Hellions #6: Bloody Heck!

Take the dramatic cover and “parental advisory” sticker on this issue seriously, because right from the beginning it grabs your attention, drops the usual Wells-styled jokes and scenarios, makes you hate Sinister and Empath a little more…and then starts being a massacre. The kind that doesn’t let you rest for even one second, that destroys you and makes you wish you’d never fallen in love with all of these weirdos. And most importantly, the kind that establishes why this is one of the most expectations-turning and subversive series of the whole X-Men line right now. Also… [full spoilers on] this is the series that has made me care about Nanny and Orphan Maker’s death.

All that said, I don’t particularly like the Locust Ville as new (flat) villains or the motivations behind them. The eugenics/ Sinister mirroring storyline and the designs have that “lab experiment”/”would fit in Arkham Asylum” style turn me automatically away from them. And, while it’s not blatantly offensive or really making any direct references to any “experiments on crazy people”, the pseudo-religious bit of it with the BDSM references and the fanaticism implied feel too on the nose. 

While I’m not sold on the villains (and I’m kind of glad they’re part of this one-shot story), the massacre was so impactful and so well crafted, especially after Zeb Wells has made us care about these D-Listers, and especially after the plot twist at the end (although, is really that a plot twist?), that I almost couldn’t turn each page. Carnero’s art here is ripping off your defenses, showing you careless cruelty and sordid realism in a way that borders on gore, and is macabrely beautiful sometimes. Curiel’s colors turn bloodier and more garnet here (like I expected in my last review) and they deliver a twisting art-style that doesn’t hold itself back from beauty, from blood, from terror, but also from brightness… Honestly, those ashy skies really carry you through all of it.

Overall, I’m sure this has been one of the bloodiest issues a mutant comic has ever seen, and again, Hellions is challenging the story.