Marauders Revives a Classic X-Men Villain With a Hellish New Role
by Tim WebberWARNING: The following contains spoilers for Marauders #3, by Gerry Duggan, Michele Bandini, Elisabetta D’Amico, Federico Blee, VC’s Cory Petit and Tom Muller, on sale now.
The Hellfire Club is one of the most exclusive, influential groups in the X-Men’s corner of the Marvel Universe, and it’s recruiting. While the Hellfire Club is usually a secret cabal of elite, influential mutants that tries to reshape the world from behind the scenes, the current iteration of the club, the Hellfire Trading Company, is a relatively more philanthropic operation.
Since the late Charles Xavier reorganized the X-Men and the rest of mutantkind on the living island Krakoa, the Hellfire Company has represented the economic interests of mutants to the rest of the world. Led by Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw and Kate -- not Kitty -- Pryde, the new Hellfire is concerned with the legal and black market global distribution of Krakoan medicine and bringing endangered mutants to Krakoa.
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Without a single leader over the entire operation, the Hellfire Company has a new hierarchy that theoretically gives Frost’s White Queen, Shaw’s Black King and Pryde’s Red Queen equal power and the right to name a Bishop and a Knight to serve under them. While Frost’s little-seen brother Christian will serve as her White Bishop, Marauders #3 sees Shinobi Shaw resurrected and join his father as the Black Bishop.
Although Shinobi was never a famous as his father, the younger Shaw was a semi-regular thorn in the X-Men’s sides for a few years following his 1991 debut in Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio and Chris Claremont’s X-Factor #67. With density-manipulating powers that alternatively made him intangible and unbreakable, Shinobi led a version of the Hellfire Club and was a member of the Upstarts, a murderous team of young mutant villains.
While Sebastian and Shinobi have both tried to kill each other in the past, the younger Shaw took his own life earlier this year in Uncanny X-Men.
However, Sebastian hides that fact from a newly-resurrected Shinobi and tells him that Frost and Pryde were behind his death. With his lie, Sebastian positions himself as his son’s only ally in the Hellfire Company, which seems to have as much infighting and backstabbing as any iteration of the Hellfire Club.
If the Black King had his way, Shinobi would’ve joined Hellfire as the Red King, but Frost gave that position to Pryde before that could happen. Even though Shinobi spends most of this issue in a Red King’s crimson wardrobe, he joins the Hellfire Company as the Black Bishop.
While both Shaws have been members of the Hellfire Club in the past, this marks the first time that both have been members of the same Hellfire organization at the same time. Since Frost and her brother currently make up another branch of the organization, Hellfire’s Inner Circle is more insular than its been in years.
Traditionally, membership in the Hellfire Club has been hereditary. X-Men like Archangel, Sunspot, Psylocke and Captain Britain have all been welcomed into the Club since their privileged, upper-class ancestors were members. In its current form, the Hellfire Company doubles down on that idea by concentrating mutant wealth and economic power in a few wealthy families.
However, Pryde’s presence in the Hellfire Company seems to counter this idea. As the sea-faring savior of lost mutants, she already embodies Hellfire’s most altruistic impulses, and she has a relatively normal middle-class background that makes her a solid ambassador for the rest of mutantkind’s interests.
Perhaps as a further counter to the other members’ entrenched sense of privilege, Pryde tries to recruit the X-Men’s Bishop as her Red Bishop. Despite the obvious pun, Bishop handily refuses Kitty’s offer. While his time growing up in a broken future world would’ve brought a fresh perspective to Hellfire, Bishop usually gravitates towards semi-independent missions or mysteries that require his full attention.
Even with the concentration of Shaws and Frosts in the Hellfire Company, both Pryde and Emma Frost still seem genuinely concerned about the plight of other mutants. As the newest pawn in Sebastian’s power struggle against those two X-Men, Shinobi may end up finding himself in the middle of Krakoa’s first civil war.
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