’s clear from this issue’s piece that Mister Sinister is NOT the author, but is someone with knowledge of the details of the Quiet Council meeting which established the Hellions, and who studied/fought under Professor X. Jean, perhaps?
- Segovia and Curiel turn in some great facial expressions throughout this issue, highlighting Madelyne’s various shifts from “cooly villainous” to “manic & barely-in-control”
- We find out (for what I think is the first time) that Greycrow is the specific person who shot the original Madelyne when Sinister sent the Marauders to steal Nathan (a scene that has only ever existed as an off-panel reference, as here). I love the tangled web of connections between this team, Sinister, and Madelyne.
- Empath appears on the recap page for this issue, but does not appear in the actual issue, and I think that’s just great.
Austin Gorton also reviews older issues of X-Men at the Real Gentlemen of Leisure website, co-hosts the A Very Special episode podcast, and likes Star Wars. He lives outside Minneapolis, where sometimes, it is not cold. Follow him on Twitter @AustinGorton
Liz Large is a copywriter with a lot of opinions on mutants.
