Marauders #7 Sails Forward by Looking to the (Deep) Past!

Want to meet yet more never-before-seen mutants from a past that looks like a space opera future? Captain Pryde’s crew has you covered in Marauders #7, written by Steve Orlando, drawn by Eleanora Carlini, colored by Rachelle Rosenberg and Matt Milla, lettered by VC’s Ariana Maher.

Stephanie Burt: Hi, Ian! Looks like we’ve got plots that take place after, rather than during, “Judgment Day“! How are you feeling now that we’ve all been Judged?

Ian Gregory: Hi, Stephanie! I’ve really fallen off on my regular reading of the X-Line, outside of this here book. So the only Judged I feel is anticipation for Aaron Judge’s 62nd home run of the season!

Now that I’ve dated this column, let’s talk Marauders. Maraud?

Future State Trooper

Stephanie: Marauders #7 is a mixed bag, with the best stuff near the top and at the bottom. Orlando is launching new plots, having landed the old ones. Nothing comes to a head, no one changes irrevocably, and that’s OK. I’m definitely hooked in again.

We open with a reminder that Brimstone Love and his cult still exist, with an address in Waterbury, Connecticut, the town where I met my wife! It looks like Brass City Records no longer exists, alas. Worse yet, there’s a murder-y dude called Scratch who’s immune to mutant powers. He strangles a would-be murder-y dude called Stringfellow, who has been waiting for Brimstone to show. Ian, do you feel like this comic has a plan for the Brimstone Love cult, or an ETA for when it arrives? Or is Steve Orlando just keeping something on deck indefinitely in case he runs out of space opera ideas?

Ian: Last issue I rather confidently declared that Orlando “had to do the Brimstone Love arc next.” Well, past Ian, you are wrong once again. I don’t actually mind that we’re getting straight into the Threshold stuff as it flows nicely with the end of the previous arc. But it’s pretty funny to me that we’ve been getting one a page an issue at a pretty constant rate, just to remind us that Brimstone is definitely out there and definitely up to something.

Presumably, Orlando wants to hold him in reserve since he already got a lot of screen time in the Marauders Annual. But this foreshadowing would work better if it were much less frequent. Instead of only a single page an issue (which therefore feels perfunctory), what if we got a single issue, or half-issue, in the middle of the run to remind us of Brimstone’s nefarious plan.

Stephanie: You know what I was waiting to see and have now seen? Kate Pryde behaving like a captain. And, you know, being nice to people who need someone to be nice to them. In this case that’s X-Men 2099 refugee Cerebra, who’s been learning how things work on Krakoa. We get one page where Kate welcomes the time-lost visitor, and that’s honestly my favorite bit of the issue.

Ian: It’s good to see Kate, considering she’s been dead for a not-insignificant portion of this run. For a main character, she’s really been letting other people run the show. Her voice is really strong here. And, as per my regular check, she is still consistently wearing her Star of David necklace. Kate has often been positioned as “The Best of Us”. While I think that framing can often become hokey, Orlando does a good job of showing that really she’s just a person who tries to extend kindness to those she meets, and help those with problems. It’s a very simplistic superhero ethos, but one that shines when dealing with an ensemble cast who have their own motives or concerns.

Nebraska

Stephanie: And now we’re off to a town called Captain America, Nebraska, for a story that could have taken place in any X-book since about 1985. Anti-mutant militia types called the Watchdogs are getting their butts kicked by a thrill-seeking, Hulk-ish mutant who yells things like “Come at me, fascists!” and won’t stop punching down. Literally down, since he’s way taller than standard-issue human beings. Can our Krakoan visitors end the carnage?

Ian: This is conveniently timed, given that I just recently drove past Metropolis, IL, famous for its giant statue of Superman. I’ve got enough faith in Orlando to believe that this sequence will, somehow, come back around to be relevant. But boy does it really stick out in an issue that is otherwise very focused on the consequences of time travel and resurrection. As far as corporate mandated punch-em-ups go, at least this one has the decency to only last three pages.

Stephanie: Daken — sorry, Fangor — sorry, Fang (I’m sorry, I think it’s a very silly codename) — and Somnus get a sweet callback to their former romance in the dialogue, but the most interesting thing about this fight for me might be the layout. What do you think of Eleanora Carlini’s asymmetrically stacked panels, and of the white space she leaves in between them? I’m having fun with the visuals.

Ian: It’s kind of a classic trick to have lots of white space between disorganized panels, only for the page turn to have a full-bleed splash. But, it’s classic for a reason, and it gives Horsepower’s entrance some much-needed oomph. Something I do like is the continuity between the bottom of that page (Horsepower’s intro) and the following page, where he fights ~~Daken~~ Fang. The slanted, short horizontal panels flow nicely into each other from page to page. I was a bit surprised that Daken’s claws broke off. But from my brief Googling, I learned that Daken’s adamantium claws aren’t actually bonded to his skeleton, and so are more fragile. Huh! Does that mean that when they grow back, they grow back without adamantium? Or am I thinking about this too hard?

Stephanie: I’m going to have to stop poking at Steve Orlando’s names, though, because did you look up Tulkas, the name the big new purple goofy punch-everything mutant had at birth? It’s a Tolkien reference, and probably means ‘strong’ or ‘steadfast.’ He gave himself the mutant name Horsepower. I bet his parents were huge nerds. He himself, on the other hand, has made himself a hit on social media, coming into the ring from the left. I’m starting to like the guy.

Ian: I’m something of a Youth, so I typically roll my eyes whenever a new character is introduced whose “thing” is social media, or streaming, or whatever. It’s usually painfully ham-fisted and written by someone only familiar with the basic concept of the internet. Here, though, Orlando drops the premise (“he streams himself busting terrorist cells”) but does not belabor the point. I’m definitely not opposed, even if I think the combination of beard and gray skin make him look a little too much like Colossus.

Stephanie: New hypothesis: Orlando is finally having fun. Not just with the in-jokes (the title is “Here Comes Yesterday,” a reference to “Here Comes Tomorrow”, the arc that ended the Morrison run) but with the flirty queer characters whose quips should be regular features in this book. Bishop compliments, or “compliments,” Christian Frost’s red summer-weight outfit, which shows off his entire chest. Christian responds: “When it comes to exposing oneself, Bishop… a Frost has to keep up.” Also he’s watering a tree-man with a vodka, because the tree-man could use a stiff drink. Bravo.

Ian: We both struggled with the way this series started. I think Orlando has really found his footing with the plot and with the characters. He’s done all the grunt work necessary to get us onboard with the bigger genre stuff. I think you’re right that this book is starting to take on more of a relaxed tone. It’s all the better for it.

My Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather’s House

Stephanie: The business with Cerebra and the business with Christian (and the data pages and the tree dude) amount to prologue. The A-plot unfolds when Cerebra eats the tree dude’s boost fruit in order to unscramble a rescued hard drive to pick up the mind-signatures that the Five can use to hatch the long-lost First Mutants from the first arc, the ones who lived on Earth so long ago. And the A-plot unfolds when we meet those First Mutants.

Ian: I really thought they would drag this out for much longer. I’m glad for the Cerebra data pages, too. I highly doubt most readers of this series are up to date on their X-Men 2099. I know I wasn’t!

Stephanie: I remember learning that ten years ago writers told other writers, sub rosa, to save their new characters for that Image comic they would write someday, because Marvel had thousands of existing characters ready to use and anyone you created for Marvel would belong to Marvel forever and ever. Steve Orlando has no intention of taking that advice. What do you think of Crave, and Theia, and Amass? And why does the most interesting and charismatic one look so much like a Shi’ar?

Ian: I agree that her hair is extremely reminiscent of the iconic Shi’ar headdress, as made famous by the late Lilandra. They’ve at least got bold designs, even if they’re all much more human-presenting than any of the other flashback Threshold mutants. For real, in the big splash page showing Threshold, everyone has some kind of distinct physical mutation except for these three. Power-wise, they’re at least not too esoteric: we’ve got gravity manipulation, Matter Eater Lad, and the Reverse Multiple Man (Division Man?). Bishop is instantly suspicious of them, as his right, and so I can’t help but wonder if these three are holding something important back from the Marauders.

Stephanie: The longer Eleanora Carlini draws this book the more I get used to her Saturday morning cartoon-style faces, and the more fun I have looking at her layouts. Bishop, Cerebra and Christian Frost hang out by the man-tree in a series of rectangles parallel to the page, because there’s no action going on. Then an egg goes boom, in a set of diagonals, and then the newly resurrected ancient mutants burst out in streaks of blue and white all over the page.

Stephanie: Ian, what did you think of this scene, where the new characters pop out? And of the cartoony faces? Any flashbacks to the Williams/Baldeon X-Factor? Also: did you notice the tears in Theia’s eyes when she asks Kate (wait for it): “Tell me, Katherine… how well can you imagine the unknown”? Lady, you came to the right mutant.

Ian: I may be adjusting to it, but the faces do still bother me. I think Carlini is a great artist, and we’re just running into something of a personal preference issue. Perhaps what really frustrates me is that I like all of the art in this book except for the faces. The fight scenes are good, the figures are good, the scenery is good — and the layouts are great! I’m especially enamored of that splash page of the party on Threshold. It has great character and set design, wonderful colors, and really expressive motion.

Stephanie: Maybe I’m just getting used to his mysterious ways, but my patience with Orlando’s large-scale science fiction moves has been getting higher and higher later. This issue he’s started from an actual geological and biological thing, the Great Oxygenation Event which really did change the conditions for life on Earth. Then he’s built two whole civilizations on top of it. One of them all proto-humans, or human-passing creatures at any rate. It’s a big contribution to Marvel cosmology, maybe on par with the introduction of Counter-Earth. I think I like it. Do you?

Ian: Hmm. I think it’s fine — Marvel was already very deep into Ancient Alien, Chariot of the Gods-type stuff. But I do have one major beef. Why are these people mutants, if humans as we know them don’t seem to exist? We see a page of both humans and mutants, and both appear to have a wide range of physical variation. At this point, genetically, aren’t they more like aliens to modern mutants? The more we introduce these ancient mutants, the more we drift from (dear god I’m gonna say it) the Mutant Metaphor. It feels very strange from me that these modern Krakoan mutants are claiming kinship with these 2-billion-year-old Threshold mutants, who lack any and all cultural context of “mutantdom”. THey might as well just be Eternals or Inhumans or whatever.

Stephanie: The three-in-one mutants from long-ago Threshold have a story to tell. That story strikes me as a quiet political allegory. The world changed, and came out of balance. As one part grew the other part, threatened and even asphyxiated, emerged to take its repellent revenge.

Someone should do a mini-series set in the ancient civilization of Threshold. I’d love to see more of its wonders. How did it feel to be an Enshrined — a baseline human — there among the Enhanced? (How does it feel for Carlini to draw all those crowd scenes with nonhuman participants? They’re beautiful. And they must have been So Much Work.)

Ian: It seems that both the Enshrined and the Enhanced were spawned from pools of proteins, grown rather than birthed. So once again, I ask you: in what way are either of these groups mutants? It bothers me. I’m going to stop mentioning it, though, because it is an interesting vision of a society, at once egalitarian and adventurous. Orlando does some really good work setting up their society, and working in how the lack of oxygen was a major factor in their culture and technology. It’s all very well thought out.

Stephanie: Maybe Kate will never kiss a girl on-panel again, but (again, shades of Williams and Baldeon’s X-Factor) the lesser-known characters get so much low-key queerness here. I love it. Somnus and Daken, Christian Frost, and now Theia flirting with Tempo when Amass is already crushed out on her. All while Kate frowns and scratches her head.

Ian: I do get the feeling that Orlando is trying his hardest to get us some queer rep. I respect the hustle, as it were.

Stephanie: Again, Orlando really feels like he’s finding his sea legs, or space legs, with the SFF stories he wants to tell here. I care about this material a lot more than I cared about his first arc, and that’s not just because it’s more clearly queer (though that helps). I care more because it says more to the way we live now. Crave, who looks like an enormous Poke-ball and has the same powers as Matter-Eater Lad, gets the line of the issue: “It does seem our faith in the future was well placed. But for us, moments ago… our home was burning.” How I hope today’s climate refugees and trans families in Texas and so many others can look back and say that kind of thing in five, or fifty, years.

Ian: There’s a nice natural contrast between Threshold (an egalitarian society, brought low by its mistakes) and the Shi’ar (an imperial society that flourishes by aggressively hiding its mistakes). Even if it started slow, the Shi’ar sections were necessary not just to introduce us to Threshold, but to show us an alternative. It’s Kate’s kindness here that defines mutants, and keeps them from becoming another version of the Shi’ar.

Stephanie: Close-up on Kate: “We’ll help. No question.” That’s me. That’s my girl. “Krakoa doesn’t accept no-win scenarios. And it doesn’t turn its back on family.”

Close-up on Cassandra Nova, who’s being a jerk as usual. Why does she even take orders from the rest of the Marauders at this point, when she could distract them with a thought and make her escape? When she says witty things (“I view personal boundaries as a dare”), does she realize she sounds like an overcooked Emma Frost? Why does Kate put up with her? Why is she on this team? Why is she in this book? (OK, it’s because they need a powerful telepath. But what use is one you can’t trust?)

Ian: Cassandra Nova is clearly playing a long game of some kind, though what that is no one knows. I do wonder why Kate keeps her around. It’s one thing when you’re going deep into enemy territory and you want to bring your biggest gun (and Cassandra Nova really did pull her weight when it came to fighting). But it’s another to have her around for a delicate diplomatic mission. Maybe the mutants have gotten lazy, knowing they can kill and resurrect other mutants whenever they please. Infinite do-overs on introducing the Threshold mutants to Krakoa!

Stephanie: For once, I don’t want to give it away directly, but I absolutely love the way that the new plot elements and the new ancient civilization point back to a familiar X-villain. One you don’t need to recognize right away, or at all, to follow the plot this time out. But if you do recognize it…. well, here comes yesterday.

Ian: All I will say is, at the rate Orlando is tearing through Morrison characters, I’m expecting Xorn to play a major role in the next arc.

Our Flag Means Notes

Maybe I’m only saying so because I’ve been reading District X comics, for Reasons, but Bishop looks good in his red pirate outfit, with gold kerchief. He looks like a co-captain, along with Kate Pryde.
“Chokestaffs. Nightweapons. Skyblazers.” Steve Orlando just loves making up weaponry. And making up whole societies. The Enhanced. The Enshrined.
Who do you think can hold their liquor best at the Bishop-Rachel-Cable time traveler pow-wows? My money is on Rachel.
Our intrepid editor Austin asks, “What is a trip to Nebraska without a stop at Sinister’s Good Ol’ Fashioned Creepy Orphanage and Clone Factory?” This is a good point. (That and the sandhill cranes.)
The Enhanced and the Enshrined lived on Earth, in mostly-humanoid bodies, with the occasional nod to other modern animals (e.g. a frog-person), at the time of the Great Oxygenation Event, long before the evolution of modern reptiles and amphibians, never mind mammals. Has someone been guiding evolution? Or are we seeing convergence, as with the evolution of eyes?

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.