The X-Men are in a shaky place right now. Six years ago, the X-Men were riding high on House of X/Powers of X, and their comics were the most popular thing in comics, but nothing lasts forever. The Krakoa Era’s end was inevitable, but it was so uneven by then that fans were kind of happy for it to be over. Marvel made a huge push for their post-Krakoa Era books, putting Marvel’s most tenured editor on the books in Tom Brevoort and hyping them to a huge extent. Since then, there have been some great books, some okay books, and a decent amount of failures. Fans are very much divided on this era of mutant comics, and Marvel needs to do something to get readers back into the books.
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One of the strengths of the Krakoa Era was that the books took old characters and used them in new ways. We got to see a lot of characters get pushed that no one ever expected, and it worked very well. The best example of this happens to be one of the best X-books of the last decade: Hellions. The 18-issue series starred a unique group of heroes and villains, brought together to do the bidding of Krakoa’s most shady operator, working out their various mental issues with violence. It was fantastic, and it’s exactly the kind of shot in the arm that the X-Men books could use.
Hellions Was an Awesome Concept that Paid Dividends for Numerous Characters
Hellions was probably the biggest surprise of the Krakoa Era. Part of the second wave of books in 2020, it brought together a rather disparate team of characters for a team idea that already seemed covered, if I’m being honest. It felt like it was going to be another black ops book and we already had X-Force. Of course, this one had the added wrinkle of bringing Mister Sinister into the mix, which added to the chaotic feel of the book. It was this anarchic energy that made the book special and gave the line something that it didn’t have.
The cast was the first piece of the puzzle. Sinister was going through a renaissance in the Krakoa Era, and some of his finest moments in the era came in this book. Psylocke played the straight man to the sometimes zany villain, riding herd on a team of misfits. Havok was having an identity crisis and it was affecting his powers, Greycrow was dealing with knowing that he was a copy of a copy, Wild Child had regressed tremendously, Empath was the cattiest person imaginable and there to stir up trouble, and Nanny and Orphan-Maker were dealing with their usual weirdness. It brought together numerous elements that shouldn’t have worked, but went together beautifully.
The stories from the book were fine, standard Krakoa X-fare, with villains like Madelyne Pryor and the clones of the Marauders, “X of Swords” craziness, Mastermind, Arcade, Tarn the Uncaring, and the Right all challenging the group. However, what made it work so well was the way it grew the characters and played them off one another. It gave us a unique look at the era and let us spend time with characters who we wouldn’t otherwise have time with. It became a favorite of fans, and there hasn’t been anything like it since. You never knew what you were going to get, but you knew that it was going to be good.
“From the Ashes” was extremely uneven, with a few great books that were basically exactly what you could expect from the era. There was nothing out of the ordinary, and it feels like “Shadows of Tomorrow” was going to be more of the same. It’s a huge problem with the era; it’s all so predictable and we need a spoiler, a book that comes out of nowhere and gives readers something different. That was the fun of Hellions; there was no way to predict what the book was going to do, and it took readers on a wild ride that was actually about the characters more than the events. The X-Men books need more of that, a dark horse book that blows minds and mints new stars.
A Hellions-Style Book Would Shake the X-Books Out of the Doldrums
Hellions took some of the best mutant anti-heroes and the weirdest X-villains and mixed them together, creating the most chaotic book that anyone had read in a long time. Hellions #12, the Hellfire Gala issue, was one of the most fun comics of the entire Krakoa Era. It was a spoiler in an era that often took itself entirely too seriously, and also gave readers some tremendous character-based storytelling. It’s everything you could want an X-book to be, and it’s exactly what the current X-books are missing.
Hellions was a spark, and that’s what this current era of the X-Men needs. Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, and Exceptional X-Men are all scratching some itches, but we know what to expect from them. The same with the upcoming X-Men United, and the rest of the newly announced books and stories. We need a book like Hellions, a book that took a bunch of characters that no one thought would work together and made them sing. We needs a book that’s energy is completely counterintuitive to everything that’s happening. Hellions was pure chaos as a comic, and that’s exactly the kind of energy that the X-books need right now.
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