Hellion (character)

Hellion (Julian Keller) is a fictional character, a mutant appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He was a member of the student body of the Xavier Institute before its closing and was a member of the X-Men's training squad. Hellion joined the X-Men in Utopia and during the "Second Coming" storyline, loses his hands in a battle to protect the mutant messiah. He subsequently learned to use his telekinetic abilities to telekinetically control his prosthetic hands. He returned to Westchester and joined the Jean Grey Academy led by Wolverine. After the "Secret Wars" storyline, Hellion comes into contact with the Terrigen Mist and nearly dies of M-Pox. During the Krakoan Age, he relocates to Krakoa and participates in the Crucible, which results in his death. He then goes through the mutant resurrection protocols; this resurrection process restores his body, including his hands. During the "From the Ashes" publishing initiative, following the fall of Krakoa, Julian reappears in New York City as the villain known as the Krakoan.

Hellion (Julian Keller) is a fictional character, a mutant appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He was a member of the student body of the Xavier Institute before its closing and was a member of the X-Men's training squad. Hellion joined the X-Men in Utopia and during the "Second Coming" storyline, loses his hands in a battle to protect the mutant messiah. He subsequently learned to use his telekinetic abilities to telekinetically control his prosthetic hands. He returned to Westchester and joined the Jean Grey Academy led by Wolverine. After the "Secret Wars" storyline, Hellion comes into contact with the Terrigen Mist and nearly dies of M-Pox. During the Krakoan Age, he relocates to Krakoa and participates in the Crucible, which results in his death. He then goes through the mutant resurrection protocols; this resurrection process restores his body, including his hands. During the "From the Ashes" publishing initiative, following the fall of Krakoa, Julian reappears in New York City as the villain known as the Krakoan.

Publication history

In 2003, Hellion first appeared in New Mutants (vol. 2) #2 and was created by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, and Keron Grant. Following the end of Grant Morrison's New X-Men, New Mutants was then relaunched as New X-Men: Academy X in May 2004. Hellion appeared in this series, and the limited series New X-Men: Hellions, as a member of the Hellions. Following the 2005 "Decimation" storyline where most mutants were depowered, the training squads were dismantled and Hellion joined the New X-Men team. The title was later shortened to simply New X-Men when the new creative team of Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost took over the series with issue #20. In 2008, the series ended with issue #46 during the "Messiah Complex" storyline; Hellion is gravely injured during this crossover event. In the follow-up storyline, Hellion is the focal point of one of the short stories in X-Men: Divided We Stand #1 which highlights his discovery that the X-Men are gone and the students have been scattered. In 2009, Hellion appears in X-Force (vol. 3) where he is saved by the X-Force team and cured of the Legacy Virus. He then appears in the 2009 "Utopia" storyline set in San Francisco. During the 2010 "X-Men: Second Coming" crossover event, Hellion fought on the front lines to defend Utopia resulting in the loss of his hands in the battle. Following this, he appeared in X-Men: Legacy. The "Fables of the Reconstruction" story arc, in issues #242–243, by writer Mike Carey focused on Hellion. On the confrontation between Hellion and Cyclops during this arc, Carey said: I think that conversation between Hellion and Cyclops is painful on both sides – and the judgment is flowing in two directions. I think the key difference between the two men at that point is that Cyclops has sanctioned extreme violence having reached the conclusion that nothing else would do the job; Hellion has lashed out in a moment of complete loss of control. Both have blood on their hands, and each thinks that their own violence was defensible. You have to work out where you sit in relation to that argument. Hellion also made guest appearances in the ongoing series X-23 by writer Marjorie Liu. Following the 2011 "X-Men: Schism" crossover event, Wolverine returned to Westchester to open the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning which was the focus of the Wolverine and the X-Men series. Hellion was one of a number of mutant students who enrolled in that school. In 2014, Hellion was then one of the students in the Special Class taught by Spider-Man, in the limited series Spider-Man and the X-Men by writer Elliott Kalan and artist Marco Failla, following Wolverine's death. On Hellion and the room for character growth, Kalan commented: His actions are informed by his experiences as a potential mutant leader with a huge destiny ahead of him whose life unexpectedly fell apart, and his future derailed. Now he doesn't know where he's headed anymore and that makes him lash out. He's got a really good reason to be an angry brat! [...] By the end of this first storyline, Hellion will hopefully be ready once again to become the guy he was always meant to be. In 2016, Hellion appears in Uncanny Avengers (vol. 3) #6 where he attempts to destroy New Attilan since he is dying of the M-Pox disease after being exposed to the Terrigen Mists. Instead, he is captured by the Inhumans and Medusa vows he will be saved. In 2017, later in the series, he is seen volunteering at the New Attilan General Hospital as repayment for being cured of M-Pox. In 2018, artist Carlos Pacheo mistakenly drew Hellion with normal hands instead of his metal hands in Phoenix Resurrection #2. During the Krakoan Age, Hellion lived on Krakoa. In 2024, during the "X-Men: From the Ashes" publishing initiative, Hellion reappears in New York City as one of the main villains of the ongoing series NYX (vol. 2) where he is known as the Krakoan. The series is written by duo Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing with art by Francesco Mortarino. Kelly likened Hellion to "a certain pink-haired troublemaker", describing him as a privileged and powerful individual who assumed the world would conform to his expectations. However, over time, Hellion has "been HAMMERED with the hard fact that that presumption is completely and utterly wrong". On Hellion's role as the Krakoan, Lanzing explained: He's always been a fascinating character, but what interested me was lensing our story in on a person who had a genuine grievance in the post-Krakoa era and was properly set up to take on a kind of street-level Magneto role. After all, isn't that the thing about Magneto – that you can genuinely empathize and agree with his point of view? Like Magnus/Erik/Max before him, the Krakoan has a point… but it's coming from a place of deep scarring on his soul. Lanzing described Kelly as a "lifelong fan of Hellion" who wanted to give the character "a story that really paid tribute to his hard-knock time as a young mutant". Hellion is the point of view character for issue #8 (February 2025); this issue also included flashbacks to his time on Krakoa.

Fictional character biography

Powers and abilities

Hellion is an unusually strong telekinetic. He is able to fly at supersonic speeds, create telekinetic force fields, unleash powerful blasts of telekinetic force, and levitate and manipulate objects from afar. His telekinetic aura is colored light green and glows around his hands, body, and the objects he telekinetically moves and controls. When Emma unlocked subconscious blocks on his mutant ability, Hellion was able to reach a flight speed several times the speed of sound, faster than one of the O*N*E Sentinel pilots believed possible and destroyed a Sentinel by telekinetically hurling an armored wagon through it, but was severely injured from the physical strain afterward. With this lack of focus, Hellion has difficulty using his telekinetic abilities with fine control such as lifting up a paper clip but has no problem in raw power when it comes to destroying the entire floor that the paper clip resides on. During his battle with Bastion, he said he felt his telekinesis get stronger and he can now control matter at a molecular level. This was proven when he sent a telekinetic blast through Hope and into Omega Sentinel without harming Hope, but completely destroying Omega Sentinel. In contrast to most other possessors of extremely strong and powerful telekinesis, Hellion tends to focus and channel his telekinetic energy almost exclusively through his hands, very rarely projecting it as a free flow output directly from his brain. After losing his hands, Hellion's control over his telekinesis was greatly strengthened and magnified, he used his exceptionally powerful telekinesis to feed himself and his telekinetic aura now emanates from his brain. After the Age of X, Dr. Kavita Rao observes that Julian has actually benefited from the experience. She notes that the perception of living a lifetime in that world has allowed Hellion to refine his much stronger telekinetic abilities to fully control and manipulate the artificial hands created for him, a feat that normally could not be accomplished in Julian's condition before the Age of X reality.

Other versions

Age of X

In "Age of X", Hellion is a member of the Force Warriors, a select group of telekinetics who protect Fortress X. Prior to arriving at Fortress X, Hellion was on the run before being attacked by soldiers, who severed his hands and forearms. To replace his lost hands, Hellion utilizes a pair of metal hands that he manipulates with his telekinesis.

House of M

In "House of M", Hellion is a junior S.H.I.E.L.D. operative, part of Danielle Moonstar's Hellions squad, and is known as Scion.

Old Woman Laura

In a possible future, Julian and Laura, who had become the new Wolverine, reestablished their relationship. However, after several years together, he is killed during a superhuman conflict known as the Doom World War.

In other media

Hellion appears in Wolverine and the X-Men, voiced by Roger Craig Smith. This version is a member of Professor X's future X-Men. Hellion and his relationship with X-23 is referenced in the MC Chris song "Nrrrd Grrrl".

References

External links

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1377869888 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.