Stranger Things season 4, episode 1 title will be familiar to X-Men fans

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

There are rumors and pictures indicating that some filming for the fourth season of Netflix's hugely popular series Stranger Things may have already taken place, but even if none of the actors have reported to set just yet it's clear they will be there soon. Casting calls have been sent out, a teaser has been released for the season, and now a verified Twitter account associated with the show has revealed the title of the season's first episode.

Series creators The Duffer Brothers have written the first episode of Stranger Things 4, and the episode is called "Chapter One: The Hellfire Club".

Given the geek cred this show has, I'd say it's much more likely that the title is a nod to a group from the X-Men comics than it is to be a reference to the Hellfire Clubs that existed in Britain and Ireland in the 18th century. The real Hellfire Clubs consisted of high society men who "wished to take part in socially perceived immoral acts." The Hellfire Club of Marvel Comics is made up of supervillains who "seek to influence world events."

looking for new members… are you in? pic.twitter.com/P1xAWNUPss

— Stranger Writers (@strangerwriters) November 7, 2019

Collider's Gregory Lawrence included some interesting speculation in his explanation of the comic book Hellfire Club: 

The Hellfire Club is the name of a fictional, secret society in the X-Men mythology. Remember Kevin Bacon and January Jones‘ characters Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost from X-MEN: FIRST CLASS? In the comics, they’re the leaders of the Hellfire Club. The Club’s purpose? To accrue endless power — and in the famous Dark Phoenix saga, to stop Jean Grey no matter what. Eventually, the X-Men and the Hellfire Club reached a kind of truce, and the Club’s storylines moved to inner power struggles and Skull and Bones-esque machinations. Since I find it hard to believe the pop culture-saturated kids at the center of Stranger Things would want to name themselves after such a pseudo-villainous group, the episode title might refer to a new group of pseudo-villains our main heroes have to deal with. Or — maybe our heroes have to reckon with morally ambiguous choices and power struggles, just like the Hellfire Club. OR — this ties up a foreshadowed string introduced in the very first episode of Stranger Things. What’s the comic Dustin and Will race for? Why, the first issue of Dark Phoenix, of course. Plus, it’s not hard to see the parallels between Eleven’s powers and Dark Phoenix’s. Does this episode title hint at an arc closing?

I find the idea that Eleven could go Dark Phoenix in season 4 to be highly intriguing, and it would be a great callback to that first episode. If Stranger Things is going to do its own take on the Dark Phoenix concept, it's already a sure thing that it's going to be better than Fox's attempts at it in X-MEN: THE LAST STAND and X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX.

Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Sadie Sink, Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Matarazzo, Noah Schnapp, Charlie Heaton, Natalia Dyer, Joe Keery, Priah Ferguson, Cara Buono, Winona Ryder, Maya Hawke, and David Harbour are most likely all returning for Stranger Things 4.