The Marvel Universe is no stranger to dark storylines featuring cruel villains. Nearly every hero has had at least one tale that dabbles in the horror genre. The X-Men have been featured in some of Marvel’s most horrifying stories, not the least of which was 1988’s “Inferno” crisis. The demon N’astirh, looking for a way to build a permanent portal between Earth and his own realm of Limbo, ordered his followers to kidnap thirteen mutant babies so that he could use them as conduits for his power. The plot was eventually foiled through the combined efforts of both the X-Men and X-Factor teams, but the fallout from it would start to be felt decades later in 2010’s New Mutants #9, by Zeb Wells and Paul Davidson.
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After rescuing the Inferno Babies from N’astirh and Madelyne Pryor, X-Factor took it upon themselves to see the children delivered to the United States government. The fate of the children remained a mystery for years. Of course, the years spent away only served to give the Inferno Babies time to grow, and their next appearance would see one of the most maniacal projects in Marvel history undone. The Inferno Babies fell into the hands of Doctor Noc and General Ulysses shortly after they were rescued. These two became the figureheads of the government’s latest clandestine horror show: Project Purgatory.
Noc and Ulysses led a band of soldiers into Limbo to establish a military base where they would be free to experiment on the Inferno Babies as well as the demonic residents of Limbo itself. When the base fell under attack from Witchfire, the mutant infants were believed dead and the base was sealed off from the outside. It took four years on Earth for those trapped in Limbo to make their way out, but to them, it was almost three decades. Being stranded by their government gave the soldiers in Limbo plenty of time to get used to the landscape and become twisted demonic versions of themselves. While not physically changed by his time in Limbo, Ulysses became obsessed with tracking down Magik.
Once back on Earth, Ulysses leads his men to Utopia, the island home of mutant-kind at the time. In a mission that goes against strict orders, Ulysses captures Pixie and her Soul Dagger. She is taken back to the Limbo base for her Soul Stone to be forcibly removed. Magik gets the message through a painful mystic link, and she leads the New Mutants headfirst into Limbo to save their friend. It doesn’t take them long to find the military installation where Pixie is being held, but getting through the fortifications proves almost impossible when the Inferno Babies are revealed to be not only alive, but all grown up and bloodthirsty. The years of horrific experiments performed on them has left the mutant infants solely dedicated to the General’s cause, and they are more than happy to kill anyone who gets in the way of that vision.
The Inferno Babies weren’t just turned into soldiers, they were turned into sentient weapons from an early age, forced through traumatic experiences until their powers erupted. While the Marvel Universe has a history of cruel military experiments with projects such as Weapon X, Project Purgatory was something far darker than that.
Once they had defeated the New Mutants, the Inferno Babies took great pleasure in brutally torturing them, going so far as to even try hacking off Karma’s prosthetic leg for fun. Ulysses and most of his men would eventually meet their ends to the same demons they had fought so hard to lord over, and the remaining Inferno Babies and Doctor Noc were unceremoniously killed by Cannonball in an act of vengeance for the torture they had put him and his friends through. Since then, the heroes who fought to bring down Project Purgatory have seen plenty of action, but none of it so ruthlessly cruel as the hellish conspiracy they brought down together.
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