The X-Men have a new home on Krakoa, and since they moved onto the psychic island, they've taken part in some strange new practices, from flash-aged whiskey to ritual murder by arena combat... but the Hellions are the worst of their mutant experiments. The new team is mad geneticist Mr. Sinister's twisted idea of a therapy group: take Krakoa's most troubled and erratic mutants, put them on a team together, and then throw them at missions involving sources of their trauma. In their first mission, the team has killed its own members, been broken by an enemy, and been betrayed by its most unpredictable mutant. For the team to survive to a second outing, they might need new management... and in Hellions #3, one X-Men hero thinks Psylocke will execute a hostile takeover.
Sinister, acting as the Xavier figure to the Hellions, sent them to demolish an orphanage where team member Havok grew up. The team wasn't expecting that the abandoned Sinister lab underneath would be occupied, especially not by Havok's old flame Madeline Pryor. Her tube-grown clone henchmen took the fledgling team down one by one, leaving most of them incapacitated... except Havok, who gave in to his feelings for her and took off by her side. The only two members left standing were field leader Psylocke, who was wounded, and the feral Wild Child, who saw her as the alpha and wanted to kill her to take her place in the pack.
Wild Child is as beastly as his name suggests, but the animalistic mutant is no match for Psylocke's assassin training. She beats him down until he acknowledges that she is stronger than him, reestablishing the pack hierarchy and making him willing to do whatever she says. Together, the pair go to track down Madelyne and settle the score.
As the Hellions get to know each other, Krakoan intelligence officer and scientist Beast has been analyzing them in order to better understand their emotional and team-building progress. In issue 3, he offers a concerned note to the Quiet Council, suspecting that Psylocke will eventually control the entire team for herself. In the memo, which he gives the alarming title That Time We Gave A Team To A Hand Assassin, he expects that the Hellions are being manipulated by Sinister, and that Psylocke would not allow herself to be manipulated without an end goal. He compares the situation to the original X-Men team under Xavier; the team may have been formed under Xavier, but he asserts that in a crisis situation, Cyclops was the real authority. This troubles him because Psylocke is an unknown and dangerous quality for Krakoa. The ninja assassin only recently surfaced after being possessed by psychic Betsy Braddock for years and was originally trained and indoctrinated by the villainous Hand cult.
Are Beast's fears founded? Partially. The blue intellectual has a revisionist take on the team's early history; they didn't merely give Xavier token deference, all their plans were based around following his instructions to the letter. But Sinister is no Xavier; he's actively antagonizing the Hellions, and Psylocke seems to understand how to engage with them in a way they actually respect. The moment she sees the opportunity, the team will be hers to control. Will Krakoa burn if she takes power, as Beast worries? Probably not; Psylocke has interests in keeping her new home safe, and it's way more likely that Mystique will burn it down first.
Hellions #3, written by Zeb Wells with art by Steven Segovia, color by David Xurie, and lettering by Ariana Maher, is available now.
