Comic Book / Hellions

Krakoan group therapy.^note  Clockwise from top left: Havok, Nanny, Wild Child, Orphan-Maker, Mister Sinister, Greycrow, Empath, and Psylocke.

"Krakoa doesn't ask you to deny your nature. A dog will hunt. And we must wrest peace wherever we find it."

— Kwannon, Hellions #4

Hellions is a 2020 Marvel comic book part of the second wave of Dawn of X. It's written by Zeb Wells (Amazing Spider-Man, New Mutants), with art by Stephen Segovia (Wolverine: Manifest Destiny, Superior Carnage).

Krakoa offered amnesty and a homeland to all mutants, but some mutants bring problems of their own when they settle there. Damaged, dangerous people who don't play well with others.

But Krakoa can still find uses for those mutants. Perhaps it'll even give them a second chance. On the other hand, the Quiet Council have also put Mister Sinister in charge of the new team. So perhaps it's simply doomed.

The series ended after 18 issues.

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Hellions provides examples of:

• Actually a Doombot: The Cameron Hodge the team is facing... is nothing more than a robot impersonating him. Meanwhile the Mr. Sinister dying in Arakko is just a clone.
• Agent Peacock: Mr. Sinister continues to ramp the campiness in his interactions with fellow mutants. He becomes quite annoyed at losing his cape in a deal with Jamie Braddock.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Despite everything she tried to do, Alex still cared about Madelyne and was heartbroken the Quiet Council refused to revive her in lieu of her already being a clone of Jean Grey.
• Alliterative Title: The sub-stories in issue one have these kind of titles, such as "the curious condition of Kyle Gibney" and "the damnable duty of Kwannon".
• Alternate Company Equivalent: The Hellions can be seen as the X-Men's equivalent of the Suicide Squad, starring a group of morally ambiguous characters who are forced to grow, all the while being manipulated by a leader who doesn't remotely care about them. The difference? If they die here, it barely matters most of the time.
• Always Someone Better: The Hellions are a great super-powered black-ops team... and then they get in a Curbstomp Battle with the Amenthi mutant raider gang, the Locus Vile, and they're lucky they only had three dead members. This is also probably a case of Worf Had the Flu, seeing as how the Hellions were completely haggard from their journey through Otherworld, and thus in no real condition to take on opponents who were all at full strength.
• An Arm and a Leg: On their journey through Otherworld, Havok was forced to give his right eye as toll for the team to get across a bridge guarded by hippogriffs. When they arrive in Arakko, his hands get cut off in an ambush. Immediately after that, Orphan-Maker gets both arms ripped off by Amino Fetus.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: When the Hellions find out that Mr. Sinister is missing, the first thing Greycrow says is ask if anyone wants to get lunch. Even Alex thinks that's Actually Pretty Funny.
• Anti-Climax: Zig-Zagged in issue #15. Amino Fetus finally gets fed, and starts splitting into amino infants which eat time… so Tarn takes his Locus Vile and bolts. However, the Hellions have found out about Sinister's clone farm, which Sinister thought he had protected from them by storing Psylocke's daughter there digitally… but none of this stops Alex from losing it and destroying all the data after Empath’s manipulation.
• Arc Villain: Though Mr. Sinister remains The Heavy (while also being a Villain Protagonist) for the entire run, several villains show up to independently face the Hellions during certain story arcs.
  • Madelyne Pryor and her mind-controlled Marauders for issues 1 to 4.
  • Tarn and the Locus Vile for issues 6; and 13 to 15.
  • The Right for issues 7 to 8 and 16 to 17.
  • Mastermind and Arcade for issues 9 to 11.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Psylocke breaks out of the Lotus-Eater Machine where she lives with the daughter who was taken away from her by asking her what her name is, something the daughter can't answer because Kwannon herself doesn't know.
  Kwannon: What's your name?
  Daughter: I'm your sweetness, mama!
  Kwannon: Your name.
  (Beat)
  Daughter: I don't know...
• Asshole Victim:
  • In issue #2, Empath messes with Nanny by making her want to nurse Greycrow. Greycrow follows up on his promise from the first issue to put Empath down if Empath used his powers on the team by shooting Empath in the head.
  • In issue #18, at a hearing with the Quiet Council, Sinister crosses a line and mocks Kwannon for the loss of her daughter and gets a kick in the groin for it. When he haughtily complains about the affront to his position, both Storm and Exodus immediately request she give him another, which she happily complies with with a kick to the mouth. Afterwards, Magneto literally has him gagged to shut him up.
• The Atoner: Greycrow has this as a motivation, to become a better person than the man who committed the Mutant Massacre. He noticeably takes the fall when the Morlocks attack him as revenge and doesn't plan to talk to the resurrected original Marauders once they've returned, since they're none of his business anymore. He noticeably doesn't have any lapses in morality like the other drafted team members, even beating out Havok in that regard.
• Badass Boast: "When I come to punish you, I want to know how many orphans it will make." From Nanny, after she learns about Sinister's baby disposal.
• Bad Boss: Arcade is revealed to scissor-kick his own employees in the throat when he gets annoyed with them.
• Beta Couple: As weird as it is since she was dead from the end of the first arc to the end of the last arc. Havok and Madelyne Pryor are the second most focused on romantic pairing after Psylocke and Greycrow, with the series ending with the newly resurrected Madelyne reuniting with Alex.
• Beware the Silly Ones:
  • Nanny has one of the most ridiculous-looking designs out of most of the X-Men's villains, but when she promises to make Sinister suffer for all the mutant children he murdered, she's absolutely serious enough that Sinister is actually scared for a moment.
    • Post-resurrection, Havok is shocked that Nanny takes on a Right robot singlehandedly and wins.
    • Empath mocks Nanny like he does everyone else, but when Orphan-Maker asks him to sneak him some alcohol, Empath gets nervous, says no, and expresses the belief that Nanny would rip his face off if she found out.
  • Sinister lives this trope, along with some measure of Obfuscating Stupidity.
  • In the finale, Nanny gets another moment to stand out for how terrifying she can actually be. She demands to be allowed to join Orphan-Maker in the Pit of Exile, vowing that if she is refused, she will go on a killing spree, starting with Kate Pryde's mother. She proves intimidating enough that the Quiet Council chooses to grant her wish.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Mr. Sinister, while being a main character is also the main antagonist, being responsible for most of the misery that befalls the team. Aside from him the books two reoccurring villains are The Right, led by Doctor Murch and the Locus Ville, led by Tarn the Uncaring.
• Big Brother Instinct: When Havok is put into the circle of judgement without Cyclops' knowing, the latter is pissed.
• Big Eater: Amino Fetus is this, but he cannot be allowed to eat. Because if he does, he creates a swarm of spawn that will devour time itself, causing the destruction of reality.
• Big Stupid Doo Doo Head: Orphan-Maker's trash talk consists of calling his enemies things like "goober" and "butt-breath". He calls Nanny's killer "very bad" and "a mean lady".
  Orphan-Maker: (fighting Sick Bird) Eat poop, mean lady!
• Bitter Sweet Ending: Orphan Maker ends up in the hole for killing members of the Right and Nanny goes with him, having mended their relationship. The rest of the team is spared but they split up. Wild Child winds up back where he started but is now taking his meds. Madelyne Pryor is resurrected but she’s resentful that her existence once again revolves around a Summers, making a relationship with Alex unlikely. Empath is still using his powers on others, but realizes he no longer cares for the fake affection his unwilling "friends" give him and that he blew his chances to be accepted. Greycrow resolves not to kill him at the behest of Kwannon, with whom he starts a relationship. All in all, while the purpose of rehabilitating the Hellions was a lie, some have genuinely improved with each other's help. Also Sinister walks free and is still up to his schemes but he does get humiliated by Kwannon and the Council, and it is made clear that his place on the Council is not nearly as strong as he thinks.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Alex claims not to have heard Sinister say that they're not allowed to discuss how they died in Arakko, just so he can ask Sinister how he got the entire team killed on their mission to Arakko.
  • Sage tells the team that Professor X insisted they be the ones to find Mr. Sinister. The next page is a copy of her heartfelt letter to the Council, begging them to let the Hellions, and not X-Factor, be the ones to go look for the missing Mr. Sinister.
  • Shortly after the terraforming of Mars Tarn has a meeting with Storm and the Great Ring of Arakko, who tell him that he is not to exact revenge on the Hellions for helping Sinister steal DNA from his Locus Vile. He promises not to, except he’s sitting right next to Idyll, Arakko’s Omega level precog who simply looks at him knowing he’ll do exactly that.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • Amino Fetus is an Arrakan mutant who is trapped as a monstrous, child-like thing that must be kept perpetually starving. If it eats, its powers activate, and it must be thrown into a black hole before it destroys reality.
  • The Orphan Maker's powers are so terrible and destructive that even Charles Xavier, a man who has preached that all mutants are gifted, declares Orphan Maker to be the one exception he's seen.
• Blinded by Rage: After Nanny is killed by the Smiley baby Orphan-Maker goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Right's forces, but this leads him to killing two innocent park rangers who had just arrived at the scene.
• Bloody Murder: When the Marauders try to break open Orphan-Maker's armor, what appears to be acidic blood spews out and burns Scrambler's face.
• Body Horror: Tarn's mutants all look like they crawled out of a David Cronenberg movie. Amino Fetus especially looks like a giant, disfigured baby that was carved out of a slab of human fat.
• Book Ends: Issue #1 ends with Madelyne Pryor appearing for the first time after a long absence. The finale issue #18 has Pryor brought back on Krakoa.
• Boxed Crook: If the Hellions (minus Psylocke) don't want to join Sabretooth in his imprisonment, they have to earn it, all under supervision from Mr. Sinister.
• Brought Down to Badass: Tarn the Uncaring witnesses the upgraded members of the Hellions in action and he decides to take back that Arakkan boost from Wildchild. This makes Wildchild lose all that post-death muscle and now he's back to his usual scrawny self.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Madelyne Pryor reappears at the end of the first issue, using the bodies of Sinister's original Marauders for her own ends.
  • Greycrow hadn't been seen in some years, yet it seems he simply traveled to Krakoa like most former X-Men enemies.
  • While welcomed in Krakoa like most mutants, Empath hadn't been seen in several years, while the rest of the original Hellions had been dead and now are alive again.
  • Cameron Hodge is brought back with The Right and their Smile mechs in issue seven.
  • Miss Locke, Arcade's previous assistant, returns alongside her boss in issue nine after not being seen in almost seven years (turns out she's a robot and the original is still dead).
  • Nanny and the Orphan Maker last appeared in Wolverine: Killing Made Simple in 2008, and before that their last appearance was in Generation X #4 back in 1995.
• Butt-Monkey: Mr. Sinister runs into a lot of misfortunes during the series, which are all Played for Laughs due to him being a Smug Snake, such as him getting being tortured by Arcade, poisoned by Mastermind, terrified by Nanny, betrayed by his own clone, beat up by Kwannon and getting his cape stolen.
• Call-Back:
  • Among the Morlocks who attacked Greycrow is Tommy, whom he personally killed at the beginning of the Mutant Massacre.
  • In one of his reports on his misgivings about Sinister's Hellions, Beast brings up how while they always showed Xavier respect, it was Scott they followed during crisis upon crisis pre-Krakoa. He thinks the Hellions will end up with a similar dynamic regarding Sinister and Psylocke.
  • Madelyne talks about what a jerk Cyclops was to her. It's part of her motivation.
• Call-Forward: In issue #15, Sinister realizes that the best way forward is not cloning, but combining different people's DNA into chimeras. We saw the result of this in Powers of X.
• Came Back Strong:
  • When Wild Child and Nanny are revived after dying in Arakko, their bodies and minds are described as being honed in a way, like they have lived their lives under intense conditions. Their personalities are vaguely described as being unchanged except that they're "more" themselves. Wild Child goes from "scrawny Sabretooth" to muscular, if not as muscular as the brutish Sabretooth, while Nanny has become strong enough to take out a Smile robot on her own.
  • If nothing else, Greycrow seems happier. It's like his PTSD has gone.
• Censor Shadow: When Wild Child is seen Naked on Revival after his death on Arakko, his groin is concealed by a thick shadow.
• Clothing Damage: When Wild Child cuts Psylocke's chest, it leaves her with a slightly bloody Cleavage Window.
• Cock Fight: During the Hellfire Gala, when Wildchild finds out that his ex-girlfriend Aurora is dating Daken, he tries to physically fight Daken then and there.
• Containment Clothing: Whatever Orphan Maker's mutant power is, it's considered vital by even Charles that it be kept in check by his armor. The post-X of Swords arc is about the team seeking Nanny's old ship so she can build him a new one before they bring him out of stasis after resurrection.
• Continuity Nod: Issue 16 has Scott mention that Kwannon has just been given the rank of captain, referring to the events of Inferno #1. It doesn't factor into the plot, but is a mention, since it also makes Kwannon's decision to leave Krakoa that much more abrupt to him.
• Continuity Snarl: Jean was supposed to be kicked off the Council in X of Swords, but in Hellions #7, she is still in her council seat.
• Crippling Over Specialisation: Kwannon is an excellent hand-to-hand combatant and stealth operative. However, since her Psychic Powers are second-hand from Betsy and she's had very little experience with them, she'll usually resort to telekinesis if she uses her powers at all, while the telepathy goes unused the majority of the time aside from being aware of any emotions anyone holds.
• Crocodile Tears: Sinister's overly dramatic way of "mourning" the Hellions (that he killed himself) doesn't fool anyone, but since they can't prove what he did, they just let him do it. The White Queen was especially amused at his shamelessness.
  Sinister: Gyaahh!! *sob* My babies!!! Bring them back to me!
• Cruel to Be Kind:
  • Greycrow basically shoots and kills the remaining Marauders so they can be resurrected, but by doing so he's essentially severing all ties with them.
  • Kwannon acts cruel to Wild Child to get him to stop following her after she decides to leave Krakoa.
• Dark Secret: Psylocke and therefore the Hellions have a secret mission from the Council: prevent any potential Robot War (robots have traditionally been the frontline in hunting mutants and the dystopic future in Powers of X was led by Sentinels) by nipping A.I. in the bud. Psylocke implants the evolving Smiley robots with a killer virus. But unknown to the rest of the team, Nanny went back and recovered a surviving baby Smiley robot in secret despite the Quiet Council's mandate.
• Deader than Dead: It's implied the dead children left in the orphanage will not be resurrected even if they're mutants.
• Death Seeker:
  • Greycrow refuses to ask for favors, such as to spare his life, and effectively encourages Arclight to kill him.
  • After the destruction of what's left of her daughter, Kwannon tells Cyclops that she's leaving Krakoa. She hopes that she can punish some evil out there her own way, and if she's lucky, be killed doing it.
• Death of a Child: Sinister's orphanage is filled with the rotting corpses of mutant children and babies he abandoned. That Nanny is the one to find and actually hold one of the dead bodies leaves a new mark on her already damaged mental health.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: As is common in X-Men stories in the Krakoa era, all members of the team end up dying at least once during the course of the story, but they always just end up resurrected by Krakoa.
• Decoy Protagonist: Since he's the most experienced X-Men member on the team and has led team books before you'd naturally assume the book would follow Havok being the Only Sane Man in a team full of crazed supervillains and while he was front and center in the first arc, after that he fell Out of Focus and Psylocke and Greycrow became the most frequently focused on team members.
• Defeat Means Respect: Psylocke earns Wild Child's loyalty after defeating him right in the middle of the mission. Now he follows her around like a dog.
• Designated Parents: Psylocke and Greycrow fall into this being the most stoic, level-headed and caring members of the team. Notably in the Hellfire Gala tie-in, they spend most of the story calmly talking at the bar while the rest of the team causes trouble and only get involved at the end to try and rein them in.
• The Dog Bites Back: In the first issue Empath uses his powers to make Catseye and Roulette fight each other, during the Hellfire Gala he runs into the two and they kick the crap out of him.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: By the end of the series it’s clear that there is a metaphor for how the system fails and sometimes blatantly doesn’t even try to rehabilitate the mentally ill. This is especially present with Wild Child’s arc.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": After being revived, Peter no longer likes being called that, so he insists they call him Pete instead.
• The Dragon: Psylocke is this for Mr. Sinister. After the Hellions got slaughtered and resurrected during the events of X of Swords, Empath and Greycrow were going to beat some answers out of Sinister. Psylocke intervenes and it's clear she's his loyal henchwoman... as he has recovered her daughter's DNA fragments from Apoth and is promising to clone her.
• Dramatic Irony: Krakoa allows the original Marauders, a group of bloodthirsty Psycho for Hire killers responsible for such atrocities as destroying Angel's wings, committing the Mutant Massacre, and shooting Madelyne Pryor in the head alongside kidnapping her child, to be part of their community. And yet Madelyne herself is denied a resurrection on the flimsy and hypocritical excuse of her being a clone. What's more, one has to wonder if any of the old Marauders now on Krakoa are clones of the originals, or clones of their clones.
• Easily Forgiven: In #15, Greycrow basically snaps after he finds out Kwannon was working with Sinister and knew he'd been manipulating the rest of the team. However, the moment he finds out everything Kwannon did was because of Sinister holding her daughter's DNA hostage he immediately goes back on her side.
• Eating the Eye Candy: For the Hellfire Gala, Kwannon dresses up in a lowcut Japanese-themed dress. Greycrow is clearly very into it when he sees her.
• Emasculated Cuckold: During the Hellfire Gala, Wild Child attempts to reconnect with his old girlfriend Aurora, but becomes enraged once he finds her kissing Dakken. When Dakken taunts him about it, Wild Child loses it and attacks it, starting a brawl that gets him and the rest of the Hellions expelled from the event.
• Enfant Terrible: The baby Smiley robot that Nanny saves was built by The Right, so he still ends up becoming a mutant-hater and kills Nanny for being a mutant with his Eye Beams.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Psycho for Hire Greycrow threatens to kill Empath if he uses his powers on anyone. He holds true to his word.
  • Nanny is left traumatized after discovering the remains of the mutant babies Sinister didn't want. While Nanny does care about mutant kids, she has a history of brainwashing them and using mind control to make them stay with her and Peter. Still, the idea of such blatant disregard of innocent children (and the idea their corpses were left to rot in tanks for years) causes Nanny to swear she'll make Sinister burn for what he did.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: After the battle with Madelyne and her clone Marauders, the beaten and battered Hellions are standing in the ruins of Sinister's orphanage when Wild Child comes to the realization that "...they were right...we're a bunch of crazy sons of bitches!" The whole team (minus the slightly prudish Nanny and the currently-dead Empath) bursts out laughing, indicating the beginnings of an actual bond forming between them.
• Eviler than Thou: The fourth arc sees Arcade, Mastermind and Mr. Sinister basically competing over this title. Sinister wins.
• Evil Former Friend: Nanny was once a scientist who worked for The Right, and was Doctor Murch's former wife and friend. It's implied her being revealed to be a mutant is what drove them to split up.
• Evil Is Petty: Sinister is this in spades. He is absolutely petty and childish during Quiet Council meetings, distracting from important discussions with his one-sided rivalry with Exodus that began with "he's trying to out-fashion me." His fashion obsession even extends to the Hellions' mission in Arakko, where he randomly bothers passers-by about his lack of cape which could very easily break the team's cover. When he is being interrogated by Arcade, he still acts like a childish idiot, at least until the torture gets bad. He also likes to take jabs at the team and revel in their misery, sometimes to their faces.
  Sinister: [to Kwannon] Have I told you how pretty you are when you're loyal?
• Eye Scream: Played for Laughs. During the unseen trip to Arakko, Mr. Sinister apparently volunteered to sacrifice one of Havok's eyes to a griffin. Since Havok ends up getting killed not much later, he gets his eye back upon being resurrected.
• Facial Horror: Madelyne shushes Havok by molding his flesh over his mouth. He eventually picks a shard of glass and cuts open his own mouth to speak again.
• Fantastic Racism: There's the standard anti-mutant fare for an X-Men related series, but also the Krakoans seem to disregard Artificial Intelligence as not life, Xavier implies one shouldn't tolerate its embers lest an inferno emerge, and the Quiet Council orders a virus that wipes out a group of A.I.s.
• Failed a Spot Check: While Havok is powering up his plasma, he doesn't notice Hex Butcher flanking him and bringing out the cleaver. A even greater failure happens to Orphan-Maker, who's so busy shooting at Sick Bird that he doesn't notice the gigantic Amino Fetus coming behind him and saying "Gor Gor". Both Hellions pay dearly for their inattention.
• A Father to His Men: Sinister plays with this trope, usually for laughs. Most of the time he leaves this role to Kwannon, but we get glimpses of him seeming to care about his team, albeit in secret. At one point he makes a big show of pretending to mourn his fallen Hellions. At another, he acts the reasonable father-figure to Orphan-Maker when a king is trying to give them a horse.
  Peter: Oh, please get the pony, Mister Essex! Please please please!
  Sinister: The answer is no. A horse is a major responsibility!
• The Farmer and the Viper: Mastermind convinces one of Arcade's employees to free his daughter, figuring he was holding one of his loved ones hostage as well and claiming he'll help free them. As soon as the employee frees her, he tells his daughter to kill him.
• Fire-Forged Friends: While Sinister is officially the team's leader, it's Kwannon who actually leads them in the field and forms bonds with them, which the Quiet Council thinks will result in the Hellions aligning more with her than with Sinister himself. Sure enough, this starts to happen, with Greycrow in particular forming a connection with her and the group not caring at all about the opinions of Sinister by the third arc.
  "Sinister is ostensibly the leader of this ragtag group, but after a few missions whom will they want to follow? The flamboyant clown pulling their strings for his amusement, or the dyed-in-the-wool assassin who's bled for them in battle? We all showed Professor Xavier due reverence in our younger days, but when the big robots with laser-palms came, it was Scott we followed."
• Foreshadowing: When Empath tries to chew Greycrow out for shooting him in the head, Greycrow promises that if Empath tries to use his powers on the team again, he'll cut him in half. He does, and he does.
• Frontline General: While Mr. Sinister is ostensibly The Leader of the Hellions, he stays behind in most missions and has his Number Two Psylocke as the field leader. But during the second arc, The Quiet Council accepts Sinister's proposition of sending the Hellions to force a forfeit on Arakko's part before the X of Swords tournament, and because they were annoyed by his Smug Snake attitude, they vote on him leading the team this time. But Sinister subverts this by sending one of his clones to lead to team instead.
• Given Name Reveal: Nanny's real name is revealed to be Eleanor in Issue #16.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: The Smiler Robots the team battles look for loopholes in their code to try to get out of killing the Hellions. Once the robot Cameron Hodge is no longer around to enslave them, they immediately stand down and even offer Havok friendship. Unfortunately, the Quiet Council will not tolerate A.I.s with anti-mutant code advancing as far as they have, so Kwannon and Greycrow are forced to kill them all.
• Hates Being Touched: Sinister jokes about hugging people, but as he always adds under his breath, he does not like to be touched.
• Hate Sink:
  • Sinister and Empath are both the absolute worst of the team, having no redeemable qualities and no depth to speak of. They're only there to manipulate the rest of the team or act like total jackasses. It's even clear most of the team would be glad to see them both dead for good, either for personal reasons or because of how genuinely terrible they are.
  • While Arcade was always unlikable, this series downplays his joke villain status while emphasizing his childish cruelty and sadism, as well as his Bad Boss tendencies, with him acting like a condescending Domestic Abuser in his interactions with Ms. Locke and it being revealed that he ensures the loyalty of his employees (who he murders at the drop of a hat, sometimes for no reason at all or even after promising not to) by imprisoning their loved ones in "Loyalty Accounts."
• Heroic Sacrifice: To ensure that Psylocke and the others make it safely with the Genetic Collection Drones, Wild Child charges the Locus Vile and deliberately takes hits from the speedy Sick Bird and Hex Butcher.
• Hidden Depths: For someone with a reputation as a remorseless killer, Greycrow clearly has a lot going on underneath that seemingly apathetic veneer.
  • He lets the Quiet Council believe he attacked the Morlocks on the anniversary of the Mutant Massacre, instead of revealing they (understandably) attacked him.
  • He clearly still has feelings for his former lover Arclight. During his torture at Madelyne's hands, he refuses to acknowledge Madelyne until she orders Arclight to cut off her own hand and eat it. Greycrow immediately tells Madelyne he remembers her, but unfortunately she still has Arclight commit self-cannibalism.
• Horror Hunger: Madelyne's cursed the original Marauders with this in their zombie state, explaining they'll always hunger but never be satisfied. They'll even eat their own bodies if she ordered them to.
• Hunk: Greycrow has easily never been more attractive before being under Segovia's pen. And somehow the artists for the book have found ways to make him hotter with each passing issue.
  Celeste Cuckoo: He's a murderer.
  Mindee Cuckoo: No one told his incredible hair.
• Hypocrite:
  • The Quiet Council votes against resurrecting Madelyne simply because she was a clone of Jean Grey, even though they didn't have a problem resurrecting Sophie and Esme Cuckoo, who are both clones of Emma Frost. They become more hypocritical when they argue Madelyne was too powerful and untrustworthy to bring back, despite them also working with the likes of Apocalypse, Exodus, and of course Sinister.
  • Nanny takes the stance that she is so against parental abandonment that she would rather kill parents and steal their children than risk them being mistreated. But when her adopted son Orphan-Maker becomes a little more independent, she decides she wants nothing more to do with him and freezes him out.
• Ignored Aesop: The Quiet Council keeps having Empath resurrected despite how dangerous and unreliable he is.
• I Have Your Wife:
  • Sinister keeps Kwannon loyal to him because he has a copy of her daughter's DNA (which he acquired in Fallen Angels (2019))
  • The reason why Mastermind kidnapped Sinister and brought the Hellions to Arcade, was because he had kidnapped his daughter Martinique.
• Immediate Sequel: At least it follows the events shortly after Fallen Angels (2019).
• Invincible Villain: Tarn is far too powerful for a team like the Hellions to handle, with their first encounter with him ending with half of the team dying and the rest routing to Krakoa, and the team only survives the second encounter due to Psylocke just giving up and surrendering Mr. Sinister's location to Tarn.
• Irony: An empath who goes by the name Empath being a stone-cold psychopath, not to mention the only actual psychopath on a team of assassins with mental health issues.
• I Shall Taunt You: Arcade has Sinister trapped in a power suppression chair, but Sinister isn't giving the creep any satisfaction and gets under Arcade's skin with a number of zingers.
  Sinister: There's a strange man molesting me with his eyes! Big toothy grin. Clearly veneers.
• I Want My Mommy!: Orphan-Maker's reason for being brought to the Quiet Council is that he beat the crap out of Angel and Beast when they tried to separate him from Nanny.
• Kick the Dog: Subverted in the second issue. A police dog named Jenny growls at Wildchild, and he's about to retaliate, but her handler tells her to heel and she does. Wildchild realizes the handler is the one in charge, and feels there'd be more to gain by fighting him.
• Lack of Empathy: The first issue says that this is basically the problem with Empath, ironically enough, as a direct consequence of his powers. Since his powers activated at a young age, he's basically had no genuine feedback to his behavior because he could simply make people compliant to his will. This means he doesn't have any real empathy for others, only seeing them as things to manipulate.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Havok asks Madelyne when she returned, Maddie answers she returned years ago and nobody cared.
• Little People Are Surreal: Nanny remains small even after being resurrected by Krakoa, which indicates that her size is due to either dwarfism or her mutation, and not because of something that was done to her by the Right, as was previously implied.
• The Lost Lenore: Pryor seems to have become Havok's.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: The Hellions (minus Mr. Sinister) are all placed in one by Arcade and Mastermind, granting them their fondest wish before inflicting a nightmare on them.
  • Psylocke is shown living a quiet, happy, and peaceful life with her daughter. She manages to disrupt it by asking her daughter what her name is — because Kwannon never named said daughter, it pokes a hole in the illusion when said daughter is old enough to speak and can't tell Kwannon her own name. She is later chased by a ghoulish version of Betsy wearing the Psylocke outfit.
  • Havok is shown living a quiet, happy, and peaceful life with Madelyne Pryor. The nightmare version is him being kept on a leash by her.
  • Greycrow is back on the battlefield, where everything is black and white and he does not have a care in the world outside of taking out clearly marked enemies. It later reverts to his massacre of the Morlocks, who turn into zombies and eat him.
  • Wild Child is feared and respected as the "top dog" by the likes of Sabretooth and Wolverine. This gives way to them absolutely thrashing him.
  • Nanny has dozens of orphans to care for, while Orphan-Maker is shown being lavished with praise and attention by multiple Nannies. This is taken away from them to feed into their fears of being alone.
  • Empath is confronted by everyone that he has ever victimized, which he enjoys... until they decide to pay him back for this and he can't stop them.
• Malaproper: When Sinister tells his Hellions he doesn't need to remind them about the journey of a million steps and all the miles it involves, he is referring to the saying "A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step".
• Mama Bear: Nanny makes it clear she will not allow Sinister to get his hands on Orphan-Maker, knowing both his fondness for orphans and because she originally rescued him from Sinister's clutches in the first place. And after finding some of the dead babies Sinister abandoned, Nanny promises she's going to make him pay for what he's done to those children. This is eventually averted when she begins pushing him away after her post-Arakko resurrection.
• Manchild: While it's never been revealed just how old he actually is, Peter's armor is that of a grown man, so when he goes ballistic with separation anxiety at being kept apart from Nanny, it certainly looks like this trope.
• Manipulative Bastard: The fourth issue makes it clear the reason why the Hellions exist in the first place is because Sinister is getting a kick out of watching them suffer while doing his dirty work for him. He watches Havok break down in tears as he tries to argue with Cyclops that Madelyne deserved a second chance, and Sinister is absolutely delighted by it.
• Meaningful Rename: As far as Peter is concerned, going by "Pete" means that he has outgrown having a nanny.
• The Mentally Disturbed:
  • The team is made up mainly of psychologically aberrant mutants who are largely incapable of functioning in normal society. Krakoa doesn't believe in jails or asylums, and since it feels morally wrong to throw a bunch of mentally ill people (especially ones like Wild Child and Empath, whose mental illness is caused by their mutation) into the pit with Sabretooth, they instead get placed on a team whose purpose has so far consisted of mopping up Mr. Sinister's old messes as a means of channeling their antisocial and violent impulses in a somewhat productive way.
  • Havok in particular has... something going on that is making him lash out, but it's not clear what. Whatever it is, he doesn't even remember doing some things or understand that melting a guy's face off is wrong.
• Mercy Kill: Once Madelyne's control over the Marauders' minds weakens and they return to their senses, Greycrow kills them so they can be properly resurrected.
• Mood Whiplash: Nanny attempts to tell a rather ominous story about what's happening underneath Orphan-Maker's armor, but she can barely finish a sentence when the Marauders start trying to crack her suit open again.
• Morality Pet: For Psylocke, it's her daughter, whose mind is digitally preserved with no back-ups.
• Mr. Fanservice: Greycrow is a Walking Shirtless Scene that is often framed under Female Gaze angles.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • Kwannon is often played for fanservice, such as getting Clothing Damage that leaves her with a Cleavage Window, wearing a low-cut kimono during the Lotus-Eater Machine sequence, and having a Navel-Deep Neckline dress for the Hellfire Gala.
  • Madelyne is back with her infamous black Stripperific outfit and acting like The Vamp towards Alex, who very much treats her like a Lust Object. He even has a sex fantasy about her keeping him on a leash during the Lotus-Eater Machine sequence.
• Multinational Team: Mr. Sinister is British, Havok is American, Wild Child is Canadian, Greycrow is Native American, Psylocke is Japanese, and Empath is Spanish. Nanny and Orphan-Maker's ethnicities are unknown, but the brief shots that we have gotten of them outside of their armors indicate that Orphan-Maker is white while Nanny is Ambiguously Brown.
• Neck Snap: Orphan-Maker kills Doctor Murch by brutally snapping his neck while the man is in the middle of an Evil Laugh.
• No Mouth: Madelyne likes to shut people up by erasing their mouths. She does it to the Legacy Marauders, seemingly for fun, and then to Alex when flirting with him.
• Nothing Is Scarier: We have yet to learn what Orphan Maker's powers are, which have remained hidden since the character debuted back in 1988, but we're told that they could destroy the world, and they scare even Charles Xavier.
• Not Quite Dead: In the Hellfire Gala tie-in, the Sinister who stayed behind on Arakko back in X of Swords returns and in the following issue, so do the Locus Vile.
• Old Superhero: In her psychic prison on Arcade's base, one part of Kwannon's mental hellscape — she had been fighting and killing Betsy Braddock copies for 50 years, putting her in her late '70s or early '80s. This just means her hair has gone completely white and she has a few lines on her face. Otherwise she's as tall, muscular, acrobatic and powerful as usual.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • It's noted Nanny was left so thoroughly traumatized upon finding all of Sinister's dead babies she forgot to feed Peter at one point. Emma Frost states how Nanny needs to have these feelings if her mental health's ever going to recover.
  • Professor X sees all mutations as a gift... except for the unknown (to the reader) and apparently outright-terrifying one possessed by Orphan-Maker.
    Professor X: I refuse to see any mutant's abilities as anything less than a gift. But Peter... Peter has a curse. And he mustn't share it with the world.
• Only Sane Man: Psylocke is the only one trying to make the Hellions act like a cohesive unit, and the only one who's not mentally unstable.
• Out-Gambitted:
  • The Arcade arc ends with the reveal that Mr, Sinister and Mastermind had been playing Arcade all along, so that Sinister could take his newly built clone farm for himself and use it to continue his work behind the Council's back.
  • Emma Frost was actually aware Mr. Sinister was using the Hellions for his own genetic schemes, and put Empath there as her own personal with orders to cause Havok to go berserk the moment he could destroy Mr. Sinister's genetic research.
• Papa Wolf: A subtle one from Magneto, who only decides Sinister should personally lead his Hellions into Arakko after Sinister implies that Lorna is a slut.
• Passive Aggressive Combat: Nanny and Orphan-Maker wage this against each other after he grows a little more independent and she gets a new orphan to care for.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Amino Fetus and Orphan Maker. Amino Fetus can collapse time itself. We don't know what Orphan Maker can do, but judging by the fearful way that even Xavier and Magneto agree he needs to be kept depowered, it's got to be terrible.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Even though the Morlocks were the ones that attacked him this time, John Greycrow doesn't object when Storm seems under the impression that he attacked them. He seems to take the blame willingly, perhaps as punishment for his previous involvement in the original Mutant Massacre.
  • In the second issue, Nanny seems to make a genuine attempt to reach out to Greycrow if he feels like talking about whatever trauma he endured from Sinister. She also apologizes for the way Empath made her act even though it technically wasn't her fault (and Greycrow had no idea she was trying to nurse him).
  • A distraught Sinister does a Say My Name Skyward Scream when his recently built A.I., Clive, "dies" in Hellions #7.
  • During a talk with Emma Frost, Empath brushes off his time with the Hellions, but after Emma leaves, Empath goes silent and looks despondent, the implication being that, despite everything, he actually did like being on the team, and saw the other Hellions as friends, or at least the closest thing to friends that he has ever had. This is then reiterated in the finale, where Empath allows some of his "friends" to verbally abuse him before controlling them again, only to then look dismayed, as if he's realized to some degree how empty his life is with only artificial affection.
  • The Hellions as a whole all try to fight to keep Orphan-Maker from being dragged before the Quiet Council as punishment.
  • Nanny demands to be allowed to keep Orphan-Maker company in the Pit of Exile, vowing that she will slaughter as many humans as it takes if they refuse.
• Power Limiter: Orphan-Maker's armor contains his power. It is made clear that his mutation becoming active is a very bad thing.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Greycrow doesn't hesitate to inform Empath he will kill him if he ever gets the idea Empath's using his powers on any of them. Given Empath may in fact be the most dangerous of the group due to his Lack of Empathy and ability to control anyone when he feels like it, the threat doesn't feel excessive.
• Profanity Police: Nanny is this, even to hardened war vets, explaining why Orphan-Maker swears like a six-year-old.
  John Greycrow: Comes down to whose opinion is more important... a living person who can breathe and talk, or a corpse that can't say [Symbol Swearing] about [Symbol Swearing]?
  Nanny: Oh, the language is a shame...
• Properly Paranoid: Madelyne's biggest motivation has been to prove to the world she's a real person, and not just a stand-in for Jean Grey. The Quiet Council won't resurrect Madelyne because she was already a clone, confirming her fears that (most of them) did not consider her her own person.
• Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits: This is a team for the criminally insane and Havok.
• Replacement Goldfish: The Quiet Council report on Kwannon reminds the them that she is not Betsy and should not be treated as such. Despite this, she's treated like a friend by Scott and Alex and is given the job of keeping Sinister in check, which is a very important job given his hand in a dystopic future Xavier knows about.
• The Reveal:
  • Downplayed. Decades after his introduction we're finally given a glimpse into both what's underneath his armor and what his mutant power might be when the Marauders bust open Orphan-Maker's armor and get splashed with acid. Kinda hints at how he got his name as well.
  • Issue #16 reveals that Manuel's fuck-ups were not just him being stupid and/or sadistic; he was deliberately sabotaging the team in Emma's service.
• Revenge: After the destruction of what remains of Kwannon's daughter, Greycrow does not take it well. While Kwannon herself is angry, it's at herself more than anything; Greycrow is the one seething with rage on the former's behalf, and even after everyone has had time to process what happened, is fully intent on murdering Empath for what he did.
• Rock–Paper–Scissors: The two Sinisters decide who goes to Arakko this way.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: Greycrow still being a Sinister clone is confirmed when Sinister presses a button causing Greycrow to disintegrate.
• Ship Tease: The series seems to be setting up something between Kwannon and Greycrow, with her clearly being the one he respects the most on the team and their shared understanding regarding inner demons. When the team is free falling in the sky while under Masterminds illusion, they noticeably reach out for each other specifically, and she calls out to him with her powers when they are trapped in Arcade's illusions. Later on, Mastermind outright tells Kwannon that Greycrow likes her after he takes a peek into Greycrow's mind. In the final issue, they seem to actually start a relationship.
• Shout-Out: To justify his apparent aimlessness in taking the team to Arakko, Sinister quotes "the goblin-book" as saying "just because you're wandering around, it doesn't mean you're lost, necessarily". (Fans of the work may know this as "Not all those who wander are lost".)
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: After slicing his mouth open Alex screams at Madelyne that he's sick of listening to her always compare him unfavorably to Scott. Madelyne actually gets turned on by this.
• Settle for Sibling: Deconstructed in the first arc where Havok accuses Madelyne of using him this way.
• Single-Stroke Battle: Psylocke defeats Arcade's bodyguard Ms. Locke with a single sword strike, slicing her in half.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis:
  • Mr. Sinister and Exodus, during the meetings of the Quiet Council.
  • Nanny hates Mr. Sinister, who considers her annoying, when not being creeped out by things like her armor's little kissy lips mouth or her habit of being all Stealth Hi/Bye with him. During the Hellfire Gala, Nanny spends the entire evening drunkenly harassing and embarrassing Sinister before trying to subject him to Grievous Bottley Harm.
• Split Personality: Even though Havok's original personality was restored, it seems in times of great stress, he reverts back to the evil personality he had post-AXIS. Not only that, he doesn't remember what happens when that personality is in control.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The main reason the very first mission of the Hellions goes sideways.
• They Killed Kenny Again: Much like Quentin Quire in X-Force, Empath dies in literally every story arc playing Krakoa's resurrection protocols for Dark Comedy.
• This Is Going to Suck: This is Kwannon's reaction at Sinister letting Empath take control of Greycrow as payback for killing him, knowing as soon as Greycrow comes back to his senses, he'll make them pay.
• Token Evil Teammate: Empath is the most irredeemable of the entire group. Whilst everyone else has a degree of likeability due to having some soft spots here and there, Empath is established as being an outright psychopath from the get-go, casually forcing people to fight and manipulating his teammates for the sheer hell of it. Every time he gets killed, no one misses him, and the Quiet Council expected they'd have to deal with stuff like this from him so they're not surprised. He's very aware of this and resents it deep down, being envious of the camaraderie the rest of the team builds. He even tries to join him for the final final, but is coldly rebuffed by Kwannon.
• Token Good Teammate:
  • Havok is the only member of the team who's just straight heroic and not an Anti-Hero, and is the most uncomfortable with having to dirty work for Mr. Sinister and the Quiet Council. The only reason he's on the team is due to his emotional outbursts, and he keeps complaining about being on the team at all.
  • Psylocke is an Anti-Hero who was assigned to the team to be the field leader and The Handler, thus keeping all the others in check. Though secretly she's being Blackmailed by Mr. Sinister to assist on his schemes and keep the team in the dark.
• Too Dumb to Live: After Empath asserts that he is not the real Cameron Hodge, but merely a simulacra, the "Hodgemind" refuses to believe him and tries to prove Empath wrong by ordering a Smiley robot to shoot him, smug in his belief that it will not because the Smileys are incapable of harming Cameron Hodge. It shoots him and he dies.
• The Tooth Hurts: Arcade has gone even more violent than before and gives Sinister some "dental work" that slowly removes most of the guy's teeth.
• Took a Level in Badass: What happens to mutants who die on Arakko, at least as long as it is in Otherworld. When resurrected, their personalities are intensified, their build stronger, their metabolism attuned to a meager diet… basically, they come back Arakkans.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Nanny becomes openly emotionally abusive towards Orphan-Maker after her resurrection from Arakko. While initially thought to be due to Orphan-Maker mouthing off to her, it's implied this is a result of her being on Arakko when she died affecting her resurrection, intensifying her personality by making her focus on another child. After she's resurrected again at the end of the series, this time after dying on Earth, she openly acknowledges she failed Peter and allows herself to be imprisoned with him to make up for it.
• Tranquil Fury: Nanny never raises her voice during her confrontation with Sinister at the end of #4, but the calmness of her words belies the fact she is enraged at the amount of children he murdered and swears he is going to suffer for it. Sinister actually gets scared.
• Tropaholics Anonymous: This is the reason why Havok is with the group. He's not happy to be on a team of killers and creeps, but Emma Frost believes being with the Hellions is a good way to avoid lapsing back into evil and he's making progress after the fiasco that was his leading an X-Men team in the 2018 Astonishing X-Men.
• Trojan Prisoner: Both Mastermind and Mr. Sinister are this to Arcade. He thought he had them at his mercy when he captured them. Turns out they were setting him up to give them some nice goodies before they make him their puppet, though Sinister did lose a lot of teeth. It was very suspicious that Mastermind was so fearful of his daughter being murdered when there's already the resurrection protocols.
• Two Girls to a Team: The two women are Psylocke and Nanny.
• The Villain Knows Where You Live: In the finale, Nanny reveals she knows exactly where Kate Pryde's mom lives and blatantly threatens her life.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Empath is not even a bit grateful at the Five for having him brought back on such short notice.
• The Unreveal: Nanny resurrects nude like everyone else, but she wears her pod-like Eggshell Clothing, preventing her appearance from being revealed (except for her arms and legs, which appear to be Ambiguously Brown).
• Villain Protagonist: As the creator of the team, Mr. Sinister is one of the main characters of the run, while also being the main antagonist, as he's just using the Hellions as his Unwitting Pawns to pursue his own selfish and illegal goals in Krakoa, a fact which is not kept a secret from the viewer.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • One of the original Marauders, Vertigo, is entirely absent, even though Sinister had also cloned her multiple times in the past — likely because she isn't a mutant, but rather originated as one of the Savage Land Mutates. Similarly, Malice, being a purely psychic entity who needs a host body, is also missing.
  • There's been no mention about any of Nanny's previous Lost Boys and Girls, including if they're now on Krakoa too and how they feel about Nanny and Orphan-Maker's presence. There's also been no mention about Gailyn and Joey Bailey, Jean Grey's niece and nephew whom Nanny originally kidnapped after the death of Jean's sister Sara.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
  • The Quiet Council votes against resurrecting Madelyne because she was already a clone of Jean Grey.
  • Clive, the AI on Sinister's jet, is clearly upset at the prospect of being crashed into a concrete building, but no one seems to care except for Sinister himself, which is what Kwannon was going for.
  • After the fake Cameron Hodge is dealt with, his disgruntled and self-aware Smiley robot slaves give up the anti-mutant prejudices that were programmed into them and befriend Havok... only to be immediately genocided by Psylocke under orders from the Quiet Council, who are firm in their belief that all anti-mutant A.I.s must be terminated on sight, regardless of whether or not they are sapient or even a threat anymore. When Greycrow questions Kwannon about this, she admits she sees it as killing innocents under orders from the Quiet Council. One of them is saved by Nanny, at least.
• Would Hurt a Child: Sinister's old cloning farm includes tanks of dead mutant babies he essentially disposed of because they weren't good enough for him. Nanny, a Well-Intentioned Extremist whose entire thing is wanting to save mutant children (in her own way), essentially gets traumatized all over again finding the dead children and grows a grudge against Mr. Sinister, even attempting to kill him during the Hellfire Gala.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Kwannon tells Greycrow that she's about to upload a virus that'll murder the sentient Smiley robots, Greycrow tries to do it himself, sparing her the act. Instead she stops him by saying that she sees beyond the surface of the stoic appearance Greycrow maintains and that he really doesn't want to do this either and that he's genuinely trying to become the better person he wants to be. Psylocke then proceeds to upload the virus herself, keeping John's hands clean. While tragic, it does serve as a powerful catalyst for these two to form a bond
  Psylocke: John. You don't want to do that. Not really. I see you John. Who you are. Who you want to be. It's okay. You don't have to be the killer. Not this time.
• You Killed My Father: The reason John Greycrow ended up imprisoned in the first place, was because several Morlocks (who had been revived), wanted payback on him for killing them and their friends during the original Mutant Massacre. We don't see what happens to them, but Greycrow's healing factor ensures he seems unharmed afterwards.

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