X-Men: How the Hellfire Club's Sebastian Shaw Briefly Became a Hero

The mutants who orbit the general vicinity of the are X-Men are one of the more complicated groups within the Marvel Universe. They fight amongst themselves almost as much as they fight oppression from ordinary people. Some of these conflicts are motivated by broken friendships or familial struggles. But some are born from good old-fashioned hatred between two individuals.

In the case of Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost, their mutual hatred gave Sebastian Shaw a new lease on life. During one of his last interactions with Emma, Sebastian had his mind wiped by the former White Queen, leaving him an amnesiac and later providing him an opportunity to join Generation Hope, a team of Marvel's youngest mutants.

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The story technically began with his Shaw's first murder attempt on Emma. He had tasked her with recruiting Namor to the Hellfire Club, but instead, Emma began a relationship with him. Infuriated, Shaw sent a sentinel to attack Atlantis, destroying the kingdom and sending Namor into a rage. While he pursued Shaw, the Black King's secondary plan was enacted. As punishment for her betrayal and to keep her in the fold, Shaw had Emma's memories of Namor erased.

Emma eventually reclaimed her lost time with the Sub-Mariner and enacted her own plan for revenge. While she tricked Namor into believing that he had killed Shaw via a psychic illusion, Emma instead had the Black King imprisoned for his crimes against mutant-kind -- specifically his most recent actions of unleashing a sentinel upon Genosha and killing hundreds. His imprisonment would last until Namor came to the island where they were holding Shaw.

Realizing that as long as Shaw continued to draw breath he would be a threat to her, Emma decided to finally kill him. But Shaw escaped before she could make the attempt, thanks to the foolhardy actions of one of Emma's co-conspirators. In Uncanny X-Men #534 by Matt Fraction, Kieron Gillen, Greg Land, Paul Renaud and Joe Caramagna, he tried once again to murder Emma. She managed to trap him with her telepathy and this time found a much more inventive way to punish him without killing him: wiping away all of his memories. She left the now amnesiac Shaw to rebuild his life without having to fear his return.

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Months later, the memory-wiped Shaw was discovered by a mutant team called the Lights. They brought him back to Utopia, where the X-Men tried to imprison him. The leader of the Lights, Hope, convinced Scott Summers to let Shaw join her time, believing that his amnesia makes him a new, innocent person who should have a chance to make up for his sins. Though still distrustful of Shaw, Cyclops relented and allowed Shaw to join the team in 2012's Generation Hope #15, by James Asmus and Tim Green. Hope then gave Shaw his file, detailing all of his misdeeds, an innocent act that set up Shaw's eventual return.

Shaw eventually read the files, but it seemed he did not remember any of it. He and his team eventually arrived at Avengers Academy and met several of its mutant students, who could not leave the campus grounds. Not trusting him, Wolverine wanted to imprison Shaw, especially since Shaw had read his own file. Shaw agreed to be imprisoned and was placed in an energy-absorbing cell to prevent him from using his powers to escape.

As crafty as ever, Shaw used books to build up kinetic energy and escape his cell. Shaw then liberated the mutant students of Avengers Academy, offering them freedom if they came with him. Having betrayed the team and seemingly regained all of his memories, Shaw returned to his position within the Hellfire Club, now seemingly his old self again.

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