Ahh the External Mahd Wyry madness (I think that is what it was called). After the Gann Josin mental bonding with Black Knight to give her some modicum of sanity, during the Harras/Epting run on the pre-Heroes Reborn Avengers title, Sersi and Whitman had some adventures bouncing thru time and dimension (most notably the Ultraverse). At some point they returned to the mainstreme Marvel Universe and Sersi appears to have been cured of her malady and the Gann Josin bond broken. Sersi served as an Avenger once again alongside just about everyone else at the beginning of the current volume of the Avengers title. Sersi has likely since returned to throwing fabulous parties in New York lofts.
Yeah, Gamesmaster was an omnipath who kept score for the Upstarts competition for the prize of immortality via Selene(???). The first challenge was to kill off the members of the Hellfire inner circle and their students the Hellions which comprised the early appearances of the Upstarts. Shinobi seemingly successfully murdered his father Sebastian Shaw, Trevor Fitzroy then got the upper hand by killing off the Hellions. Fabian Cortez ingratiated himself with Magneto (the former Grey King) and won points for killing Magnus but, as Gamesmaster put it, the status of those points later came into dispute. Of the other members Siena Blaze, Graydon Creed, the Fenris twins (who never quite made the cut to be in the club), only Graydon Creed has been notable since the early period and that is due mostly to his parentage (Sabretooth and Mystique) and his campaign for President on an anti-mutant platform that got him assasinated (by his own Mother...unless they put XMen Forever out of continuity at some point). It is of note that the Upstarts hunt for all thing Hellfire was revived in an X-Force/New Warriors crossover called 'Childs Play' in which their targets were any of the surviving students from the New Mutants and Hellions classes. More here on the Upstarts and other unsuccessful ventures (like Shinobi founding a new inner circle by trying to turn X-Men to the dark side...Storm, Archangel, Psylocke as well as some uninspiring newcomers:
http://www.uncannyxmen.net/db/pov/showquestion.asp?
faq=5&fld Auto=20
In general, the rise of the Upstarts destroyed the H Club of old, until an effort to reconstitute the Inner Circle was instigated by a returned from the dead Sebastian Shaw (in the pages of X-Man). Selene assumed control of the club for a time (see below). Seemingly the Selene era has ended as the club has since shown up in recent issues of New X-Men as more of a neutral ground for mutants (Wolverine and SAbretooth can usse adjacent urinals without trouble) with telepathic strippers (the better to satisfy your fantasies silly!) Selene absorbed the power of all the other 'Immortal' mutants known as eXternals and got a power upgrade in pre-Onslaught JF Moore/Adam Pollina issues of XForce. As her bid to regain her seat as Black Queen of the Shaw headed reformed Inner Circle, she sought to control a mysteriously returned Madelyne Pryor, who then proceeded to surpass Selene and make her own bid for Queen (XMan issues). Somewhere along the line, Selene succeeded in ousting Shaw by allying herself with Blackheart (the new 'devil' of the Marvel Universe) and headed up a Hellfire Club as a demonic influenced power base (see Claremont penned 1999 Fantastic Four annual) . After getting beaten by Danielle Moonstar and XForce at the Burning Man festival, she successfully recruited X-Force member Sunspot into the club by promising to resurrect his dead girlfriend Juliana Sandoval (see issues of JFMoore/Cheung issues of XForce). Since Sunspot is due to turn up somewhere soon (Xtreme XMen) perhaps some light will be shed on the Selene era of the Club. Others in the club: Emma Frost: currently in New X-Men and her own ongoing title which focuses on her early years. Donald Pierce: killed by Upstarts, got better appeared in first Domino miniseries, later appeared in the Casey/Ladronn issues of Cable (referred to as having the position of White King) Tessa: was at Shaw's side during the reformation of the Inner Circle as a telepath. Later revealed as a mole for Xavier and returned to the Xavier Institute during Claremont's return to the Xbooks ('Revolution'
currently working with the splinter team in XTreme X-Men as a mentat among other things...often teamed with Bishop as an investigative team. Fitzroy: At one point he was at Selene's side durint the Shaw reformation..I think she was just waiting for the right moment to kill him for torturing her during the Upstarts heyday. He went over to Bishop's solo title while the book featured Bishop in a farflung medieval roadwarrioresque future. He was killed there.
Exodus got smacked down by Heroes for Hire and Quicksilver alongside the Knights of Wundagore in an illadvised crossover (which totally killed the momentum of both books). In the Coda to that story Exodus was again mystically sealed away by the Black Knight (apparently as had been done in their initial meeting when Dane Whitman was inhabiting the body of an ancestor). Dont think he was seen since.
Thats all I can think of off the top of my head. Yours in USENET,
