Marauders #7 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS vol 2 #7
“Here Comes Yesterday, part 1”
Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Eleonora Carlini
Colourists: Rachelle Rosenberg & Matt Milla
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Kate Pryde (and Lockheed) look up at… well, presumably that’s Amass in merged form.
PAGE 2. Obituary for Mike Pasciullo.
PAGE 3. Stringfellow and Scratch argue.
This continues the Theatre of Pain subplot which has been running in the background and looks set to stay there for a while yet. The previous issue also opened with a page of Scratch addressing a Theatre of Pain audience, while being watched by Lockheed, who in turn was being watched by Dirt Nap (the rat). The previous subplot was placed in Philadelphia; this one is in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Stringfellow is an obscure character whose only previous appearance was in X-Treme X-Men vol 1 #35 (2004). As his dialogue suggests, he has the ability to turn people to rubber. Somewhat bizarrely, he was serving as Sunspot’s bodyguard in his previous story. He’s wearing exactly the same clothes as in that issue, which are apparently his costume – the T-shirt, which we can’t see clearly here, depicts a yellow smiley face with a blank expression and an eyepatch.
Scratch‘s mutant power of immunity to mutant powers was established in X-Man #70.
PAGE 4. Kate and Cerebra talk.
“Not every Krakoan stray lands on the eve of judgment.” Cerebra arrived in the present day at the end of issue #5, only for her story to be immediately interrupted by issue #6’s Judgment Day tie-in.
“My Cyclops could’ve just changed the floor to potting soil.” This Cerebra is from the latest version of the Marvel 2099 timeline (which has been rebooted multiple times in recent years) – specifically, she comes from the version seen in the recent Spider-Man 2099: Exodus miniseries, also written by Steve Orlando. The new version of Cyclops 2099, seen in Exodus #5, has the power to transmute thing with his eye blasts.
“Cable said you’d need me.” When he rescued her in Spider-Man 2099: Exodus #5.
PAGES 5-7. The Marauders visit Captain America, Nebraska.
Captain America, Nebraska. This small town previously appeared in Captain America #695 (2017). It renamed itself in Cap’s honour after he saved them from a white supremacist group, the Rampart, shortly after being woken from suspended animation. The sign is the same one seen in that story (or rather, from the same set, since the location is totally different).
“American subtley, Somnus.” Somnus, like Aurora, is Canadian.
The Watchdogs. A hard-right puritan militia who were recurring villains in Captain America in the late 1980s.
Fang. As indicated last issue, Daken has taken the name and costume of Fang after having it offered to him by the Lupak.
Horsepower. This is his first appearance, but his 2099 counterpart appeared in Spider-Man 2099: Exodus #5. In that story, he was one of the mutants who had settled in the Savage Land after the fall of Krakoa, and he had gone on to join the X-Men. None of the characters here know that, but Cerebra will, when she meets him.
The art is really unclear about what’s going on in the fight between Daken and Horsepower. I think the idea is that Daken’s claws snap off and he uses one of them as a weapon, but it doesn’t really come across clearly. (Don’t worry about the claws, they’ll grow back.)
PAGE 8. Recap and credits.
“Here Comes Yesterday.” The arc title references “Here Comes Tomorrow”, the final arc of Grant Morrison’s run.
PAGE 9. Data page. Kate Pryde and Dr Nemesis discuss Cerebra (with ForgetMeNot from Legion of X taking the minutes). Basically, Nemesis confirms that Cerebra’s powers could be used to help the Five extract the Thresholders (mutants from the distant past) who are stored as data in the timedrive that the Marauders recovered in issue #5. She could also be used to make back-ups of at least some mutants if they’re out of back-up range for Cerebro.
PAGE 10. Bishop collects a boost fruit, and Cerebra uses it to extract the Thresholders’ data.
Christian Frost was appointed as Red Monarch in Marauders Annual #1. The name was used in that issue, but in a context where it could simply have been a generic term covering both him and Kate. Presumably, though, Orlando is writing the character as non-binary.
PAGES 11-14. The Thresholders are resurrected.
Obviously, these are all new characters. As they explain, they combined their powers to escape the fall of their society by sending themselves forward in time, hoping that eventually they’d be found by someone with the technology to reconstitute them – which has finally happened.
Bishop understandably doesn’t trust them too much just yet.
PAGE 15. Data page: a memo from Bishop and Psylocke (the two Captains in the Marauders) to Cyclops and Magik (the two who aren’t), updating them on the Thresholders plot. In other words, if you’re reading the trade paperbacks, this is where volume 2 recaps the plot of volume 1.
PAGES 16-17. The Thresholders react.
“I know what the Chronicle said, but this is unbelievable.” Aurora and Daken both voice doubts about the genuineness of this story – despite the plot of the previous arc being that the Shi’ar’s dealings with Threshold are a vital piece of hidden history. Of course, that doesn’t in itself prove that these three are genuine.
Daken makes two arguments for why this whole plotline doesn’t make sense. The first is the lack of any evidence of Threshold’s existence, but Bishop reasonably argues that anything can vanish if it was long enough ago. For some reason he then goes on to talk about the Oxygenation Catastrophe, which was something else entirely – a radical change in the atmosphere of the planet that increased the level of oxygen in the atmosphere and wiped out a lot of species to whom oxygen was toxic. This comes up later in the issue, but it’s a bit odd that Bishop comes up with it independently. It’s not something at the forefront of most people’s minds.
Daken’s second argument is that it’s simply impossible for a mutant society to have existed before humans. On conventional Marvel history, this is undoubtedly correct: mutants were created when the X-gene was added to humans by the First Celestial Host about a million years ago. However, this account was retconned by Jason Aaron’s current Avengers run, which asserts that the Progenitor died on Earth at around the time of the dawn of life and was responsible for the existence of superpowers. On this version of events the emergence of a “mutant” race at the dawn of history just about works, and the Thresholders go on to claim that humans existed in those days too. Nonetheless, this still involves either humanity evolving twice, or evolution taking a completely different course on Marvel Earth.
Still, note that Orlando is openly inviting us to question whether this is all nonsense.
“When I came here, the X-Men welcomed me.” Bishop is much more trusting of the newcomers, but precisely because he sees a parallel with his own status as a man out of time back when he debuted in 1991.
PAGES 18-22. Theia recounts the story of Threshold.
It’s a paradise which got wiped out in a revenge attack by the creatures who survived the Oxygenation Catastrophe, basically. Again, this doesn’t make a huge amount of sense, as described – how did a race that couldn’t breathe oxygen survive long enough to allow Threshold’s population to evolve? And why does Theia say that they had “no choice” but to attack? How does that help improve their position?
Reading between the lines – and bearing in mind that Daken and Aurora were jumping up and down a few pages ago saying “this story doesn’t make sense and these people are not to be trusted” – my guess is that the Thresholders are time travellers who fled back to the dawn of time to start a new society, triggered the Oxygenation Catastrophe themselves, and wiped out a perfectly innocent society of non-oxygen-breathers. Heck, even Cassandra Nova tells us later in the issue that they’re hiding something.
PAGES 23-25. Kate agrees to help but Cassandra explains the truth.
Kate rather ambitiously wants to go back in time and prevent the fall of Threshold, which certainly sounds like it could have obvious time travel paradox problems.
Cassandra identifies that the bacterial weapons created during Threshold’s war with the Unbreathing were Arkea and Sublime, “sibling bacteria”. Sublime is a villain from Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, and a sentient bacteria with various host bodies; it claims to have been around since the dawn of time and therefore should indeed be around at this point in history. His sister Arkea is more obscure, but comes from Brian Wood’s X-Men run in 2013-14. According to Wood’s story, the two battled for control of the planet and Arkea was driven out into space.
PAGE 26. Trailers.
On the one hand, Sublime and Arkea are a nice pull as established characters (…as much as either of them is a ‘character’) who actually could have been around that ridiculously early in Earth’s history.
On the other hand it makes me remember Wood’s run and it was awful. Sublime just turns into a perfectly reasonable guy for the X-Men to team-up with. No mention is made of U-Men or anything, Wood just writes him as if he was… I don’t know, another Magneto, an enemy who just had a different worldview but was basically decent. Madness.
I really wish Marvel wouldn’t have used Sublime again. Marvel wanted to ignore almost everything Morrison did on X-Men, but wanted to continue to use the characters/concepts Morrison created. If you want a character with diminishing returns, that is exactly the definition of Sublime.
Wood’s usage of Sublime was terrible. I’m not sure he totally understood the concept. Sublime is a sentient bacteria which evolved to be the ultimate survivor. Wood’s Sublime seemed like he thought Sublime was the businessman form.
Orlando’s usage doesn’t seem a lot better, that Sublime was created as a bio-weapon. It sort of goes against Morrison’s point about evolution.
“Scratch‘s mutant power of immunity to mutant powers was established in X-Man #70.”
Except that was a Scratch from an alternate reality that was ruled by an evil Jean Grey. The Scratch of 616 that Wisdom and Lockheed fought in Excalibur 100 had electricity powers but wasn’t immune to mutant powers. It seems like Orlando remembered that Wisdom and Lockheed fought a Scratch but mixed up his powers with his counterpart that Nate Grey fought. (Although, in fairness, I suppose it’s possible the Scratch of 616 somehow learned how to use his electricity powers to block mutant powers like his counterpart. Or it’s his secondary mutation.)
I’d have thought “Fang” was a title used for the Imperial Guard.
“I’d have thought “Fang” was a title used for the Imperial Guard.”
It is… it’s the title used by whichever Lupak is serving in the Imperial Guard. But also, the Lupak bestowed it upon Akihiro in recognition of him beating their champion or whatnot.
Frankly, it would be funny if this meant he was now in the Imperial Guard and had to answer calls.
I would imagine Bishop did the sensible thing and read up on his geohistory after they first learned about Threshold. Either that or that mutant concentration camp he grew up in had a surprisingly good school system.
Given Orlando’s love of obscure characters, do you suppose he’ll dig up That Which Endures?
@Chris V: I’m not even sure it’s an error; the character has consistently been drawn with the scar of the X-Man character, and not the weird sun tattoo on the forehead of the Excalibur character. Seems to be more or less a mainstream import ala Brimstone Love or whatever.
ForgetMeNot should befriend Scratch
@Michael, glad you picked up on the Scratch thing as it’s been bothering me too. I didn’t know he (or an alternate) popped up in X-Man
The Sublime/Arkea thing annoyed me in particular due to bizarre non-connotative naming conventions. Sublime is named so because it’s is perfect, it’s sublimated, it’s under the skin… but what does Arkea mean? Anything at all??
@Evilgus – presumably Arkea is a reference to Archaea, a distinct domain of organisms previously thought to be bacteria.
And while we’re on the topic of microbiology, the Oxygenation Catastrophe occurred 2 billion years ago, when all of life was microscopic and multicellularity of any sort was probably just emerging. So yes, evolution would have required a dramatically different path on Earth-616 to produce the creatures depicted.
I need to re-read the first arc (tho I have little motivation to do so), but I didn’t really get that Threshold was meant to be on Earth. Maybe it’s the Shiar connection but I had just imagined them as Extraterrestrial. Did I just imagine that?
@MasterMahan – it sure makes sense that a story such as this would attempt to at least mention That Which Endures, if not link it to Sublime outright.
That weird creation from John Byrne for his West Coast Avengers in the late 1980s is so weird, yet so similar to Sublime, that I don’t really understand why they were not connected yet.
@Andy – thanks for that! I’ve learned something interesting today
This run of Marauders is really reminding me of Ewing’s current run on Defenders. Both are making stories out of *deep* continuity cuts, stretching far back in time. But the Ewing stuff works for me, while Orlando’s Marauders just doesn’t 🙁
Ewing’s writing uses deep cuts to support the story he’s trying to tell. They’re a tool to create effective resonances and parallels. Orlando’s writing uses deep cuts for the sake of having deep cuts.
I’m being too reductive there, and unfair to Orlando who I don’t think is without talent, but you get the gist…
Ewing’s Defenders works on both a literal and meta level. He’s commenting on Marvel’ & comics’ real history as well as the history of the fictional universe. Orlando’s “ancient mutant” plot doesn’t seem to have a meta angle. The plot in and of itself doesn’t make sense, but some of the side commentary in this issue leads me to believe it’s going to address the problem. Right now, however, it’s a disconnected story that raises questions that haven’t been addressed. As a reader, I’m busy waiting for answers without much else to distract me.
Also, Defenders is drawn by Javier Rodriguez. His art is very attractive, and he handles the narrative challenges wonderfully. The art on Marauders has its strengths, but can’t match what Rodriguez accomplishes.
I wonder if Fang will stick as Akihiro’s codename. Scout stuck as replacement for Honey Badger, but Gabby has a(n even) lower profile.
It’s… not great, not terrible? Kinda reminds me how Kyle&Yost and even Claremont (in X-Men: The End) positioned Talon as Laura’s future codename. Now that’s never going to happen since DC moved in on that name. (And it makes more sense for the Owls’ assassins to be called Talons since, you know, birds have talons).
I like Honey Badger much more than Scout. Honey Badger sounds cute and fun, while still being a savage beast. Scout sounds like a teenage daughter in a 90s sitcom.
I don’t like Fang for Akahiro either. As someone else pointed out, he doesn’t even have fangs. Might as well call him Feathers.
I’m well aware that good superhero names are a scarce and finite resource though.
One problem with “fang” is that in a marvel version of nominative determinism it means he will end up a member of the imperial guard.
I hope this all turns out to be a big deception. I don’t want to see other writers in the future doing Avengers stories about Kid Odin, Phoenix, and the Captain America of Two Million BC running around in Threshold fighting, I dunno, some kind of anaerobic version of Venom.
Yeah, I gotta say, as a big fan of Steve Orlando’s DC work, this isn’t really doing it for me. The best stuff is whenever Cassandra Nova is doing some Hannibal Lecter shit, so it’s unfortunate that for the last few issues she’s been relegated to the sidelines or been an exposition dump.
I think the problem with Orlando’s deep cuts is that he keeps missing the mark – Cassandra Nova, Brimstone Love and Cerebra are being written in ways that are largely unrecognizable from their previous appearances, which makes it seem like Orlando really just read a line off their wiki entries and ran with it