Hellions #12, Party Foul, Recap and Review, Spoilers

[Scavenger]

I really want to know what David (Prodigy) did to get a Hellions referral.

Likely somethign with the whole , there's now 2 of him running around thing that got touched on in X-Factor..


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I liked a lot of the scenes in the book...the cuckoos comentary, Nanny etc...But the series has suffered being the Super Camp Adventures of Sinister. I'll admit when Carey first went down that road, I remember it being funny, but honestly it's tiring in this series, which is already hampered by less then top name charaters. I mean, yes Nanny was fun in this issue...but it's still Nanny and @#!@# Orphan Maker...they weren't interesting when they were created, and all these years later they're...just there.

At least Roulette showed up for a panel or two. (Look, I like evil sexy blondes with luck powers)

[rcaguy]

It's weird seeing Sinister afraid of a broken glass after all the crap he's survived, but more than worth it for the hilarity.

The only joke that didn't land for me was the guy who said he didn't recognize Dani without her powers. First off, who is he? Secondly, what's the joke? Is it a reference to the decade she was depowered? Her powers don't usually have a visual signal when they're used like Karma's.

It was the so-called dress Dani was wearing. Normally she wouldn't be caught dead in something like that.

[BroHomo]

I was responding to the comment made that people care more about the sexual orientation of the characters than the great plot. I’m just confused as to how sexual orientation even came up in the discussion.

People just make rando sh!t up when it comes to X-men

[Thievery]

Hellions #2 was easily the best comic out this week. A very enjoyable read. Psylocke, Greycrow, Havok, and Sinister are worth paying for the comic alone. Such great character work is being done with them. I'm definitely liking the Psylocke/Greycrow pairing.

I think that there is a chance that Maddie Pryor pops up given al the name drops that she has been getting.

Hellions remains the best X-Men comic, and it isn't even close in my opinion.

I definitely agree with those who think that Wells should be getting more than one X-comic.

[loke13]

Likely somethign with the whole , there's now 2 of him running around thing that got touched on in X-Factor..


------
I liked a lot of the scenes in the book...the cuckoos comentary, Nanny etc...But the series has suffered being the Super Camp Adventures of Sinister. I'll admit when Carey first went down that road, I remember it being funny, but honestly it's tiring in this series, which is already hampered by less then top name charaters. I mean, yes Nanny was fun in this issue...but it's still Nanny and @#!@# Orphan Maker...they weren't interesting when they were created, and all these years later they're...just there.

At least Roulette showed up for a panel or two. (Look, I like evil sexy blondes with luck powers)

Tbh this is the best written Sinister has ever been. This is camp Sinister done right.

[Captain Nash]

As always this book is goldenly epic. I like Wells writing but I never expected it to become the book that I got the most enjoyment out of reading, every. single. month.

I loved it all. But the Nanny-Sinister-Exodus scenes were the top level best for me.

[sunofdarkchild]

Man has Empath fallen. He used to go on and on about his aristocratic background, looking down on the world and taking his revenge on anyone who dared lay a hand on him. When did his ego become this deflated?

[BroHomo]

Man has Empath fallen. He used to go on and on about his aristocratic background, looking down on the world and taking his revenge on anyone who dared lay a hand on him. When did his ego become this deflated?

When he bleached his hair

[Sutekh]

Man has Empath fallen. He used to go on and on about his aristocratic background, looking down on the world and taking his revenge on anyone who dared lay a hand on him. When did his ego become this deflated?

For all my unexpected love for how they are using Nanny in this book, I kinda hate where they've gone with Empath.

He was a rich entitled jerk, who didn't grow up disconnected because of his powers because he didn't even have powers until puberty (long after he would have learned how to form a normal emotional connection), and was entirely to blame for going off the deep end and abusing his powers (and everyone around him with those powers) and, at the height of her villainy, Emma freaking Frost realized he was out of control and shut down his powers so that he could only sense emotions, and no longer manipulate them, forcing him to learn all over again how to interact with people without running roughshod all over them with his powers. He went through a whole growth cycle in the 80s, and was turning it around, slowly (much as Emma later did, ironically, since she was beating the sociopath out of him not because she wanted him to be a nice guy, but because she needed him to be able to work with others, and not have every single other student want to murder him the instant they were out of his powers range...).

And now, he's mysteriously a victim of his powers preventing him from making healthy emotional connections (so he somehow gets a pass for it?), and even more of a jerk than he ever was, even before he 'got over himself' and turned it around. That's like, *two* terrible ideas. "Oh, he's a terrible person, but it's not even his fault! Feel bad for woobie, so confused that Catseye and Roulette want to beat him down!"

And he stopped being Latino and is now a blond? That's special. I guess they needed more blond white dudes on the team, what with Wild Child and Havok being the only blond white dude reps?

Thank goodness for Nanny, is all I'm sayin' because they fell down the well on Empath, IMO.

[Leirus]

For all my unexpected love for how they are using Nanny in this book, I kinda hate where they've gone with Empath.

He was a rich entitled jerk, who didn't grow up disconnected because of his powers because he didn't even have powers until puberty (long after he would have learned how to form a normal emotional connection), and was entirely to blame for going off the deep end and abusing his powers (and everyone around him with those powers) and, at the height of her villainy, Emma freaking Frost realized he was out of control and shut down his powers so that he could only sense emotions, and no longer manipulate them, forcing him to learn all over again how to interact with people without running roughshod all over them with his powers. He went through a whole growth cycle in the 80s, and was turning it around, slowly (much as Emma later did, ironically, since she was beating the sociopath out of him not because she wanted him to be a nice guy, but because she needed him to be able to work with others, and not have every single other student want to murder him the instant they were out of his powers range...).

And now, he's mysteriously a victim of his powers preventing him from making healthy emotional connections (so he somehow gets a pass for it?), and even more of a jerk than he ever was, even before he 'got over himself' and turned it around. That's like, *two* terrible ideas. "Oh, he's a terrible person, but it's not even his fault! Feel bad for woobie, so confused that Catseye and Roulette want to beat him down!"

And he stopped being Latino and is now a blond? That's special. I guess they needed more blond white dudes on the team, what with Wild Child and Havok being the only blond white dude reps?

Thank goodness for Nanny, is all I'm sayin' because they fell down the well on Empath, IMO.

Empath was never latino. He was always a spaniard, and the kind of spaniard who would take offense at being called latino (it is a thing). I agree that his past development has been ignored, but what we have here makes sense. He is learning that people have limits and that if he is to survive, he needs to be less of a sadistic dick.

[Sutekh]

Empath was never latino. He was always a spaniard, and the kind of spaniard who would take offense at being called latino (it is a thing). I agree that his past development has been ignored, but what we have here makes sense. He is learning that people have limits and that if he is to survive, he needs to be less of a sadistic dick.

A Spaniard, yes, but one with darker hair and skin, not a blonde Scandinavian-looking dude. (It is annoying how many pictures of him online are of this latest blonde dude, and not the original dark haired Empath.)

And he already learned his lesson about people and their limits, decades ago, back when he didn't have an emotional handicap because of his mutation to excuse his behavior, but was just a jerk who was abusing his powers and didn't need to be 'understood' or 'cured.'

[Kisinith]

A Spaniard, yes, but one with darker hair and skin, not a blonde Scandinavian-looking dude. (It is annoying how many pictures of him online are of this latest blonde dude, and not the original dark haired Empath.)

And he already learned his lesson about people and their limits, decades ago, back when he didn't have an emotional handicap because of his mutation to excuse his behavior, but was just a jerk who was abusing his powers and didn't need to be 'understood' or 'cured.'

I'm not a fan of him being pasty white and blonde, but I am a fan of his current characterization. He is much better in this series being a sociopathic douche than he would have been as a semi-reformed douche. It also makes sense for someone with his powerset to be sociopathic by default (true for telepaths too), constantly having to learn to play well with others.

Also, I much prefer seeing the X-Office drawing deeply from its well of characters, even if it involves a bit of character regression, rather than having them endlessly creating "new" characters that aren't much more than pallet-swaps of existing characters.

[Leirus]

A Spaniard, yes, but one with darker hair and skin, not a blonde Scandinavian-looking dude. (It is annoying how many pictures of him online are of this latest blonde dude, and not the original dark haired Empath.)

And he already learned his lesson about people and their limits, decades ago, back when he didn't have an emotional handicap because of his mutation to excuse his behavior, but was just a jerk who was abusing his powers and didn't need to be 'understood' or 'cured.'

Oh, yeah, I miss him being brunette/vaguely redheadish. It was more distinctive. And more realist.

[loke13]

A Spaniard, yes, but one with darker hair and skin, not a blonde Scandinavian-looking dude. (It is annoying how many pictures of him online are of this latest blonde dude, and not the original dark haired Empath.)

And he already learned his lesson about people and their limits, decades ago, back when he didn't have an emotional handicap because of his mutation to excuse his behavior, but was just a jerk who was abusing his powers and didn't need to be 'understood' or 'cured.'

I can only speak for myself but before this book came out I really had no idea who Empath was same goes for Nanny, Orphanmaker, Greycrow, and Kyle. I can't attest to any sort of past characterization but I'm pretty sure is Zeb chose a bunch of obscure characters from decades ago and gave them a few tweaks for the modern era. And I don't see anything wrong with that especially it doesn't seem like any writer was all that interested in writing any of these characters let alone giving them cohesive character arcs.

[Sutekh]

I can only speak for myself but before this book came out I really had no idea who Empath was same goes for Nanny, Orphanmaker, Greycrow, and Kyle. I can't attest to any sort of past characterization but I'm pretty sure is Zeb chose a bunch of obscure characters from decades ago and gave them a few tweaks for the modern era. And I don't see anything wrong with that especially it doesn't seem like any writer was all that interested in writing any of these characters let alone giving them cohesive character arcs.

I had zero *interest* in most of them, so the writer gets credit for getting me to enjoy Nanny, in particular, but the story he's telling with Empath has reset him back to a characterization as bad or worse than he was at his worst *and* provided an 'excuse' (his powers preventing him from developing normal human emotional reactions as he grew, which is a straight up retcon, since he became a mutant at puberty, like most mutants, long after those skills would have developed) for said jerkitude. He went from one of the rare ex-villains who had *put in the work* and would maybe even have earned a shot at the redemption / amnesty Krakoa was offering, to one of the un-redeemed (and quite possibly irredeemable) jerks like Sinister or Sabertooth or Mystique, who straight-up didn't deserve it.

He's a nothing of a character, that's true, but dragging him backwards after his own journey forward would be like deciding I want to use Emma, and the first thing I do is have her run around killing people's pets and possessing their bodies, as she did with Firestar and Storm back in the day, while simultaneously giving her an out and saying, 'Oh, she can't help it. Her powers made her this way! She just needs some help.' Which, like I said, is *two* mistakes in one, erasing growth, and then giving an excuse for bad behavior.