Marauders #22 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS #22
“The Morning After”
by Gerry Duggan, Matteo Lolli, Klaus Janson & Rain Beredo
COVER / PAGE 1: Lourdes Chantel and Emma Frost stand over a chessboard, with Emma laying a figure of the Black King (Sebastian Shaw) on his side. Normally in chess you’d put your own king on its side as a way of resigning, but okay. The other identifiable chess piece represents former Black Bishop, Harry Leland.
This is a callback to the cover of issue #2, in which Sebastian and Emma are shown in the same poses, with Emma using the same… whatever you call it, the shoving thing… to move a figure of Kitty and Lockheed over a map.
PAGE 2. News coverage of the aftermath of the Hellfire Gala.
“I’m glad I never wanted to visit the fifth planet in our solar system.” Referring to the terraforming of Mars in Planet-Sized X-Men #1. Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun (the fifth is Jupiter), so it’s a Fox News joke.
“Feilong Industries.” Referencing a storyline from Duggan’s own X-Men #1.
“Our government’s late-night deal with Russia and Madripoor…” In Excalibur #21. This is obviously meant to be a British broadcaster (though CCD is a pretty odd stand-in for “BBC”, and British news channels don’t generally go in for co-anchors anyway). This is the first clarification that the deal includes withdrawing recognition of Krakoan sovereignty, which is a pretty odd thing to do, but whatever. It also arguably contradicts Excalibur #21, in which Brousseau said that “Your citizens are welcome on our land as foreign nationals”.
“Chaos in Ireland…” Alluding to the Northern Ireland Protocol of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, which (whatever you think of the way in which it was arrived at) has undeniably had some practical issues in implementation. The parallels between Coven Akkaba in Excalibur and the Brexit movement in the United Kingdom might politely be described as loose to the point of non-existent, but that does seem to be the intent.
The Scarlet Witch. She was found dead in X-Factor #10, which is a plot thread for the upcoming Trial of Magneto miniseries.
PAGE 3. Recap and credits.
PAGES 4-5. Emma and the Stepford Cuckoos.
The Cuckoos “fixed” Wilhelmina Kensington (as they see it) last issue, by making her “remember” something unspecified. The only elaboration from the Cuckoos was that she “hurts to even look at”, and that the rest of the Homines Verendi group “know” but “don’t care”. Given the reveal we get later on, it’s not obvious how the rest of the Homines Verendi group could know – certainly if Wilhelmina wasn’t in a position to tell them – and so that seems worth keeping an eye on.
Wilhelmina’s sadistic tendencies have been played for laughs up until now, but this scene attempts to take them seriously, or at least has her reacting as if she’s done something horrifying for once. We’ll come back to that.
PAGE 6. Sebastian and Emma.
Sebastian Shaw has been restored to full health after being injured and confined to a wheelchair by Emma, Kate and Ororo in issue #16. That story did specifically leave open the possibility that they would agree to him being healed at some unspecified future data.
“I did try to warn you.” He did indeed, in the previous issue (by asking Shinobi to relay a warning). Emma brushed it off on the grounds that “a rising tide lifts all boats” and “If our enemies are improved this evening, then so are we.” On this issue, Sebastian seems to have been correct.
PAGE 7. Professor X and Emma.
Lourdes Chantel was Shaw’s girlfriend in the Hellfire Gala shown in the back-up strip in Classic X-Men #7, which was reprinted as a back-up in the previous issue. She’s been mentioned for three issues running now.
“A complicated plan to resurrect…” We find out later that Chantel died before Cerebro came online, meaning that Shaw’s plan is to send a Cerebro unit back in time to record a copy of her mind. This means that Cerebro comes on line at some point after Classic X-Men #7’s back-up. That story in turn takes place circa X-Men vol 1 #98, and it expressly follows Michael Rossi’s plane crash in X-Men vol 1 #96. So whenever Cerebro started recording, it’s later than the early Claremont stories, and that’s why the original Thunderbird hasn’t been resurrected.
Yes, I know we’ve seen the Changeling wandering around and he died in the Silver Age. Hush with your awkward questions.
PAGE 8. Data page on Welhelmina Kensington. This is all recapping established history.
“It’s highly likely that Wilhelmina killed her mother…” From X-Men: Schism #3.
Moira MacTaggert Memorial. The hospital that was opened in issue #18.
The new Princess Bar & Hotel. The Morlock-run bar which the Marauders bought in issue #18.
Zhao is Chen Zhao, who joined Homines Verendi as their sole adult member in issue #4.
PAGES 9-12. The Stepford Cuckoos take Wilhelmina to avenge herself on her father.
Oh lord. Basically, this scene is revealing that Wilhelmina was abused by her father, that she’s suppressed the memory of this traumatic experience, and that it’s the explanation for her sadistic behaviour. I have grave reservations about this. Wilhelmina has been around for years and has never been anything more than an absurdist comedy figure. She’s a one-note novelty villain even compared to the other three Homines Verendi kids. She’s not a proper character who can handle serious drama, she never has been, and she was never designed to be. Of course, Duggan is trying to rehab her into a proper character who can take the weight of a storyline like this, but the groundwork hasn’t been laid for us to take her seriously, which makes this feel even more trite. It’s like giving a tragic back story to Tom and Jerry. It all seems alarmingly misguided.
The transition to the next scene with the Cuckoos’ line “when men take advantage” seems to be signalling a parallel with Sebastian Shaw in the next scene; the flashback later in the issue plainly indicates that his relationship with Lourdes Chantel was abusive, even though he doesn’t remember it that way. (Presumably Shaw just doesn’t recognise his behaviour as abusive, rather than failing to remember the relevant events.)
PAGES 13-14. Emma tells Sebastian that Lourdes is alive.
This is a big retcon on the Classic X-Men #7 story. As explained in the following scene, Lourdes did not die in the Sentinel attack in that issue, but rather Emma took the opportunity to fake her death so that she could escape her relationship with Sebastian.
PAGES 15-16. Flashback: Emma and Lourdes.
The shift in art style is presumably intended to echo the Classic X-Men story, which is by John Bolton. Obviously Lourdes got the black eye from Sebastian. Although Emma is going to get Lourdes to safety later in the story, she’s really not being helpful here, her first piece of advice being “teleport faster”, and the next being to encourage Lourdes to believe that the relationship will improve. Emma acknowledges her “shame” about this behaviour later in the scene, and suggests that her decision to fake Lourdes’ death was an impulsive one.
PAGES 17-19. The revised version of Classic X-Men #7.
This is basically a recap of Classic X-Men #7, with the revisal of Emma faking Lourdes’ death. Aside from the obvious point that Lourdes is out there somewhere (and clearly not on Krakoa), this story also strikes at the heart of Sebastian’s back story. As he points out later, the death of Lourdes was meant to be the big inciting event that prompted him to shift from just a cynical Sentinel manufacturer to plotting a mutant conspiracy. The humans killed at the end of the original story were the human members of the Inner Circle (or the Council of the Chosen, in those days), who were purged by Shaw in order to make way for his mutant-centric conspiracy.
The original story does not have Shaw comically screaming “Yes! They must pay!”, but plays Lourdes’ death straight as a tragic and touching moment. The slaughter on page 19 panel 1 also differs quite drastically from anything seen in the original story, and suggests that quite a lot of other human Club associates were also killed by Emma, Sebastian, Harry Leland and apparently also Tessa (now Sage from X-Force). How many of these humans were actually complicit in an anti-mutant conspiracy, and how many were just humans in the way, is left unaddressed.
PAGES 20-22. Flashback: Emma introduces Lourdes to the Kingpin.
Is this an improvement…? Well, as it turns out, yes, because although it seems at first as if Emma is trying to set up Lourdes in a similar relationship with Wilson Fisk, she does actually seem to be offering Lourdes’ services as a teleporter. But whatever Emma had in mind, Fisk seems to see more value in Lourdes as a vehicle for extracting favours from Emma – Lourdes, from the look of it, goes on her way to start a new life.
PAGE 23. Emma and Sebastian.
Emma’s period as a fixer for the Kingpin is new, but perfectly in character.
Shaw has effectively been told that his alliance to the mutant cause – such as it was – was brought about by deceit. Though he’s been consistently outwitted by Emma through out this series, it’s hard to see how this goes anywhere helpful from her point of view.
PAGE 24. Data page. A memo from Bishop.
“Nimrod coming back online.” In X-Men #20.
“[Harry Leland] saved us from the threat of that machine.” Leland died fighting Nimrod in Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #200; he used his powers to smash Sebastian into Nimrod and break it into pieces. (It came back.)
“The Black Bishop’s mutant gift may be used in concert with Leland’s to produce the desired result.” The Black Bishop is Shinobi Shaw. Emma suggested in issue #20 that Shinobi might be Leland’s son, which was indeed hinted in his earlier appearances. The suggestion here seems to be that Shinobi uses his powers to become diamond hard, and then Leland… well, smashes him into Nimrod, basically. No harm in trying, I suppose.
Bishop also canvasses a random-sounding idea to start mining Mars just in case something useful turns up.
PAGE 25. Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: MARAUD ABROAD.
Small mistake/typo : Leland’s death while fighting Nimrod was in Uncanny #209, not #200.
That’s not exactly accurate about Shaw’s history though.
The last time we saw Shaw during Claremont’s original X-Men run, he had gotten the government contract to manufacture the Nimrods.
Shaw was still portrayed as someone who put wealth above any causes.
Decent issue. I do wish we were actually seeing some Quiet Council conversation about the UK/Madripoor stuff, as it’s not really clear to me whether this is a minor inconvenience or a major setback from the Krakoan perspective.
It might also be nice to give the title team something to do in their own book, as this title seems to have shifted at some point to focusing on Emma and Shaw at the expense of the other regulars.
I don’t mind Duggan taking a shot at turning Wilhelmina into a workable character, but the angle of a traumatized character becoming a sadist (1) is a horrible oversimplification, and (2) has been done to death. I am not optimistic about that story. I would guess it’s headed toward her being packed off to live with Lourdes.
Ooph yeah this was bad.
Wilhelmina is a joke character, and I don’t think we really needed to add “gets raped by her dad” to that.
And then we have some fun spousal abuse by Shaw.
This was Krakoa: SVU but even tackier.
Oh yeah, and yet another issue of this book without the fucking cast. Yeesh.
“I’m glad I never wanted to visit the fifth planet in our solar system.”
Maybe they are counting Counter-Earth as the fourth planet? #Onefortheteenagera
I recall a lot of criticism of Kevin Smith for the story he wrote where Black Cat was raped in college and that became part of her motivation or something, and it’s clear that I don’t understand the rules for when this sort of thing is acceptable and when it’s in bad taste, since Duggan is supposed to be one of those progressive writers and yet here he has written a story where apparently a character was raped into becoming a psychopath.
Also it seems like there were many junctures in Fisk’s dealings with Daredevil and Spider-Man when a favor from a powerful telepath would have come in handy, so I’m wondering when my Mayor actually called in that chit.
The year is 2021, and superhero comic writers are still using rape as a motivation for female characters. What the hell? I don’t think I’ll read this one.
Making Wilhelmina a rape victim to explain her behavior is like revealing Wile E. Coyote’s dad was tortured and murdered by the Roadrunner.
The rule is probably it’s best to not tie such a heavy past tragedy around a character as a defining motivation, unless said character is created in order for the writer to make some sort of profound statement.
Otherwise, it comes across as a writer attempting to create pathos using the cheapest/easiest manner possible.
It’s especially true when a character was created to be fun or absurd.
See also: Speedball being responsible for 9/11 and deciding to wear a flaggelant’s suit.
Wilhelmina was just a rich spoiled brat. There really wasn’t much to say about her character other than that.
The Hellfire Academy was basically an absurd Marquis De Sade spoof.
Making her back-story super serious is unnecessary.
Holy shit I had forgotten about Speedballgag.
Agree that the Hellfire kids are just one note comedy (and very uninteresting) – this development for Whilemena was both too weighty and unnecessary.
I understand it ties into the themes of abuse. Emma is coming off golden here, but she still murders a bunch of people (as does Tessa/Sage) and adds another layer to her overly busy backstory in this period. She’s becoming a bit like Wolverine, with ties to everyone.
Also, why do we keep beating on Shaw. I fail to recall when he was last an actual threat.
P.s. still waiting for that meaningful Bishop or Pyro storyline.
Interesting that “Lourdes was never really dead”. She does seem hopelessly naïve here, though.
The problem with retconning Emma into having done things to help people before Firestar is that it raises the question of why Emma was so cruel to Firestar. Firestar was nothing but nice to Emma before Emma killed her horse.
Arguably, Emma forcing Buckman to kill his girlfriend looks a lot worse if Emma knew that Lourdes survived. (Yes, Buckman still tried to kill Emma and her friends but EVERYONE does that.)
If time travel is a viable option for getting a Cerebro backup for resurrection as Shaw intended, then what’s stopping them from bringing Thunderbird back? Or what if they discover that Benjamin Franklin was a mutant? Why not resurrect him? Did Apocalypse have any childhood mutant friends from ancient Egypt? Why not get their DNA while they’re at it and bring them back?
I believe Emma is using a riding crop to push the chess piece on the cover.
I thought the suggestion that Cerebro was only activated after Lourdes’ death was just Emma’s cover story to explain why she couldn’t be resurrected.
It *does* make sense, because presumably Charles wouldn’t have access to the Shi’Ar logic diamonds until after he met Lilandra around #108, but perhaps they were only needed to scale up.
Aside from Changeling, we’ve also seen Petra and Sway, who died before Giant-Size X-Men #1 and they even had speaking parts.
“Or what if they discover that Benjamin Franklin was a mutant? Why not resurrect him?”
I think Xavier already gave a courtesy “illuminati bros” promise to Doctor Strange not to resurrect Ben Franklin. Try to plow Clea, no resurrection for you. Harsh, but them’s the rules.
Ha! That’s totally in my headcanon now, Drew.
I never liked Wilhelmina. Well, I never liked any of the Junior Hellfire Club, but Wilhelmina was a one-note joke I never found funny.
This… doesn’t make me like her nor feel sorry for the character. Maybe if Duggan took the time to build up the character before this reveal – if he used her at all, really. He didn’t do much with any of the Junior HC, despite them being major antagonists of this series, but I can’t recall any scene where Wilhelmina would be important, or even doing anything except ‘also being there’.
So to open her storyline with this… yeah, it doesn’t work.
The Lourdes stuff was better, though with all the build-up it was a bit weird that it was all about what Emma and Shaw did. Lourdes is ‘also there’ for what is supposedly her story.
I wish they’d have just stopped partway through with the Wilhelmina plot. The first page and a half of it this issue was something I was on-board with. She was empty and couldn’t feel guilt and lashed out, so the Cuckoos just wave a magic wand and make it better. That fits Wilhelmina’s one-note status pretty naturally, and it works with the general tone of the Krakoans casually changing the world because they can. And hey, if you want to them make her more than one-note, she can grow from this. Rather than having always been secretly more than one-note, surprise.
Also, I loved “For the kittens”.
Then Duggan had to continue…
I suspect that the change in art style is specifically down to the flashback sequence’s artist Klaus Janson, who drew the Kingpin in a very similar style in “Daredevil” in the early ‘80s (when Frank Miller was writing & doing layouts)! See also that very vintage-Miller/Janson-ish image of the skyscraper in that scene…
Ooh! I think I can no-prize the Changeling appearances!
The Five aren’t using scans from the Changeling while he was arrive. They’re resurrecting him using scans from Meggan’s memory from that time he possessed her.
Granted, Alan Davis kicked that story out of continuity, but still….
Everyone seems to be amazingly chill about Wanda’s death. I can understand that her appearance on Krakoa and death on Krakoa may be being kept quiet until all the diplomats and her Avengers teammates have definitely left but even so. She’s the one X-Men villain who’s not been forgiven for the times she killed/tried to kill mutants and no-one is apparently giving any fucks.
Second, Wilhemina’s abuser appears to be bald. So, who do we think it’s going to turn out to be, Xavier, Farouk (or perhaps Shadow King posessing Xavier), Cassandra Nova or, an outside guess, Pete Wisdom wearing that baldcap he had that one time in Excalibur? This storyline seems so colossally ill-advised I’m trying to pretend it’s not happening.
“Ooh! I think I can no-prize the Changeling appearances!
The Five aren’t using scans from the Changeling while he was arrive. They’re resurrecting him using scans from Meggan’s memory from that time he possessed her.
Granted, Alan Davis kicked that story out of continuity, but still….l
Yeah, we kicked that idea around in the comments a few months back. It works if you consider the story in continuity (though as you say, Alan Davis put that into question).
The problem is that plenty of characters have been briefly resurrected (in Necrosha and Chaos War), including Thunderbird (and, uh, Moira), so if we accept that Cerebro can copy the mutant minds of ghosts/formerly dead mutants, it’s hard to explain why John can’t come back. (Especially since, as pointed out, Petra and Sway have had more than Changeling-style background cameos, and they died before Thunderbird.)
> Everyone seems to be amazingly chill about Wanda’s death.
Probably because that will be handled in the upcoming Trial mini-series, so no need to waste panel space on it in this comic, which has enough of its own going on, what with the main cast hardly ever getting to appear. 😉
Regarding Changeling- the Meggan story might have been retconned out but he was briefly resurrected as a Zombie in She-Hulk by the Black Talon, so that might be where they got the memories from.
The most logical explanation for Changeling’s resurrection is that Professor Xavier made a copy of his mind when he lent Changeling some of his telepathy.
If Bishop knows about Nimrod, do he and others now know about Mystique’s secret gate that she planted in HoX?
In the story that introduced her, Lourdes didn’t act like a physical abuse victim scared of Shaw.