Hellions #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
HELLIONS #10
“Funny Games, Part II: Hitbox”
by Zeb Wells, Stephen Segovia & David Curiel
COVER / PAGE 1. Some of the Hellions in the foreground, with Arcade gloating in the background. For some reason this issue has old-style 1980s cover boxes, which doesn’t really seem to play into anything much (though it does get the characters who aren’t in the main pose onto the cover).
PAGE 2. The now-usual opening quotation from Nightcrawler. This time he’s telling us what a valuable experience it is to face our demons and grow.
PAGES 3-6. Arcade talks to Sinister.
Arcade traditionally wouldn’t be in anything approaching Sinister’s league when it comes to power. But he does tell us that Sinister’s powers are being dampened by the chair. And Sinister seems to be a lot less physically powerful in his current incarnation anyway.
Arcade claims that his agenda here is to get access to Mr Sinister’s cloning technology, so that he can use the clones in his Murderworlds. He doesn’t exactly tell us why he wants to do that, and his motivations in this scene are a bit obscure. Traditionally, Arcade’s thing was to build insanely elaborate deathtraps, capture people, and throw them into said deathtraps before sitting back to watch and giggle. Ostensibly he was an assassin, but it’s obvious on a moment’s reflection that he could just kill people as soon as he captured them. The whole scheme only makes any sort of sense if he just enjoys doing Murderworld. There have been stories where Arcade messes around with virtual reality technology, but the basic theme that he enjoys the game, and that his assassination career is a mere excuse, continues.
Arcade has pressganged Mastermind into helping him with the use of a hostage, and he seems to have a staff of some sort (given the memo we see later). But he describes this as a “low-tech Murderworld” which depends on Mastermind to give it any content. Arcade claims that this “Sure beats watching them bounce around a giant pinball machine” (which was a feature of his earliest appearances, in Marvel Team-Up #66 and X-Men #123). But he doesn’t exactly seem convinced. In the previous issue, he complained that watching the Hellions experience Mastermind’s illusions “looked utterly boring”. Arcade does apparently have video screens that can show the illusions, as we see on page 24.
Arcade also plainly doesn’t trust Mastermind, hence his repeated efforts to have it confirmed from a distance that all is as it appears. Of course, Mastermind could easily interfere with that, but Arcade seems to suggest that he’s getting other signals as well – presumably, the idea is that since Mastermind doesn’t know what those other signals are, he won’t know what subtle illusions would screen them out.
Mastermind is here to rescue his daughter, which is nice of him, since I don’t think they’ve ever actually met on camera. Mastermind has two daughters, Regan and Martinique (basically the result of two different stories coming up with the “Mastermind’s daughter” gimmick independently). Both of them have previously been seen on Krakoa in cameos. Arcade describes the captive here as “Martinique”, but the art shows Regan – the one who was briefly a member of the X-Men as Lady Mastermind.
Zeb Wells was asked about this on Twitter, and his response makes it pretty clear that this is an error. Presumably this character is meant to be Martinique as stated in the dialogue – though it it mattered that much which one it was, it would probably have been caught. At any rate, in case it matters, Martinique has a history with Arcade: she hired him to go after Wolverine and Gambit in her debut story, the 1995 miniseries Wolverine / Gambit: Victims.
Miss Locke. Arcade identifies his female aide as “Miss Locke”, but she supposedly died in Wolverine / Gambit: Victims. That didn’t stop her appearing in some later stories, probably by error, but Avengers Arena reiterated that Arcade had killed her. Given that Arcade is able to make humanoid robots, it’s entirely possible that this is a robot Locke, and the story strongly hints at that later on.
PAGE 7. Recap and credits. I’m not sure what the significance is of the title “Hitbox”. It was the name of a competitor to Twitch (now defunct), which I suppose might be seen as quite Arcade.
PAGE 8. Psylocke’s illusion.
Obviously, we’re now getting that good old standby, the series of dreams and nightmares that illuminate something about the characters. Psylocke’s utopia scenario is one where she’s living an ordinary domestic life with her daughter. The daughter was introduced in Fallen Angels, and we’ve seen in previous issues that her mind now survives as an AI which is in Sinister’s possession – hence Psylocke’s willingness to work with the Hellions.
Maternal Psylocke has black hair rather than the familiar purple, even though her hair isn’t meant to be died; presumably it’s all part of her wishing for normalcy. Her utopian vision is also very low-tech, rural, and conspicuously trad-Japanese.
The other Psylocke watching from outside has the weird painful-looking retractors associated with Mojo. This refers to a storyline involving Betsy Braddock, who lost her vision during her first run as Captain Britain, and was given new eyes by Mojo, who used them to film the X-Men for his TV shows. All this predates the body swap (and basically ceased to be an issue after Betsy went through the Siege Perilous), but perhaps it’s intended as a horrific image that Kwannon associates specifically with Betsy as an invader and outsider.
PAGE 9. Greycrow’s illusion.
Fairly straightforward – a group of fellow soldiers reassure Greycrow that he’s a good person, something he would clearly like to believe but knows isn’t true. There is some precedent for showing Greycrow as a regular soldier – a flashback in Weapon X vol 2 #14 (the Frank Tieri series) shows him serving in World War II and being shot by a firing squad for “the murders and subsequently scalping of 8 of your fellow officers”. The actual crime isn’t shown, so in the current interpretation of Greycrow, it’s entirely possible that he didn’t do it. At any rate, the art here seems more intended to suggest Vietnam.
PAGE 10. Empath’s illusion.
Even though this is meant to be the positive illusion, Empath is shown a mother trying ineffectually to reprimand, and a seemingly endless table of people he has hurt, “come to remind you of the pain you’ve caused”. Empath is apparently such a sadist and sociopath that he regards this as wallowing in the good times.
PAGE 11. Wild Child’s illusion.
Wild Child imagines himself as the alpha male who intimidates and dominates Wolverine and Sabretooth – the two characters he’s usually seen as a pale imitation of. Sabretooth references the idea that he goes after Wolverine every year on his birthday, something that was established back in the 80s.
PAGE 12. Nanny and the Orphan-Maker’s illusion.
Nanny’s dream is to have lots of children to look after, who delight in her care and attention. Again, despite this being the “positive” illusion, Orphan-Maker is immediately unhappy because, as seen last issue, he seems to be losing Nanny’s interest. This is presumably why a second Nanny appears to take care of him – Mastermind is trying to shore up the scenario. They’re the only two who were put together; again, presumably Mastermind assumed that separating them would just make his job harder in keeping Orphan-Maker happy. Mastermind may also be struggling to understand what Peter wants, given his recent personality change – remember, Mastermind is an illusionst, not a mind reader.
PAGE 13. Havok’s illusion.
He dreams of being happily in a relationship with pilot Madelyne Summers. This is a bit confused in terms of timeline, since she would have been with Scott at this point, but he and Madelyne did have some time together in the Australian era and the lead-up to that. It’s interesting that Alex is given Madelyne rather than on Polaris, his longer term (and more recent) partner. Presumably some of these details are being filled in by Alex’s own mind.
Using Madelyne also reminds us of the storyline of Krakoa’s refusal to revive her when she died earlier in the series, something which has also been flagged up in New Mutants recently.
PAGES 14-15. Arcade and Sinister in the control room.
The strong suggestion here is that “Miss Locke” is a robot who has been programmed to give Arcade physical affection; Arcade is presumably embarrassed about the obvious comparison with Havok on the screen. (Locke was also never this clingy.)
Arcade seems to proceed to torture Sinister simply because it’s fun, even though Sinister already agreed to build the clone farm. It’s not entirely obvious how this assists Arcade – he needs to let Sinister go in the end, and he’s proving to Sinister that there’s no point in playing along with Arcade’s requests. He offers a bizarre psychological explanation later, claiming that he makes himself a saviour to people by creating horror that he can liberate them from.
PAGES 16-18. Psylocke’s illusion.
Psylocke seems to break the illusion on her own, partly by picking up on the fact that the child has no name – presumably because her mind doesn’t know this detail, and can’t fill it in. The “Betsy” version of Psylocke describes Kwannon-Psylocke as the “lesser one”. All of this plays into the idea that Psylocke is (a) so depressed that she instinctively rejects any happy scenario as implausible, and (b) sees herself as the impostor in her own body, given how much more established Betsy was – is she torturing herself by using the Psylocke name and costume?
PAGE 19. Greycrow’s illusion.
It seems to be Psylocke’s message that breaks the illusion here, rather than any deliberate change by Mastermind. This time, Greycrow sees the enemies that he slaughtered as the innocent Morlocks that he killed as one of the Marauders during the Mutant Massacre crossover. Erg and Tommy are easily recognisable.
PAGE 20. Data page. Arcade’s rambling memo to his staff, who are apparently all working for him under duress in the same way that Mastermind is.
PAGE 21. Arcade learns that the illusions are broken.
Self-explanatory.
PAGE 22. Empath’s illusion.
Empath’s illusion only turns after Arcade gives the direction that Mastermind can switch to nightmares, but it’s not entirely clear that he needed to. It depends really on what Arcade is trying to achieve here – and maybe it’s just easier for Mastermind to do all dreams or all nightmares than a mixture of the two. At any rate, Empath’s nightmare is (of course) loss of control.
PAGE 23. A montage of nightmare sequences.
Wild Child imagines being beaten up by the more senior characters, Wolverine and Sabretooth. Alongside them is a rare post-Origins appearance by Romulus, the secretive cryptic conspiracy mastermind pack leader who I thought had been rightly banished to the memory hole.
Havok imagines himself as a slave of Goblin Queen Madelyne during the “Inferno” crossover.
Kwannon imagines herself on the run from Psylocke; apparently in this dream she isn’t a fighter at all. Presumably that’s because her fighter side is actually the Psylocke figure, and it merely suits Kwannon to be able to view that part of herself as an interloper by associating it with Betsy.
Greycrow imagines the Morlocks as zombies killing him, and Nanny and Orphan-Maker are overrun by evil shadowy children. The caption seems to suggest that they’re meant to be pulled apart, but that doesn’t really come across in the art.
PAGE 24. Arcade explains his psychological theory.
It’s not entirely clear from the art, but Arcade seems to deliberately wipe blood across his face after removing the glove.
PAGE 25. Trailers. By the way, I’m not annotating non-Krakoan books like Demon Days: X-Men #1. I’ll review them in due course.
The Krakoan reads NEXT: ESCAPE OR DIE.
The cover’s an homage to the cover of Uncanny X-Men #146, where the X-Men reservists (Havok, Polaris, Banshee, Iceman) are rescuing the X-Men’s loved ones from Murderworld. Greycrow is in Banshee’s place, Wild Child for Iceman, Psylocke for Polaris, and Havok is Havok.
Paul> Mastermind is here to rescue his daughter, which is nice of him, since I don’t think they’ve ever actually met on camera. Mastermind has two daughters, Regan and Martinique (basically the result of two different stories coming up with the “Mastermind’s daughter” gimmick independently). Both of them have previously been seen on Krakoa in cameos. Arcade describes the captive here as “Martinique”, but the art shows Regan – the one who was briefly a member of the X-Men as Lady Mastermind.
The hair colour’s a bit ambiguous (Regan’s blonde, Martinique’s brunette, this seems to be a dark blonde or light brunette), but Greg Land drew them both wearing Regan’s Chris Bachalo costume* during his UXM run with Fraction, presumably because it was easier to trace one costume than two.
[*And, apropos of nothing, can we please ban Bachalo from ever designing a costume again?]
Paul> Maternal Psylocke has black hair rather than the familiar purple, even though her hair isn’t meant to be died; presumably it’s all part of her wishing for normalcy.
Kwannon’s had black hair since Fallen Angels.
In videogames, the hitbox designates the area where hitting a character/enemy/object actually causes damage. The idea is that it can be completely different (bigger, smaller, usually a much simpler shape…) from the way the thing being hit is depicted on screen.
The obvious parallel with this story is the potential disconnect between how the audience/player perceives the action, and what actually happens inside the game. In other words, a lot of videogame programming is clever illusions that can fall apart if they’re not constructed well enough.
Nearly forgot…
Paul> I’m not sure what the significance is of the title “Hitbox”. It was the name of a competitor to Twitch (now defunct), which I suppose might be seen as quite Arcade.
A “hitbox” is the actual collision detection area/model/etc in a video game (which may or may not line up with the visual sprite or model. If it doesn’t, it can break immersion quite badly.). I think it’s being used here to indicate their areas of vulnerability.
Considering that you don’t actually see any on-site human employees of Murderworld throughout this whole issue, maybe he needs that clone farm because he can’t actually find any employees.
And considering Arcade doesn’t know about resurrection, it seems like he doesn’t actually have any leverage over Mastermind and just doesn’t know it.
Arcade doesn’t seem happy unless the people working for him are entirely subjugated to him, so a simple “yes” from Sinister is unsatisfactory. Since he has nothing (and no one) else to hold over Sinister’s head, he now always has the threat of renewed torture — so Sinister will think twice before betraying him. Arcade’s explanation is a little indirect, but that’s the way it reads to me.
The Martinique/Regan thing is the new black or gold dress meme. Let the fighting commence!
If Arcade’s relatively down on his luck at the moment, it’d make sense that he’d like a clone farm. All of his old tricks with robot NPCs and playing with peoples’ minds would certainly work well with cloning tech.
I’m hoping I’m not misreading various signs there that Arcade is in a not great place right now. Those remarks about low-tech Murderworld definitely seemed like sour grapes. Shooing off the presumably robo-Locke and the threats to employees along with how he was going full-hog on torturing Sinister all vaguely felt like signs he wasn’t nearly as in control as he’d like to be and was lashing out. I can get into that as a good plot for him. I’m still feeling burned out by hopeful overreading into Swords though, so not sure I can trust it.
Is Pixie still Mastermind’s daughter as well? I remember her mini established that, but I don’t think anyone ever followed up on it.
And jeez, does Mastermind have a lot of secret children. Is he Gambit’s real dad too?
Presumably when you can look like anyone you want and have no morals, you get a lot of strange. (And make illusory condoms.) I’ll bet Mastermind was the only mutant to contract the Legacy Virus as an STD.
I honestly can’t believe he’s STILL wearing the potato sack with an opera collar from the Silver Age. It’s been fifty years, how has no one given Mastermind a redesign yet?
@SanityOrMadness: But where else can people go for black-and-white costume designs? Hickman needs his mysterious black-and-white characters!
@Drew: It’s not like Wyndgarde has been doing much. After the Dark Phoenix Saga, he got a mere two more stories before dropping dead of Legacy. I suppose it’s hard to top “guy who unleashed Dark Phoenix”.
I like to think that it’s more like nobody wants to touch stories revolving around the main cast being mind controlled anymore, because it is no longer possible for comic book readers to trust that writers (except maybe Ewing) are not just writing the main cast out-of-character for no reason.
So, is Jason Wyngarde his real name after all, and has been all along?
It would make sense for it to be a made-up name, and a line from him towards Madelyne Pryor somewhere in the #170s of Uncanny X-Men implies that he does indeed think of Wyngarde as a made-up character.
But most sources seem to believe that it is his actual name.
I don’t think that meshes very well with his actions and plans during the Claremont-Byrne issues, but I suppose there is nothing quite ruling it out either. And it seems that we have never been given any other civilian name for him to use either.
I always thought this was his real name so – on my current readthrough of Claremont’s run – I took notice when the narration said it’s an alias.
After the Dark Phoenix arc – maybe around when he’s messing with Madelyne and the X-Men here – either one of the characters or another narration caption says something to the tune of ‘turns out it was his real name after all, who would have thought’.
Just another one of those weird Claremont ticks. Was that a plot point? Was it supposed to be a plot point, but he changed his mind? Who knows.
“Jason Wyngarde” has been taken as Mastermind’s real name ever since Uncanny X-Men #138, where Scott just casually confirms that it’s his real name. How he would know is anyone’s guess, and there are earlier stories which do suggest that it’s an alias. It was originally a reference to the TV show Jason King, and its star Peter Wyngarde.
Peter Wyngarde also played a character on the old TV show The Avengers (not the Marvel characters). He was the leader of the villainous Hellfire Club on an episode.
The Hellfire Club was, of course, an actual reputed secret society.
So, it’s also a reference to that show.
Claremont named all of the Inner Circle after either a character from that show or British actors, and those names were the characters’ real names.
There’s no reason that Jason Wyngarde could not also be his real name.
The only part of X-Men: First Class I haven’t been able to reconcile with continuity is a scene in X:FC Vol 1 #7 where Jean refers to the statue of Mastermind as “Jason Wyngarde.” She especially shouldn’t know his real name, given that she/Phoenix is not supposed to recognize it when they meet in the lead up to Dark Phoenix Saga.
(I’ve been analyzing X-Men: First Class on my blog here: http://www.therobsalerno.com/?p=1272)
I demand that it is revealed that his real name is Mark Stirmheind.
Hi, my contribution is I thought Zeb Wells hit this one out of the ballpark, as did artist Stephen Segovia.
I groan every time I see a data page now, but Wells put them to reasonable and amusing use.
Normally the extended gore of a torture scene would put me off but this one was on Sinister performed by Arcade so it worked for me.
Wells’ focus on coercion as a tool, and even sadistic coercion which we see a lot of in real life human hierarchies, was well done and somehow made these somewhat tired character tropes of Sinister and Arcade seem fresh. Wells also has a fresh take on the familiar tropes applied to the Hellion characters in their “dream” and “nightmare” scenarios. Nanny wants to nanny all the children, but she also wants to automate or outsource the nannying of Peter because he’s too big a responsibility for her and holds her back from her dream of hoards of mutant kids. Kwannon enjoying Mastermind’s dream charade but understanding that it must be a charade. Wildside dominating and then being dominated by the bigger and stronger Wolverine and Sabertooth.
The only complaint I have is Havok’s nightmare Madeleine was sort of the goblin queen version but less goblin and more an S&M dom with Havok in his sexy goblin sub uniform – which to me seems more like a “heaven” scenario than a nightmare one for poor Havok.
Yeah, I don’t think Alex would mind that scenario as much as he might hope he would. Maybe that’s the “nightmare” — he has to own up to how much he wants to be dominated and out of control. He’s always trying to live up to Scott’s perfect Boy Scout standards, but really he just wants to be naughty.
Maddie worked as a pilot in the Australian era
Not that I remember.
She worked as a pilot before the Australia period.
After the X-Men went to Australia, all of them (including Madelyne) were believed to be dead.
It would be hard to get a job while pretending to be deceased.
Madelyne was given the task of manning the computer system in the X-Men’s Outback base.
Part of the story at that time, and the beginning of her transformation in to becoming the Goblin Queen, was that she was very lonely.
If she still had her job, she most likely wouldn’t have felt so alone.
I’m pretty sure she did continue working as a pilot in Australia. The Genoshan Press Gang attacked her while she was carrying Jenny Ransome. I mean, that’s in my memory so it could be wrong.
You are correct. Which is just weird with the story Claremont was telling about the X-Men laying low and pretending to be dead.
“Madelyne Pryor? Aren’t you dead?”
“Yes.”
“Well, OK. You start on Monday.”
“Don’t let anyone know I work here!”
The outbacks period seems to be well-liked, but it had a lot of Claremont writing at his enigmatic worst.
Madelyne was particularly strongly afflicted. She was demonically tainted by S’ym and exposed to weird revelations about her own nature and origin from Mr. Sinister.
I assume that she was given some form of false documents by Sinister at some point, and odds are that Australian employers hardly even knew of anything about the Adversary or the Fall of the Mutants.
It was a time of many strange, undeveloped occurrences. Did we ever learn what that explosion that Madelyne survived in Genosha was all about?
Havok’s traditional character was “little brother trying to live up to big brother’s example, or at least escape his shadow.” It would have been a good twist if his fantasy was to be a sub to his brother’s ex-wife’s Dom.
Yeah, it never made much sense but Maddie was picking up shifts as a freelance pilot while they were in Australia, we only saw it on panel during the Genosha arc. She did wear a jumpsuit of sorts though so Alex’s fantasy does fit
It was the Flying Doctors Service she was volunteering for in Australia- an organization that delivers medical aid to remote regions of Australia.
I think the point of Havok’s fantasy was that his dream is having Maddie back as she was before S’ym tricked her- his nightmare is the Goblin Queen.
#Chris V It was usually a combination of an actor’s name and a famous role. “Yes, I believe so. The names also — Donald Southerland played Hawkeye Pierce — Donald Pierce. Orson Welles played Harry Lime in The Third Man and Jedediah Leland is a character from Citizen Kane — Harry Leland. Peter Wyngarde played Jason King — Jason Wyngarde. I’m not sure where the Sabastian comes from with Robert Shaw.” http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=43514&TPN=2#top
@Luis Dantas I assumed the explosion was the first manifestation of her powers.
Yes, it definitely was Madelyne’s powers.
She had made the deal with S’ym shortly before being abducted by Genosha.
She is in danger, and she used those powers against her tormentors.
“Mastermind is here to rescue his daughter, which is nice of him, since I don’t think they’ve ever actually met on camera.”
So I think here about what I recall as a very deliberately ambiguous series, “Pixie Strikes Back,” the writing of which I really appreciate. I would have liked Kathryn Immonen to be the one relaunching X-men in this new era, because of her writing on that series, but anyway…In that series, Pixie, Regan and Martinique are introduced by their mother to a demon she calls their father. My impression was that this was supposed to be Jason Wyngarde––though the demon is not really very verbal, and no one in the series seems anxious to nail it down. So I’m not sure this counts as an on-panel meeting between Martinique and her dad, but maybe?
Also, I like to stick up for the Australian outback era X-men. True, not enough was done with the premise, but as a pre-teen at the time, hardly anything seemed cooler than that ghost-town base in a country which, hidebound in a small California town as I was, seemed just about as exotic as you could get. In retrospect it wasn’t an era that seemed to ever quite develop the idea it was about. Post Fall-of-the-Mutants, the X-men are supposed to be “legends,” and while the team does get a legendary end in that era (from an adult perspective possibly the coolest thing about the era seems to me to be the Siege Perilous and its arbitrary reassigning of roles to the various X-men), not a whole lot is done to figure out what that could mean. But a lot of material gets covered in that era––the introduction of Jubilee and Genosha, Inferno, pretty righteous showdowns with the Brood and the Marauders, and Inferno––oh, and Atlantis Attacks, whatever that was, and also the X-men helping to restore the Savage Land in the Evolutionary War, and to a kid excited about X-men, it seemed like every minute of it was sort of supercharged. I can still feel that energy when I re-read it as an adult. Dropped balls aplenty, but also a lot of material that could have been developed in the years to come which just didn’t get put together. I remember reading that Bob Harras wasn’t a fan of this direction, and tried to steer Claremont away from all the “magic & mystery” when he started editing the book. I always felt like Claremont broke this X-men Team up with the intention of reuniting them in the future, but, thanks to Harras especially, this never got to play out. Some characters––Dazzler and Longshot for instance, hardly seem to have emerged from this era, and so little has been done with them since. And it seems now like the last era in which Storm, for instance, was a character that grew and changed––and I think the Rogue that emerged from this era seemed almost like a different person, as well. Betsy Braddock, as we had known her, disappeared after this era and has not successfully re-emerged. I guess the current version is changing that, but I think the jury’s still out. I guess the end of this era being a sort of “end point” for the development of most of the 80s X-men makes sense because it’s so near the end of Claremont’s era on X-men, but it’s interesting to see the Outback era in that context, as a passing of the torch to, for the most part, lesser characters and less–visionary creators. It’s magical, strange, evocative…and unfinished, I think. But it has a lot of a kind of reckless inspiration I don’t feel in the years following it. I for one would love to see a Dazzler ongoing picking her life up after emerging from the Siege Perilous and just retconning every miserable one-shot and elseworlds series they’ve shoved her into since then. That could have been a version of Dazzler from another dimension. The original appears now, is obsessed with getting the X-men of that era back together again, and everyone else has moved on. Plus, her musical tastes are all 30 years out of date. I don’t know. I guess I just like thinking of new Dazzler solo-series. But anyway, props to Outback-era X-men, is what I’m saying.