Marauders Sets Sail on a New Mission, with a New Team, in a Pre-Relaunch Annual

The next generation of Marauders starts here, in this story by writer Steve Orlando, artist Creees Lee, colorist Rain Beredo and letterer Cory Petit. With Daken missing, Kate Pryde and Bishop assemble a new crew of Marauders to hunt him down. How will they fare against the machinations of Brimstone Love?

The changing of the tides has finally come: After 27 issues, Marauders has changed hands and mission statements. New-to-the-X-office writer Steve Orlando’s Marauders are, at first glance, a strange mix of characters, but each is well-suited to his interests and style. As a first issue, there’s relatively little time to go deep on each character, but Orlando uses the annual’s expanded page count to put some extra meat on what would otherwise be a standard “meet the team” issue (complete with a series of individual recruitments, a la Giant-Size X-Men).

Kate and Bishop are essentially all that remains of the old Marauders, and the new crew in many ways feels like a successor to Leah Williams’ X-Factor. Daken and Aurora come directly from that series, and Orlando plays with the conventions of X-Factor in a way that shows that, even if the series is gone, it is not totally forgotten. The Marauders’ new mission of “mutant rescue” has some of the investigative weight of X-Factor, if with significantly more punching.

Tempo, who previously appeared in Marauders, makes her formal debut here as a full-fledged member, and Psylocke joins following the end of Hellions. The last new member of the team, Somnus, was first and last seen in Marvel’s Voices: Pride, his debut story (also by Orlando). This is a very queer team (just over half, batting at .571), which, combined with the fairly obscure choice of villains, gives this book the impression that Orlando has simply chosen the characters he wants to write. Despite the necessary mechanics of the first issue of a team book taking up a lot of space, Orlando is confident with the characters’ voices in a way that makes what appears to be a fairly hodgepodge team very compelling.

Lee’s artwork works well in motion, but his faces quickly become repetitive (particularly a wide-eyed look of surprise, almost identical on five different characters’ faces over the course of the issue). Kate, in particular, is hardly recognizable compared to her other appearances on Krakoa. Credit where credit is due, however, Lee never forgets her Magen David necklace.

The Marauders Annual is more an issue zero than a self-contained annual. When the full relaunch comes in April, it will be clear whether the annual is actually required reading, but this issue feels more like setting various plots in motion than telling any kind of self-contained story. While a fun read, it feels almost perfunctory, getting rid of all the necessities Orlando would have to perform in a #1 so that when the full series launches, he can dive right into the real story. This may pay off in the long run, but it leaves this annual feeling half-complete. There’s no real resolution in this issue, just the start of a series of mysteries to be paid off at some point in the distant future. A promising start for Orlando’s run on Marauders, but less satisfactory as an issue all on its own.