{"id":12181,"date":"2026-07-25T16:52:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T15:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=12181"},"modified":"2026-07-25T16:52:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T15:52:00","slug":"x-men-the-hellfire-murder-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=12181","title":{"rendered":"X-Men: The Hellfire Murder #1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>X-MEN: THE HELLFIRE MURDER #1<\/strong>
\nWriters: Saladin Ahmed, Gail Simone, Erica Schultz, Jed MacKay & Eve Ewing<\/strong>
\nArtists: Jo\u00eblle Jones, Luciano Vecchio, Aaron Kuder, Tony S Daniel, Mark Morales, Federica Mancin, Cory Smith & Oren Junior<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Ariana Maher<\/strong>
\nEditor: Tom Brevoort<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER:<\/strong> The X-Men in their masquerade gear, with Wolverine examining a chalk outline of a body (with a Hellfire Club logo inside). This is the annual jam issue, and the story is 50 pages long.<\/p>\n

THE X-MEN:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Actually, before we get to the X-Men, let’s explain the basic set-up here. Fresh out of Graymalkin, Sebastian Shaw has invited assorted mutants to the Hellfire Club in Manhattan for a Hellfire Gala in the form of a masquerade ball, with nanites creating AI-generated masked costumes for everyone. The story can’t quite make up its mind whether the identities of participants are supposed to be a mystery to one another – some scenes suggest it is, but most characters are obviously and immediately recognisable, such as Wolverine. Then there’s a murder, and the rest of the issue is mostly about Wolverine and Jubilee solving it. There’s a mention early on that the building has telepathic dampers, since it wouldn’t be much of a mystery otherwise.<\/p>\n

Wolverine.\u00a0<\/strong>His broken claws in his own title aren’t directly mentioned in this story, but he never extends the claws on that hand. Ultimately, he covers for the real murderers (see below) and allows everyone to think that 3K did it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Cyclops<\/strong> and Psylocke<\/strong>. It seems that either they were the only Alaskan X-Men to be invited, or Scott ordered everyone else to stay away. Scott and Kwannon are only here because they (somehow) knew that Astra and Joseph would be there. Since Emma Frost seems to have co-operated to some extent in setting up this event, we can probably take it that they knew about the guest list through her. When speaking to Temper, Emma does imply that she’s seen the whole guest list.<\/p>\n

Scott and Kwannon plan to murder Astra and Joseph, and then blame it on some of the villains who are present. This is an interesting contrast with recent issues of X-Men<\/em>, in which Beast, Magneto, Kid Omega and Xorn all agreed on the importance of capturing and interrogating Schwarzchild. Of course, this might also explain why they don’t want the rest of their team there.<\/p>\n

Scott can dance, but he says that it didn’t come naturally to him, and that Emma insisted that he learn (presumably back when they were a couple). Kwannon says that it does come naturally to her, and regrets that her partner Greycrow (who isn’t in this issue) has no interest in it. She references them fighting the Locus Vile together back in Hellions\u00a0<\/em>#6 as something he’d enjoy more. Cyclops plans to let one of the other villains present take credit for the killing – he assumes that Frank Bohannon, in particular, will jump at the chance. However, before they can make their move, Shaw’s body is found, and they apparently abort the plot.<\/p>\n

There’s a whole scene of the two of them dancing which is set up as romantic tension between the two of them now that they’re finally alone. It’s written to reveal that they’re actually talking about their plan to murder Astra, but doesn’t exactly play as if that’s all that was going on between them.<\/p>\n

Scott claims to have more respect for 3K than he did for Shaw, since at least 3K believe in something (even if it’s a form of mutant supremacism). In contrast, Shaw sold out Krakoa for money, contributing to the downfall of mutantkind.<\/p>\n

Scott was in on Rogue’s plan to deal with Graymalkin, as covered in recent issues of\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Temper.\u00a0<\/strong>An art error has her among the guests on the first two pages, but it’s clear from later scenes that the intention is that she shows up later, and without Scott and Kwannon’s knowledge. Quite how she gets in is a little unclear. There are Hellfire Club guards manning the door, but presumably they weren’t told to admit just any mutant who showed up. So that would suggest that Shaw did indeed have her on the guest list, even though Emma insists that she can’t have been invited. in the crowd in the opening scene, but she actually shows up a few pages later on her own. Since she’s admitted to the event, presumably she did get an invitation (despite Emma insisting that she can’t have done). Maybe Rogue and Gambit had her added, so that she could hook up with Ransom. The two of them quickly disappear to spend time together. Temper references their “first meeting” at Graymalkin prison, which is the “Raid on Graymalkin” crossover.<\/p>\n

Rogue\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Gambit. <\/strong>They spend the whole party doing couple things. They’re still living at Haven House with the Outliers, so apparently this is before\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #30-32.<\/p>\n

Jubilee.\u00a0<\/strong>She doesn’t solve the murder but figures out that Wolverine isn’t telling her something. She grudgingly gives him the benefit of the doubt.<\/p>\n

Kitty Pryde.\u00a0<\/strong>She’s unimpressed by Sebastian Shaw presenting himself as a leading mutant figure, though more because of that time he killed her in\u00a0Marauders<\/em> #6 than anything else. An unidentified woman cuts in to dance with Kitty, and both claim not to recognise the other; Kitty describes her later as “someone extremely hot wearing a lily mask”. The story could have made this a\u00a0lot\u00a0<\/em>clearer, because when this character shows up later in the issue, she isn’t wearing the mask, and her dancing with Kitty isn’t mentioned. Nonetheless, she\u00a0is<\/em> wearing the same dress, so we can tell that it’s Martinique Wyngarde. More of her later.<\/p>\n

Kitty is outraged at the suggestion that the X-Men would have killed Shaw. Frank Bohannon, of all people, gets to take the moral high ground with her on this point, quite reasonably pointing out that she’s killed people herself (such as the Orchis agents during “Fall of X”), and that she’s in a team that includes Wolverine. Kitty’s reaction seems to be intended as dramatic irony, but also as suggesting a degree of self-delusion and denial.<\/p>\n

Emma Frost.\u00a0<\/strong>The epilogue very, very, very strongly implies that she had already killed Sebastian Shaw with a psychic attack before Mystique got a chance to gas him. In fact, two separate characters rightly pick up on her as the obvious suspect and immediately accuse her as their first choice. Her interest in Namor in this issue may well be no more than a way of generating an alibi, though if so, it’s not very effective, because Wolverine is able to verify how long Shaw has been dead. At any rate, Emma is happy to make clear right away that she’s glad Shaw is dead, and has no intention of pretending otherwise. Wolverine clearly believes that she did it and, beyond letting her know, does nothing about it.<\/p>\n

She won’t allow underage drinking in the Hellfire Club.<\/p>\n

SUPPORTING CAST:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Storm.\u00a0<\/strong>Well, she’s not on any X-Men team right now, so she goes in this section.<\/p>\n

Ransom.\u00a0<\/strong>He’s the only Outlier who was brought to this event, presumably to give him a chance to be with his long-distance girlfriend Temper.<\/p>\n

Angel.\u00a0<\/strong>He “has a bone to pick with” Mr Sinister, presumably in reference to Inglorious X-Force<\/em> #4-5, where he learned that Sinister had been experimenting on him before the fall of Krakoa.<\/p>\n

Betsy Braddock.\u00a0<\/strong>She’s not named and we only see her in her masked masquerade outfit, but it’s not exactly a massive leap of logic to figure out that the woman with purple hair who mentions her psychic powers is Betsy Braddock. This is her first significant appearance since the previous run of X-Force<\/em> ended, and there’s no mention of what she’s been up to.<\/p>\n

Namor.\u00a0<\/strong>He’s interested in Emma. He mentions “the telepathic dalliance we shared some years ago” – this is a subplot from back in the Utopia era in 2011 or so.<\/p>\n

VILLAINS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sebastian Shaw.\u00a0<\/strong>He gets killed. Specifically, he’s been killed with nerve gas triggered by tampering with the Club’s own security systems, but the final twist is that Emma Frost apparently killed him telepathically first – the psi-dampers aren’t powerful enough to keep her in check, even if they can do a decent job with the likes of Psylocke and Mr Sinister.<\/p>\n

In his opening speech, Shaw claims to be furious that “a group of upstarts and usurpers had dared to label their annual gathering the Hellfire Gala”. I’m not clear what he’s referring to here, since he was involved in all the Krakoa-era galas, and last year’s Hellfire Vigil<\/em> one-shot wasn’t billed as a Gala. He might be referring to the New York Hellfire Club falling under Kingpin’s control for a while during the Fall of X.<\/p>\n

He claims to have only been released from Graymalkin “a few days ago”, and that he “called in every political favour I could to secure a conditional release from its new warden”. It’s not clear whether he means Monet St Croix (who’s effectively running the place in Uncanny X-Men<\/em>, and doesn’t appear in this issue), or whoever takes over from her to officially wind down the operation. Maybe he managed to get the American authorities to confirm that there was no need to hold on to him because he was due to be released anyway, thus leading Monet to let him go in the absence of any outstanding charges.<\/p>\n

Shaw’s basic angle is an appeal to Krakoan-style mutant nationalism and a complaint that mutantkind’s leaders have lost their direction – which could be seen as bordering on meta. According to Mystique – and Wolverine believes her – Shaw had somehow got his hands on one of Forge’s nullifier devices (the one that removed Storm’s powers in the 1980s, and also showed up on Krakoa). Shaw’s plan was apparently to convince mutantkind to accept him as a leader and then wipe the powers of anyone who wouldn’t play along.<\/p>\n

The Hellfire Club.\u00a0<\/strong>There are Hellfire Club soldiers manning the door and waiters inside. God knows where Shaw rustled them up, if indeed they aren’t just robots.<\/p>\n

The Club supposedly has originals of Pieter Bruegels’ Seven Deadly Sins\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Seven Deadly Virtues<\/em> (these were prints, so there are multiple copies).<\/p>\n

Shaw doesn’t seem to have invited anyone else who’s traditionally associated with the Hellfire Club other than Emma. His son Shinobi is also absent, for that matter.<\/p>\n

The Hellfire Brotherhood.\u00a0<\/strong>This is\u00a0Mystique<\/strong>‘s new crew. She claims responsibility for the murder, and apparently really is responsible for the nerve gas. Despite being emaciated and confined to a wheelchair at the end of the Mystique<\/em> mini, and in the same condition in\u00a0the recent\u00a0Rogue<\/em> mini, she seems fine here. Mind you, she does have an illusionist standing next to her. The rest of the team are:<\/p>\n