| Team Name: | Hellfire Club |
| Publisher: | Marvel |
| 1st Appearance: | The Uncanny X-Men #100 |
| Appears in: | 67 issues |
| Disbanded in: |
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The Hellfire Club is an international group of the world's social elite. They are run by mutants that consider themselves superior to other mutants in both their mutant abilities and social status. Edit
The Inner Circle
The Club is ran by a small group of the most influential members that form the infamous Inner Circle. Named after chess pieces, members of the Inner Circle will take on the titles of the Black and White (and later also Red) Kings, Queens, Bishops, and Rooks. The final position of Lord Imperial is reserved for the most powerful member of the club. Additionally, prominent members have also had assistants that did not have official titles within the club.
The Inner Circle was not always mutant dominated, but few members in several generations were not. The Inner Circle dominates the club and secretly influences the club's activities in order to achieve even more power and wealth.
History
The Hellfire Club was originally founded in 18th century England by, Sir Francis Dashwood, Duncan Munro and Scotman John Stuart (Third Earl of Bute). It had some connection to King James I and retained some of his writings on the occult from the 16th and 17th centuries. In the 1760s, it functioned as a social club for the elite of British society. The Club not only provided its members with pleasures, often of sorts that violated moral standards at the time, but also sewed as a means for the members to consolidate their Influence over British economic and political matters. During the Revolutionary War, Philadelphia members tried to obtain secret information from Major General Wallace Worthington. In 1859 the club had to align itself with Apocalypse.
A number of the Club's most important members emigrated to the colony of New York in the 1780s, where they founded the new American Hellfire Club. Clemens and Knight served as its first leaders under their Club titles of Black King and Black Queen. The Club's headquarters was an abandoned church that stood on the site of the present day Hellfire Club mansion, located at what is now Fifth Avenue on Manhattan's East Side, only a few blocks away from the Avengers Mansion.
Today's Hellfire Club counts among its members the wealthy, the powerful, and the celebrated from virtually all over the world. Membership la by Invitation only, but such Invitations are rarely turned down, for membership in the Hellfire Club Is universally regarded as the ultimate status symbol. Membership is also hereditary. Tony Stark and Norman Osborne have both been invited into the Hellfire Club
New York Branch:
Council of the Chosen:
Edward "Ned" Buckman: White King
Paris Seville: White Queen
Sebastian Shaw: Black Bishop
Edward Buckman invited many people into the Hellfire Club including Howard Stark, Warren Worthington Jr., and Sir James Braddock. Edward