The Hounds need a different kind of team breakdown, because putting them beside a group like the Brotherhood without explaining the difference would get the whole thing wrong. A…

The Hounds need a different kind of team breakdown, because putting them beside a group like the Brotherhood without explaining the difference would get the whole thing wrong. Ahab controls them. Their presence on his side of a fight does not mean they chose his cause. The focus here is the Hound system as it comes into the present during Days of Future Present, the 1990 crossover running through Fantastic Four Annual #23, New Mutants Annual #6, X-Factor Annual #5 and X-Men Annual #14. Rachel brings the history. Ahab brings the machinery and the determination to preserve the future he serves. The other heroes discover how quickly they can become part of his equipment. That is a particularly nasty extension of the Sentinel idea. A machine built to hunt mutants is already frightening. Using captured people to help hunt the next victims adds something else: it makes the hunted community participate in its own destruction. The victims can be made dangerous without becoming responsible for the purpose imposed on them. Ahab’s methods also turn familiarity into a problem. Normally, recognizing someone across a battlefield helps establish where safety is. Here, a familiar face can be attached to an attack the person would never freely choose. Their loved ones have to defend themselves while remembering whom they are defending themselves from. There is no honest way to turn this into a complete list of colorful codenames. Many of the Hounds are unnamed. Rachel deserves her own space as a survivor; Cyclops and the Invisible Woman become specific victims during the crossover. Ahab belongs in a separate controller’s post, rather than being listed as another captive with a different power. The group’s defining feature is that someone else has taken ownership of its members’ choices. Any discussion of their abilities has to keep that fact in view.