How to introduce a rival team - The New Mutants meet the Hellions

[icon_uk]

Firstly please excuse the quality of the scans, the comics themselves are 28 years old and have been much read! :)

So this is another of my "Accentuate the Positive" posts, a glimpse into the past at some story or concept I thought was well presented, to prevent me making another angry post about current comics (Though I'll still post about the good ones of those I find too of course)



Quick recap (Well, this is a Claremont story, so quick is relative)

Emma Frost (Still the unrepentant White Queen of the Hellfire Club) has offered Kitty's friend Doug Ramsey (Who is as yet unaware of his own mutant nature, though Kitty and the others are not) a scholarship at the Massachusetts (Which I can't believe I just spelled correctly first time) Academy. Unaware of her evil nature, Doug is slightly delighted by this, but remembers that Kitty had mentioned being a student there briefly (very briefly, LONGER story) and asks her to join him in checking the place out before deciding whether to accept or not. Unwilling to let her friend walk into a possible trap unaided she agrees.

Of course, it IS a trap for Kitty (though Emma may well have had plans for Doug as well). Magik discovers this and alerts the other new Mutants (They may not like Kitty that much, but they don't want to see anything bad happen to her or Doug). Alas, the X-Men have just disappeared because of the Secret Wars and no one left on Earth has any clue where they've gone.


So the NM's have no choice but to go to the rescue themselves. They arrive, but are cornered by Hellfire Club guards, and still manage to escape

(This may not be the most coherent post because I've chosen to focus on the Hellions rather than purely on the narrative, with one or two exceptions, but bear with me. Also, the Sal Buscema/Tom Mandrake art has never been my favourite, but it's serviceable at least)

So it falls to the guards to inform their boss of their failure. One thing I love about Claremont is that he goes out of his way to make even his background characters people, rather than (with no offence to Doug) cyphers. They may wear costumes, or uniforms, but they clearly have lives beyond that, and friends too, even if they are "the bad guys".



This next page is a nice little glimpse into pre-reformation Emma's outlook on the world. It's more than just being arrogant, or having a nice line in acid-drenched one-liners.



Nice recruitment speech there....

The Mutants split up, Sam and Amara go to take out an underground generator (and all the backups) to cause as much confusion as they can, and will then seek out Doug, who isn't being held captive like Kitty, Emma still wants to recruit him voluntarily if she can)

Dani and Illyana (in stolen Hellfire Club gear) as one team and Rahne and Berto as another go looking for Kitty.

This also has my favourite excuse for the New Mutants costumes EVER! :)



Jetstream? Now that's a new name (Well, in context it is)

Dani suggests to Magik (Sorry, but it's easier to spell than Illyana) that they could use her powers to teleport rather than sneak around, but Magik says no, her power has drawbacks (We'll see them later).



Oooh! Spooky!

Meanwhile Berto and Rahne have come across a locked door, which Berto is able to force open as Sunspot but on the other side...



Rahne leaps at the newcomer (Thunderbird II, in case you hadn't guessed) but finds that someone else is picking on her...





But Jenny, or Roulette as she is also known, does interfere and throws a black light disk at Sunspot whilst he is busy lifting the shelves off of Rahne. He instantly collapses in agony, and Roulette muses that, though she can never be sure what effect her luck powers will have, she wouldn't be surprised if he's pulled a muscle in his back, or pinched a nerve. She's not VERY sorry about hurting him as she thought it was fun. Thunderbird is LESS amused.

Back at Dani and Illyana's mission... Dani collapses because her mindlink to Rahne (always strongest when Rahne is in wolf-form) has just sent a wave of pain at her she wasn't prepared for, and whilst the two of them are distracted...



And as it that weren't bad enough, on with the Sam and Amara show, as we meet perhaps the most loathesome of this new team....



Doug, with exquisite timing, arrives breaking Empath's already split concentration, and freeing Sam from his control. He punches out Manuel Alfonso Rodrigo De La Rocha (Who for the sake of my typing, we'll just call Empath) but hasn't got time to catch his breath before he's attacked by a guy flying in through the window, the last member of our little team, Jetstream....

Emma watches Jetstream and Cannonball smash through a dormitory wall, and sighs, she'd hoped the Hellions could manage this with a little finesse, but clearly she's going to need to take matters into her OWN hands.

Sam and Jetstream tussle in mid-air, whilst Empath takes the chance to make Magma's friendship for Sam become complete and utter hatred. Cue several flaming magma blasts being aimed at him. A stray blast hits Jetstream and Sam, ever the straight arrow realises that he'll be badly injured falling from such a height, and swoops to catch him whilst still rocketing and so invulnerable.





The impact as he hits the ground breaks Empaths hold over Amara, who is about to roast the skin from his bones (probably) when Sam rockets back OUT of the ground, punching Empath's lights out.

A rather stunned Doug has been trying to take all this in (his friends have SUPERPOWERS?) but he, Amara and Sam all fall prey to the arrival of the White Queen, she discreetly mindwipes Doug so he'll go back to bed and remember nothing, and controls Sam and Amara enough to make them docile enough to get indoors.

Which leaves only Dani and Magik, where Dani is still fighting Tarot's Devil, who in a typical Claremontian move is also transforming her into a devil herself.





Luckily that's enough to reverse the transformation of Dani.

A terrified Tarot tries another card (She sort of relies on them) and pulls out the Knight of Sword whose horse catches Illyana a glancing blow on the head. With Emma arriving on the scene too, even though Magik's immune to all psi-powers, it's all she can do to summon a stepping disk and take Dani through it with her.

Emma is.... not pleased, but there's not a lot she can do...

And so we head into part two



We open with the Hellions having a little... discussion about the night before. eg Jetstream punches Empath very, very hard for his stupidity risking his life. (and now we see some fun dynamics and an overview from their boss which tells us a lot about the team)







Now this whole set up fascinated me, these aren't powers with cool names, they're kids and they all have different reasons for being there and how they relate to reach other.

Their entry in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (Which I can't find in my boxes at the moment, sorry about that) expands a little further.

We have

• Thunderbird (James Proudstar), whose there because he has a personal vendetta against Charles Xavuer, and the Hellfire Club say they will help.
• Catseye (Sharon Smith), who genuinely thinks she's a cat who can turn into a human, having spent most of her life being raised by a cat in the Massachusetts Underground system. She stays because it's fun. Emma notes that Sharon's intellect is actually enormous, but her mindset is a little more feral than the norm.
• Jetstream (Haroun ibn Sallah al-Rashid from Morocco) is a member because he owes them a debt. His power is to fly, but his body has no protection against impact and friction and he burned most of his skin off the first time he flew. The cybernetic implants the Hellfire Club paid for saved his life, and now he owes them.
• Tarot (Marie-Ange Colbert) is there because her cards tell her to be.
• Roulette (Jenny Stavros) is the daughter of a... legitimate businessman in Atlantic City. She's there because she chooses to be, but again, isn't really evil, more.. somewhat nasty, in a hgh school sort of a way, and finally
• Empath (Manuel Alfonso Rodrigo De La Rocha) Now he IS evil, a sadistic, malevolent little wretch who plays with people emotions and breaks lives just for fun. I'm all for a villain with some depth, but every now and again it's nice to have someone you can just "Booooo!" with a clear conscience. (A lot of this was later undone, to the characters detriment IMHO, but that's a post for another day)

So we have a variety of outlooks, a variety of motivations, all united, like the New Mutants, but their powers.

But back to the plot... there was one, remember?

In Limbo, Sym has found Dani and illyana and "takes care of them" which includes new clothes and a bed in early demonic. Illyana feels the need for a healing spell.



This is the first time that Dani has really see Illyana do magic and is a little confused by the mixing of black and white magic (Sort of Magik's whole schtick)

Recovered, they return to Earth, and we're about to discover the problem that Magik had with her powers in the early days...



Oh dear... Kitty and all the New Mutants (Except no sign of Doug) as Hellions? That was quick. As it turns out it wasn't. Magik teleports through space AND time, and whilst she can be fairly good with the spatial, the temporal is a PAIN, the two of them have accidentally arrived more than six months in the future, during which time, in the absence of the X-Men, who knows what might have happened.

They decide to try again, and this time arrive less than a week after their starting point, which is the best that Illyana can manage. They get into Emma's office and try calling the X-Mansion, but get no answer, and instead had down to the holding cells.

They find the others all there (again, apart from Doug, who one hopes went on his way home after his planned weekend, presumably with some sort of memory implant of Kitty wanting to stay ot catch up with old friends or the like), but are ambushed by the Hellions, for a rather surprising reason...



Since Emma is in New York she knows nothing of this. A duel is declared, Sam vs Haroun, Cannonball vs Jetstream, in the confines of the Combat Room (An early Danger Room analogue)



Sam is pleased to note that the Hellions are playing fair, with Jetstream just as much a target as he is...



Well, that's just embarrassing!

It falls to Sunspot to yell out a strategy that Sam has practiced before which leads him to be able to brake in mid air for long enough to, basically, kick Jetstream in the face.



Alas, we'll never know how sincere the Hellions were, as the scene is interrupted by Emma returning, with a surprise guest, Sebastian Shaw, the Black King of the Hellfire Club.

Good though the New Mutants are, they're still pretty much rookies, and against a psi of Emma's class, and Shaw's ability to absorb any impact and turn it into strength they are pretty much hosed. Luckily Kitty is able to phase through the Combat Romo's controls sending them wild and, in the confusion, Illyana teleports out, but not before Rahne has a chance to offer what she sees as redemption to a mutant with a similar power to her own...



And thus ended the first meeting of the New Mutants and the original Hellions. They would go on to have many more meetings over the years ahead, usually as rivals, but sometimes as allies. Magma even left the New Mutants to join the Hellions as she felt their more privileged lifestyle was perhaps better suited to her than Xaviers more laissez-faire approach (Another of Louise Simonson's plot twists I never warmed to)

Alas apart from Thunderbird (who had already left to join X-Force) and Empath (Who ended up with Amara in South America), they were all killed to make a frighteningly two-dimensional and boring new villain Trevor Fitzroy appear badass. Le sigh....

Several other teams took on the name; A group of villains who made a one-off appearance in Generation-X, another which made a one off appearance in X-Force (And which included Tarot, who apparently returned from the dead under her own power via means that were never elaborated on), and the name of Emma's short lived (in some cases literally) class cadre at Xaviers school in Young X-Men, but these were the first and IMHO the best, a shame we never got to see how they developed and grew up, but that was the 90's for you :( )

Comments

[auggie18]

Oh man, Tarot. Always liked her. Wish she'd stuck around more, though her powers seemed more mystical than mutant. Too bad she died. And then re-died. And then re-died again.

I always liked the Academy X Hellions, though it was beyond me as to why Emma would name her squad after the first group of children to die under her care. (And boy, is that list adding up.)

[arilou_skiff]

She didn't. Julian did. (as a taunt/challenge kinda)

[icon_uk]

As a tribute to them, and a reminder of the first team to actually (eventually) mean something to her.

[randyripoff]

I remember this story too, back from when Claremont still had his fastball. That was a great time for comics, particularly the X-Verse, which hadn't exploded into a zillion different franchises at the time.

[werehawk]

Catseye is so cool. I liked her since I read about her in the Handbook entry.

[icon_uk]

Catseye was definitely a fun character, to the extent that even her tendency to Claremontian cute-speak didn't put me off,

[mastermahan]

And thus is established a long and proud tradition of Empath being one creepy bastard, even by the standards of the Claremont mind control villain.

[icon_uk]

He IS eminently dislikeable isn't he.

There's a scene in a later issue where he sees some kids playing "Mutant and X-Factor" (Sort of like a more up to date version of "Cowboys and Indians") and triggers a fear response in the X-Factor players when they look at the kid playing mutant, and ensures that that reaction is strong enough to always be remembered, so the kid will always be treated with fear and distraust by the kids they thought of as friends. What Empath sees as a fit punishment for a flatscan aping their "betters".

Then there's the issue where the NM's decide to get their own back on the little shit for his many transgressions. a good issue that.

[crabby_lioness]

Empath's schtick, as later explained, is that as a child he was overwhelmed by the muddle of other people's emotions. Seizing just one emotion and amplifying it over all the others started out as a defensive mechanism. Unfortunately he never grew beyond justifying it, although he always had a soft spot for Amara and used it to help her after M-Day.

Please, please, please, show the scavenger hunt! Pretty please with Robin on top?

[icon_uk]

See, I liked Empath in his role as... just a seriously bad kid. A power hungry, ruthless little shit with no moral compunctions and a power to back his aspirations up.

Making him a "Oh woe is me I was a misunderstood child and I didn't really know what I was doing, but the love of a good woman transformed me" sort of a well, not a villain, not a hero, not much of anything, really, just seemed to be (oddly enough) taking the easy way out.

[sir_mikael]

Ok this? This is good stuff. Good reveals, fascinating character set-ups with interesting concepts. And you know, this is good Emma characterization too.

The Catseye thing is brilliant and it's interesting to see that Tarot depends on her cards, maybe OCD-ish or maybe faith-based. Maybe both.

I wonder if it was Pierce's idea to make Jetstream a cyborg. Also wow isn't this a pretty early example of a mutant not being immune to the effects of their own power?

Btw thanks to the Chronicles of the Nerds podcast I really can't read Cannonball exclaim he's nearly invulnurable when he's blasting without thinking that's what he says in bed.

[tpsreports]

I remember these issues well I bought them new but just one issue later Bill Sienkiewicz arrived with Demon Bear and the New Mutants quickly became one of my favorite comics.

[icon_uk]

Indeed, and two issues or so after that a certain blond omnilinguist and a technorganic alien joined the team and it became one of MY favourite comics! :)

[ensiform]

I owned these comics, way back when!

There sure is a lot of... Claremont in these pages. Bondage, accents, high-fantasy speechifyin', naive young kids with hearts of gold....

Well, it was the style at the time, as Abe Simpson said about tying onions to his belt.

[icon_uk]

naive young kids with hearts of gold....

Wouldn't mind seeing a bit more of that attitude in certain other teen-oriented comics I could name.... (Well, Bunker probably qualifies, and Solstice used to, but I don't think does now.)

[crabby_lioness]

I still own them. :)

[nefrekeptah]

I recently got the first issue of that story arc. Honestly, I can't say I liked it that much.

For one thing, it has the Claremont trademark of telling (and re-telling) instead of actually showing. The scene where Dani uses her powers to get some guard they captured to talk, and then spending the next few panel angst-ly thinking to herself how she didn't like doing it comes to mind.

Also, no offense to those who like them, but many of the Hellions just seem so lazy to me. Characters like Catseye and Jetstream are obviously just send-offs of Wolfsbane and Cannonball (Raine's a werewolf who doesn't like her wolf form, so let's make Catseye a werecat who doesn't like her human form! Subtle contrast!), and a lot of their powers are either uninspired "just like insert-'s power BUT" or confusing as Hell. Double points for Tarot, who's powers are clearly based off of Dani's illusion powers and make no damn sense (what, is she conjuring them up or just casting illusions? And why does she need a Tarot deck to do that?)

It's like Claremount made up the Hellions first and foremost to contrast the New Mutants, and didn't bother going beyond that. The only exceptions to this seem to be Roulette and Empath, who if memory serves were already established characters.

[icon_uk]

Can't deny most of those points, but I don't see them as being problems to be honest.

Yes I'd say they were created to be rivals, but aren't most villain teams that don't have an over-riding theme? (Like, say the Wrecking Crew, or the Serpent Society)

None of the Hellions had appeared before. Empath and Thunderbird would later go on to appear in an X-Men story which introduced Firestar to the MU (after her cartoon appearances) but Roulette and Empath were as new as the rest. (Even James Proudstar was a new addition, Thunderbird had never had a brother before)

Tarot's powers seemed reasonably straightforward. She creates solid projections based on the images she's pulled at random, the tarot deck is a convenient and familiar focussing device (And no one ever says her powers are truly precognitive, though she believes them to be. The "Lovers" card bit for example, never happened with any New Mutant), same way a number of, say, telekinetics, are matter-specific; Water Wizard only affecting water, Gypsy Moth only affecting soft materials like fabrics etc.

Dani hating her powers effect was a recurring character trait. If your power is basically, to scare people to the point of recurring bed-wetting, and you don't have qualms about using it, THEN I'd say she had a problem. And Claremont tended to work on the principle that any comic that you read might be your first comic. It made for some repeating tropes, but as this was my first New Mutants comic in some time (My local newsagent not having a regular pull list for American comics) it was handy for me.

[beyondthefringe]

I was an impressionable young teen when this issue came out, and I've always had a soft spot for the Hellions. They were just so cool, especially when pitted against the New Mutants. I even had a bit of a crush on Tarot. I was so horribly dismayed when the team was slaughtered during the excesses of the '90s.

There were some excellent fanfics being written about these characters back in the '90s. If Jeremy Bottroff's "Go West" saga ever resurfaces, check it out. There was a guy who really got Cipher, Warlock, Tarot, Dani, Rahne, Catseye, and the rest.

Now I'm all sadly nostalgic.

[beyondthefringe]

Found it: http://lubakmetyk.infinology.net/others/bottroff/gowest.htm

[cleome45]

[wonders if there was ever a "What If?" type fic in which --as in Magik's detour into the wrong reality-- the two teams ended up united under Emma's rule]

[kusonaga]

Ah'm nigh invulnerable when ah'm blastin'!

Seriously though, I love it. Could you post more Hellions? I know there's a bit when Cypher gets drunk and Roulette is all over him.

[icon_uk]

The "Doug gets drunk" (and even better Sam's method of dealing with it) is somewhere on my list to post for sure! :)

[lascoden]

Pretty cool stuff. Always been interested in New Mutants, seems like some interesting stuff. Though, I wonder if Tarot's deck includes the Minor cards. Bad luck if she pulled out a Ace of Cups, and just conjured a goblet or something.

[icon_uk]

Yes, Tarot's deck includes the full Major and Minor Arcana. (I assume the Ace of Cups might well produce a flood of water when tipped over, or provide water where it was needed, or neutralise poisons in it or something like that)

I think it's in the "Go West" fanfic mentioned elsewhere that we see how dangerous they can be too, when she pulls the Seven of Swords against an attacker and they end up impaled to a wall by seven large broadswords. (That story also has her using other versions of the deck (Though they add the nice limit that they all have to be hand-painted or drawn by her for her powers to work through them) which have different themes and alignments)