WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Hellions #1-#3 by Zeb Wells, Stephen Segovia, David Curiel, Cory Petit and Ariana Maher, on sale now.
Comic books have often incorporated aspects of the horror genre, and Hellions is quickly becoming one of Marvel's most frightening series. It's not Marvel's first venture into horror; Absolute Carnage was a fan-favorite event because it heavily leaned into the genre, more than any other story produced by the company in recent memory. But with a demonic villain, zombies who hunger for flesh and a constant stream of bloody violence, Hellions pushes the X-Men into the horror genre for the first time.
Every member of the team is arguably a psychopath. Through just three issues, each Hellion has demonstrated that they enjoy hurting people or themselves. Not even the normally stalwart Havok is spared the insanity plaguing his teammates; in Hellions #3, when Madelyne Pryor uses her powers to physically erase Havok's mouth, he disturbingly uses a piece of broken glass to cut himself a new one. This comes on the heels of his actions in the very first issue when he displayed a new, violent persona and Wolverine has to stop him from committing murder.
Havok's penchant for violence is a personality trait shared by the whole team. In the series' second issue, the newly renamed Greycrow shoots Empath in the head at point-blank range. Segovia illustrates the execution in gory detail; though he doesn't show the bullet's impact, the reader sees Empath's bloody skull afterwards.
Nearly every issue of Hellions has been likewise filled with gore. The introduction of Orphan-Maker is centered around a bloody fight he has with Beast. After Wild Child attacks team leader Psylocke at the end of the second issue, she's bleeding to the point of actually dripping blood as she walks. In the latest issue, Psylocke breaks Wild Child's leg and snaps his neck in order to subdue him. While many comic series feature excessive violence, few can boast of a plot as chilling as the one unfolding within the pages of Hellions.
The team's first mission takes them to Nebraska, where they're tasked with destroying Mr. Sinister's clone farm. When they arrive at the facility, the Hellions realize that they've bit off more than they can chew. Blood drips onto Havok, and he turns to see that Sinister's original team of Marauders have been strung up like pigs in a butcher shop. To confirm that Hellions is a horror series, the Marauders turn into zombies who want to eat Psylocke's team. To make matters worse, it turns out that Madelyne Pryor, the Goblin Queen, is responsible for this abomination. The villain fits right in with the tone established in the series as she commands the undead Arclight to cut off her hand and eat it. With Pryor's fiendish nature, combined with the Hellions' thirst for violence, this series is the most horrifying book in the lengthy list of current X-Men titles.
Every issue of Hellions dives deeper into a horrifying plot in which the Goblin Queen is building an army of monsters and zombies. Additionally, each and every member of the team has serious red flags in the personality department, preferring pain and suffering over healthy human contact. The team is a ticking time bomb and, pitted against Pryor's heinous plot, this combustible situation reads much more like a horror series than a standard superhero story.