Secrets in Shi’ar Space in Marauders #3!

Shi’ar space baddies have captured our spacefaring heroes, and no one knows– yet– what secret about the first mutants the Kin Crimson have been keeping from the rest of Shi’ar society. Will Kate Pryde and her band escape? Can they get help? Where can they go? What’s going on? Find out in Marauders #3. Written by Steve Orlando, drawn by Eleanora Carlini, colors by Matt Milla, letters by  Ariana Maher.

Stephanie Burt: Hi, Ian! Welcome back to Shi’ar space! How long did you take to remember what’s going on and who all the space players were?

Ian Gregory: Hi, Steph! I actually was pretty excited to see this issue, because I felt like it would make or break this story. Overall, though, I’m pretty happy – but maybe that’s just because I’ve been reading some Iain Banks again and there’s been some bleedover.

Science Fiction Double Feature

Stephanie: We had some issues with Eleanora Carlini’s art last time as maybe too cartoony or lighthearted for this grand galaxy-spanning plot. Do you think it’s changed, or improved? I’m very much into the spaceships, planetary surfaces, crowd scenes and so on: there’s a real magazine-cover feel (this is a good thing). Still don’t think she gets faces and closeups right, but there’s less call for those this time around, in a large-cast, ensemble-scene, lots-of-fighting issue.

Ian: We’re definitely in agreement that Carlini is doing amazing work on the big science fiction set pieces. The layouts feel big and expansive, the effects are fascinating, and the fight scenes have the kind of futuristic twist that make them feel more involved than just “punching, in space.” I’ve also grown to like Cassandra Nova’s rictus, and I think the more cartoony style fits a villain like her who feels like she should be exaggeratedly twisted. With the rest of the cast, however, there’s too strong a contrast between the high-concept action and their low-detail, cartoonish faces.

Stephanie: Hard same on this end. She’s good at dragons too. Can you explain the narrative inside the dragon-vs-dragon fight, Ian? ‘Cause I’m not sure I can, yet.

Ian: I liked the dragon fight because Nova gets inside in his head, reads his thoughts, and during his power-induced depression seizes control of the symbiote inside its blood. Last issue we speculated on what “The Wet Skin” could mean, and what alien race it was harvested from: now we know that the Shi’ar were harvesting symbiotes, injecting them in the Crimson Kin, and using them as a kind of back-up weapon and medical system. That’s gross, and I love it.

Stephanie: Honestly I found it confusing, especially since both the dragons involved looked like a re-colored Lockheed but weren’t Lockheed (same basic shape). Where’s Lockheed? On the other hand, it’s beautifully rendered. I want Carlini and Milla doing my dragons. If the dragons happen to be locked in deadly combat involving a malevolent telepath.

Also, Wet Skin is really disguised blood play? Alright then. I want a Soft Skin to go with my Dry Skin.

For a Few Mutants Less

Stephanie: If Steve Orlando has any interest in the personality, the backstory or even the mannerisms of my alter ego and reader-surrogate girl the Pirate Queen Kate Pryde, Mr. Orlando has not shown it yet. That’s a big swerve for a book that was mostly the Kate-and-Emma show in its previous run, and being me, I hate it.

On the other hand, there’s a good argument that Captain Pryde has been overexposed, and treated as a writer’s favorite, so often this century (Whedon, Bendis, Guggenheim, Duggan) that she could use some time in the captain’s chair but out of the spotlight. (Last time a non-man wrote our girl in a starring role? Seanan McGuire’s X-Men Gold Annual #2.) 

Ian: I think I’ve come to terms with what Orlando is doing with this series. Definitely, the peak of the first run of Marauders was the character focus with Kate and Emma. But I think that Orlando isn’t necessarily beholden to what Marauders used to be, and I like that, if he’s going for big science fiction action, then he’s really swinging for the fences. None of this Star Wars riff nonsense – we’re going straight to “omnipathic mental networks” and “extradimensional prisons.” 

Maybe this high-concept stuff is a better fit in X-Men Red, but that series has transitioned to, ironically, be more character-focused. Orlando seems committed to creating huge adventures, and while there may not be much room for character work we at least get to see how someone we already know a lot about (Kate) handles pretty high-concept, high-morality situations. I think how well that plan works will depend on how this story comes to an end – Kate has basically been out of action for the past two issues, and hasn’t had much of a chance to be a protagonist.

Stephanie: You are quite persuasive. Also Mr. Orlando excels at showing and using less famous mutants’ powers. Somnus keeps everyone “safe” in his dream dimension, except that they let their physical bodies get captured while they’re hanging out there. Tempo fights Gladiator by ultra-aging his arm, but she can’t keep that up– he’s too tough, and too close to immortal.

You know whose voice he does get? Cassandra Nova. She’s the worst– but her battle repartee is the best.
Ian: I do like the fight scenes – Carlini makes them look gorgeous and novel, and Orlando is excellent at leveraging the huge cast. But I’m still frustrated that the cast is so large – even if they work well in a fight, the reader is constantly forgetting about one or two mutants in the background. I wish we were dealing with two less mutants, which would give Orlando a little more space to focus on the “guest” characters like Erik the Red, Gladiator, or Cassandra Nova, who, as you say, is actually managing to not be pointless. We cautioned early on that Cassandra Nova is somewhat over-utilized, but her gleeful sadism is a good fit for Kate’s natural optimism. And boy, does Orlando give her opportunities to shine.

The Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire

Stephanie: Let me see if I’ve got the plot correct. The Kin Crimson, identifiable by their all-crimson armor, keep the actual secret of the First Mutants and the Shi’ar Shames in their Chronicle, which they keep, in turn, in a “pan-dimensional prison” called the Krag. They want to kill our heroes or at least send them packing so that no one will discover the horrible secret. The ordinary (non-Crimson) Shi’ar close to the throne, including members of the Imperial Guard like Gladiator (mohawk-Superman, basically), don’t necessarily know anything about the First Mutants or the Ten Shames or the Kin’s secret history, but they respect tradition and take orders. In particular, they can take orders from Kin Crimson bigwig (big helmet, technically) Delphos, who by law and custom has to defer to the actual Empress, Xandra, daughter of Charles Xavier and former Empress Lilandra. 

Xandra, being Chuck’s kid, is both a Shi’ar ruler and a mutant, so naturally she’s sympathetic to the Marauder’s quest for whatever the hell happened in a galaxy ruled by the Shi’ar long, long ago. Unsurprisingly, once the Marauders reach Xandra in person, she agrees to help our team  blow the lid on the Shi’ar’s long secret. The book with the secrets is kept in the Krag, so they go there, at which point Delphos, using her secret telepathic network that extends throughout the Kin, has the prison guards assassinate Xandra. Ka-boom. Oof.

Ian: Pretty much. There’s some interesting ideas in here, and I’m not just talking about the technobabble. I like the idea that a great empire will also reinforce itself, even against their own ruler. Reform without violence is essentially impossible, because the “invisible” power structures preserve the empire’s secrets and power. In this comic, those invisible structures are made visible – they are literally a secret society that can overrule the emperor’s power when convenient. I have some concerns about this, mainly that it can veer a little too close to Illuminati / Freemason territory (that is, a secret society manipulating the government from behind the scenes), but ultimately I think it’s an interesting concept.

Stephanie: If you’re in a bad mood you could say we’re looking at QAnon in space. If you’re in a better mood– and I’m in an OK mood today– you could say that Kate Pryde, the most American of mutants, believes in that most American of plotlines: speak truth to power hard enough and power will do the right thing, because the head of state, more than half the time, isn’t a terrible, terrible person. And sometimes that works!

“I’m asking,” she tells Xandra in the pivotal conversation. “After all our people have been through, please.” And Xandra makes the right choice! Only to find out that if the head of state threatens entrenched power too consistently, or too overtly, or too slowly, the institutions of power find ways to get her out of the way, or render her powerless, or, in this case, gun her down in defense of the prison-industrial order that benefits them and hurts everyone else, reversing whatever changes she wanted to make. The allegory of American politics at the moment feels way too real.

Ian: Last issue we identified Xandra as the emotional core of this story, and I’m pleased to see that continuing. I don’t think she’s fully dead, as that would be a tremendous waste of her character and her role in this story, but I think it will have some interesting implications for her relationship with the empire going forward. I worry that it’s almost a little too neat, though: so few people even knew about the Kin Crimson that Xandra deciding to expose them may have very few practical consequences. In the absence of greater character work on Kate and co., I’m hoping we get something interesting with Xandra – and with Cassandra Nova, who implies she’s known the Ten Shames all along and has just been keeping them to herself, for kicks.

Stephanie: I hadn’t seen the story imply that Cassandra Nova knows the Ten Shames already, because I’m obtuse where it comes to future plot hints: Ian, can you point to the hint you see?

Ian: When Nova is killing the Kin Crimson Betel, she says “I saw it while flaying your would-be assassin years ago. The Ten Shi’ar shames. Your Kin Crimson. Caving history as you alone think is best. It’s admirable.” A positive endorsement from Cassandra Nova has to feel bad there, Betel!

Overall, I think this issue showed me more of the promise of what Orlando is trying to do with Marauders. It’s not perfect, and I wish there was a little more space in this book for characters other than Xandra or Nova to shine, but I think there’s a bunch of interesting ideas bouncing around in this book. I just hope they come into focus instead of being brushed aside for a series of neat looking fights.

Stephanie: Similar feels here, though I”m not sure how I’d feel if I didn’t have Ian around to confirm my tentative read on the plotlines. I’m certainly sticking around for what comes next– and for how Xandra comes back from comic-book-dead.

SPACE PIRATE BOOTY:

• Xandra rides into her throne room, or hearing room, on a giant red owl. Love it. (Have the Shi’ar used riding owls before?)
• Carlini’s panel design rocks. Full-page panels with insets where someone’s making a big speech, and slanted quadrilaterals for the fight scenes, with almost no right angles on some pages. Really a clinic on how to show space-opera fights.
• “Bishop, I hope you brought enough guns for everyone,” Kate exclaims. What kind of guns did Bishop bring for everyone, and where is he keeping them?
• Is there a non-comics template for this story, some kind of archetype Orlando takes up? Ian, any guesses?
• I mentioned Iain Banks up above, and no one has probably done more work on “giant space empire reckons with its history of doing underhanded things to other space polities.” Books like Look to Windward are all about covert ops, CIA-style manipulation of foreign cultures’ governments and histories, and the ways it can go wrong. Or even in Excession, in which a secretive group manipulates both the Culture itself and a foreign empire to achieve the result they desire, whether or not the ostensible governors of the Culture agree.
• I miss the Krakoan at the end of each issue. Bring it back, please.

Stephanie Burt

Stephanie Burt is Professor of English at Harvard. Her podcast about superhero role playing games is Team-Up Moves, with Fiona Hopkins; her latest book of poems is We Are Mermaids.  Her nose still hurts from that thing with the gate. 

Ian Gregory

Ian Gregory is a writer and co-host of giant robots podcast Mech Ado About Nothing.