A powerful telekinetic, the mutant Julian Heller becomes squad leader of the Hellions at Xavier’s Institute for Higher Learning and takes the codename Hellion.
Hella Spoiled
Born in Los Angeles, California to corporate billionaire parents, William and Elizabeth Keller, Julian Keller grew up spoiled. On his twelfth birthday, his parents spend $10,000 on him and that’s when Julian’s mutant telekinetic powers manifest. His parents send him to the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, hoping he would learn to hide his powers and pass for human. Instead, Keller takes great pride in his mutant abilities, mastering their use through training with Institute headmaster Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X, and his former students, the Super Heroic X-Men.
Helluva Telekinetic
A telekinetic of immense potential, Hellion can move solid matter with his thoughts and apparently has the potential of manipulating matter on a molecular level. He can fly, project concussive force, or create protective shields. When his brain’s processes were temporarily opened by Emma Frost, Hellion used his powers at their apparent full capacities, enabling him to fly a vast distance at superhuman speeds; doing so left him exhausted, requiring multiple days’ sleep to recover. After losing his hands to a Nimrod sentinel, he struggles to adapt. Following David Haller, AKA Legion’s reality shift, Hellion shows finely developed control of his telekinesis, using it to animate and control two artificial hands of unrevealed specifications and origin.
Hellish Culprits
Hellion faces William Stryker’s mutant-hating Purifiers and the mutant-hunting Sentinel Nimrod with his Hellions teammates. Hellion also suffers an infection from a version of the Legacy Virus by the Leper Queen, on behalf of the Sentinel Bastion. Later, in a battle with a Nimrod sentinel, Hellion loses both his hands.
Hellions
While attending Xavier’s Institute for Higher Learning, Keller’s belligerent arrogance initially alienates many of his peers, especially David Alleyne, AKA Prodigy, and his disregard for rules often gets him in trouble with faculty and his advisor Jean-Paul Beaubier, AKA Northstar. However, Keller’s immense charisma soon makes him the center of a very tight group of friends that includes Santo Vaccarro, AKA Rockslide, Brian Cruz, AKA Tag, and Cessily Kincaid, AKA Mercury.
Keller joins the Hellions training squad, competes with a rival squad, the New Mutants, and shares a romance with New Mutants co-leader Sofia Mantega, AKA Wind Dancer. After Emma Frost dismantles the squads, she creates the X-Men-In-Training sub-team and Hellion is chosen for it, but not as team leader.
Hellion’s History
Despite concerns he might go down a bad path, Keller was allowed to switch advisors to former villain Emma Frost, and his friends soon followed; Keller chose the code name Hellion to honor Frost’s previous students, the Hellions. Hellion developed feelings for fellow student Wind Dancer but his posturing and the growing rivalry between their two groups of friends made it hard for her to reciprocate. When the student body was reorganized into training squads, Frost oversaw the Hellions and made Hellion the leader. Wind Dancer’s friends became the New Mutants squad, and the rivalry between the two groups grew exponentially, leading to fierce competition during the first of ongoing training games; despite his constant flirting with Wind Dancer, Hellion’s team won. When the FBI arrested the New Mutant Kevin Ford, AKA Wither, for accidentally killing his father, Hellion felt Wither was being treated unfairly and tried to break him out of custody. Wind Dancer and most of the Hellions joined Hellion, but the New Mutants prevented them from accomplishing their mission. Wither was ultimately cleared of the charges. Wrongly blamed for poltergeist activity in the school, Hellion and the New Mutants helped the true culprit, deceased student Jeffrey Garrett's ghost, find peace. Hellion took the Stepford Cuckoos triplets to the school dance after Wind Dancer turned him down; during a dance with Wind Dancer, Hellion invited her to spend the summer break with the Hellions in California.
At the end of the school year, the Hellions won the annual training competition, and Hellion was named “Most Likely to be an X-Man” in the Institute’s yearbook. Wind Dancer ultimately turned down Hellion’s offer to go to California, but the two shared a kiss before he left. En route to California, the Hellions had a conflict with airport security; when Hellion called his parents’ lawyer to resolve the issue, it greatly embarrassed Keller’s parents, who disinherited him to protect their assets. Hellion angrily pried into his parents’ affairs and discovered their connections to a shadowy favor-broker called the Kingmaker. The Hellions obtained favors from the Kingmaker in exchange for a future repayment—in Keller’s case, winning fortune and fame by publicly foiling crimes the Kingmaker had secretly arranged—but when the Kingmaker directed the Hellions to steal a biological weapon for Otto Octavius Doctor Octopus, the team turned against the Kingmaker and destroyed the weapon; in retaliation, the Kingmaker had Hellion’s newfound good name publicly besmirched.
When an insane Wanda Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch, stripped the majority of mutants of their abilities on “M-Day,” Wind Dancer was among those depowered, leaving Hellion with conflicted emotions. When Laura Kinney, AKA X-23 (now Wolverine), came to the Institute, she quickly became attracted to Hellion, but he repeatedly drove her away. Frost dismantled the training squads and made the remaining students participate in a battle royal to determine who would train as X-Men-In-Training; Hellion was chosen, but was passed over for this group’s leadership. Not long after, attacks by mutant-hating Purifiers killed 45 students, including Hellion’s best friend Tag; Hellion was hurt when Wind Dancer left the school without saying goodbye. Sooraya Qadir, AKA Dust, Mercury, Hellion and Rockslide joined the New X-Men, an amalgamated squad formed from the remaining empowered students, until that too was disbanded.
Later, after the trainees battled the mutant-hunting Sentinel Nimrod, Frost telepathically opened Hellion’s mental capacities, allowing him to telekinetically move at superhuman speeds so he could reach medical help for gravely injured X-23 in time; however, as a result, he lost fine telekinetic control of his increased abilities, becoming more blunt and destructive. Hellion later teamed with X-23, who was now in love with Hellion, to rescue Mercury from X-23’s amoral Facility scientist creators; Hellion found himself developing feelings for X-23, and he forced her to spare her enemies during the mission.
Hellion traveled to Germany to locate sorceress Amanda Sefton, AKA Magik, when demonic sorcerer Belasco kidnapped the X-Men and students to limbo (Otherplace) and later dropped his usual swagger long enough to confide in Dust about how lost he had felt since M-Day. Discovering that the Purifiers were hunting the first mutant born since M-Day, the students sought revenge for their dead friends—but during their attack, Yuriko Oyama, AKA Lady Deathstrike, gravely wounded Hellion by stabbing him through the chest. Hank McCoy, AKA Beast, and Prodigy saved his life, but when Hellion finally awoke, he learned co-headmaster and X-Men leader Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, had closed the school, disbanded the X-Men and sent the students home. Coupled with finding that his parents moved away without a trace, an increasingly angry Hellion felt abandoned and betrayed and subsequently approached mutant supremacist Max Eisenhardt, AKA Magneto, seeking to serve him; Magneto, realizing Hellion was only seeking to hurt the X-Men, rebuffed Hellion.
Hellion moved to San Francisco after the X-Men reconvened and offered all mutants sanctuary there; whether Hellion resumed his education is unclear. He and fellow former X-Man-In-Training Noriko Ashida, AKA Surge, were later kidnapped and infected with a variation of the Legacy virus by the mutant-hunting Leper Queen on behalf of the Sentinel Bastion, the virus causing their powers to flare uncontrollably. Before they could be used to destroy the United Nations building, X-Man-In-Training Josh Foley, AKA Elixir, purged the virus from Hellion, who used his telekinesis to funnel Surge’s massive power discharge harmlessly into the air; they were subsequently taken in by the X-Men.
When Bastion’s forces helped introduce the prejudicial anti-mutant Proposition X in California, an angry Hellion helped provoke riots between pro- and anti-mutant groups, then gathered other angry mutants in a public display of civil disobedience; they were subsequently arrested by corrupt tycoon Norman Osborn, AKA Green Goblin’s mutant police force. After Osborn’s defeat, Hellion relocated to Utopia, the X-Men’s artificial island mutant sanctuary. When Bastion launched a massive campaign against mutantkind, Hellion assisted the X-Men in defending San Francisco from Nimrod super-Sentinels, but during the battle, a Nimrod amputated both of Hellion’s hands.
His perpetual anger greatly enhanced by losing his hands, Hellion became even dourer, rudely refusing comfort and help. When X-Men scientists Kavita Rao and Madison Jeffries created cyborg hands for Hellion, he lashed out with his power, destroying Rao’s lab, and refused to wear the hands, positing that the X-Men should somehow be able to recreate his hands. Believing it would be therapeutic, Hellion was sent to San Francisco to help rebuild after Bastion’s attacks. But when Karima Shapandar, AKA Omega Sentinel’s normally dormant Sentinel programming overtook and forced her to attack the X-Men, Hellion apparently subconsciously used his powers to force Omega’s power blasts to harmlessly pass through the molecules of her targets’ bodies. Omega nearly defeated the assembled X-Men, but Hellion channeled his rage toward the Sentinels that destroyed his hands and almost destroyed Omega while pummeling her into a brain-dead state. Cyclops subsequently put Hellion on probation for using excessive violence without restraint or remorse, and threatened him with expulsion from Utopia if he did not learn to control his anger; Hellion privately and defiantly decided he could survive without the X-Men but stayed on Utopia regardless. Following a reality shift caused by one of extremely powerful mutant Legion's personalities, Hellion returned to Reality-616 with his neural pathways apparently altered, restoring his fine telekinetic control; he also returned with mechanical hands he telekinetically controls with great precision.
When the Schism happened and the mutant race found themselves divided, James Howlett/Logan, AKA Wolverine, left Utopia to start his own school, dubbed the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. Hellion left the island with him. After joining Wolverine’s X-Men, he tracked down X-23, assuming she also chose his team. They get captured by the cosmic hoarder, Taneleer Tivan, AKA The Collector, and in escaping he kissed X-23. Though she refused him to which he responded poorly, not believing her and accusing her of being incapable of feeling anything.
Back at the school, he joined the X-Men’s Special Class with Ernst, Martha Johansson, AKA No-Girl, Rockslide, Iara Dos Santos, AKA Shark-Girl, Robert Herman, AKA Glob Herman, and Trevor Hawkins, AKA Eye Boy. Hellion became the Special Class’ leader and entered into a romantic relationship with Shark-Girl.
After the Inhuman Terrigen Cloud swept over Earth’s atmosphere, Hellion became sick with M-Pox, as did many mutants, and sought out the X-Men for help. Unable to track them down, he traveled to New Attilan where he thought the Inhumans should witness his death. While there, he lost control of his powers and caused destruction across the city. When the Queen of Attilan, Medusalith Amaquelin Boltagon, AKA Medusa, asked Emily Guerrero, AKA Synapse, to get her close to Hellion, and Emily succeeded, they realized he was having a seizure. After Synapse temporarily disabled his power, Hellion apologized, claiming he didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Medusa had Hellion taken to their physicians to be treated. After receiving treatment at New Attilan General Hospital and experiencing a full recovery from the T-Mist sickness, Hellion paid them back through volunteer work.
When Professor X, Magneto, and Moira MacTaggert created the mutant island nation of Krakoa, Hellion became a citizen of the sovereign nation-state and reunited with the Hellions squad.
