The Hellions miniseries wraps up, and confirms my view that this is a much more effective direction than the one the parent title's been taking. 

Quite aside from the fact that it's got some decent action scenes, it's also got a much smaller cast and much more focus.  Oh, and it's got the Hellions, many of whom are simply more interesting characters than the New Mutants.  To judge from promotional line-ups, the two teams are effectively being merged post-House of M, with a lot of characters falling by the wayside.  But while fans of the existing book may be infuriated, it'll probably make for a more dynamic and more interesting team to read about.

Some slightly ropey plotting lets down the final issue.  The Hellions escape their contract with the Kingmaker by agreeing to hand over the stolen weapon in exchange for the termination of their contracts.  But hold on... weren't they obliged to hand over the weapon anyway?  We're never really told what the Kingmaker can do to enforce his contracts, and we pretty much have to take it on trust that he's got some options open to him.  Let's face it, he's hardly going to go to court with it.  Yet if he can enforce the contracts, however he does it, he's remarkably quick to give them up.  And if he can't... well, he's not much of a threat, is he?

But I do like the subtlety with which Hellion's actions are played.  By the end of the issue, Hellion is essentially telling everyone that he was planning to turn on the Kingmaker all along, but in fact there's remarkably little evidence in the story to support that - and is he really a character you can trust on this sort of thing?  He certainly didn't destroy the bio-weapon before going into the meeting (he couldn't have, because Wither didn't have his powers back at that point).  He really just seems to bristle at being told what to do, rather than being genuinely outraged by anything the Kingmaker does.  While Hellion's perfectly happy to be on the side of the angels, what he really gets out of it is a sense of control, and the admiration of his peers - and you still get the impression that he could pick whichever side is most likely to deliver him that.  He's a great character, certainly the strongest in the New X-Men cast, and it's good to see so much being done with him.

Overall, a successful miniseries, and if anything, an improvement on the parent book.  It's not often I get to say this these days, but this was a miniseries that definitely deserved to be published.

Rating: A-

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