Marauders #12 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS vol 2 #12
“Pre-Genesis, part 2”
Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Eleonora Carlini
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Kate with the Mysterium box.
This is the final issue of Marauders vol 2, and it’s very obviously a “wrap up the storylines” issue, particularly with the B and C plots. The A plot feels more like it was meant to get to this point around now anyway.
PAGE 2. Fang fights Brimstone Love in Madripoor.
This picks up from the cliffhanger of the previous issue, in which Fang tracked down Brimstone Love to take revenge for his torture in Annual #1. He was accompanied by Lockheed and, rather arbitrarily, Johnny Dee – who hasn’t appeared in this book before and seems a weird character to throw in at the last minute, though at least his highly specific powers are important to the plot here. As in earlier appearances, Johnny Dee maintains that the creature in his chest has a mind of its own.
PAGE 3. Recap and credits.
PAGE 4. Polaris creates the Seed.
Picking up from the A-plot of the previous issue, this is Polaris using the genetic source material of Genosha to fill the mysterium box that will go back in time to create Threshold, and then (much, much later) make its way into Kate’s hands at the start of the Orlando run. The Seed, and the fact that it was Kate’s box, were both established in issue #9.
PAGE 5. Tempo explains the moral to Theia.
“We came here, Amass, Crave and I…” As covered back in issue #7, they projected themselves into the future when Threshold was about to fall, and waited for millennia until the Marauders managed to retrieve them. But yes, as Theia says, their aim was either to save Threshold or at least ensure that its memory survived.
This scene veers awfully close to “Here is an opinion the writer plainly agrees with” “Gosh, how insightful and well expressed”, but Orlando’s got a lot shoehorn into this issue and he’s trying to make sure that the point at least comes across clearly in this storyline. (The Daken plot, in contrast, feels more like a plot-mechanics wrap-up that never actually got around to anything that Orlando was planning to explore with Brimstone Love.)
PAGES 6-7. Kate talks to the “ghost” of her father.
As we established last issue, these aren’t real ghosts but psychic echoes of the people who died in Genosha. If you’re nitpicking, Kate has actually met her father’s ghost with the benefit of Wicked’s powers once before, but who remembers the “2 December” page in the 2019 Merry X-Men Holiday Special?
“You looked right at the cameras…” This is from X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #36.
The map is the one that Kate was following throughout the Orlando run. We always knew it had her handwriting on it, but this is her creating the map to put it inside the freshly-created Seed box (with the guidance of the “ghosts”).
PAGE 8. Data page. The four Captains exchange notes on Cerebra, who was brought to the present day from 2099 in Spider-Man 2099: Exodus #5 and met the Marauders in issue #5. She had an important plot role in resurrecting the Threshold Three but we haven’t seen much of her since then.
PAGES 9-12. Cerebra, Aurora and Psylocke fight Bushwacker.
Bushwacker was originally a Daredevil villain from the Ann Nocenti run. In his early appearances, circa Daredevil #248, he was indeed hunting down artist mutants. That hasn’t been his primary focus in later years, but sure, it’s a thing he does.
Esera Seanoa is a new character, but according to Cerebra, he’s the great-grandfather of Northstar 2099, one of her teammates from the X-Men of 2099. (This isn’t the original Marvel 2099 timeline, by the way – just the current version of it.) The X-Men shown in page 12 panel 1 are (left to right) Cable, Tulkas, Krystalin, Phoenix,, Cerebra, Rogue, Bloodhawk, Northstar, Skullfire, Cyclops and Deadpool.
“We will lead the X-Men of 2099 to paradise.” The Celestial Garden, which they find in Spider-Man 2099: Exodus #5.
Stitch is the minor Alpha Flight character that Aurora rescued from Department H in Marauders Annual #1.
PAGES 13-15. Fang and Johnny Dee defeat Brimstone Love.
“Last time, I boiled your guts to great applause…” Marauders Annual #1.
The voodoo doll thing is indeed how Johnny Dee’s powers have always worked.
PAGES 16-19. Kate and her group create their portal to travel back in time.
All self-explanatory.
PAGES 20-21. Kate kickstarts Threshold.
This is the Seed spawning life in Threshold, as described in issue #9. The second page is presumably more symbolic than literal, unless these guys are really emerging complete with costumes.
PAGE 22. Kate talks with Emma.
“Mystique hunted down the vessel for you.” Emma was looking for the box during the first Hellfire Gala, and gave it to Kate in Marauders Annual #1. Mystique stole it for Emma in Inferno vol 2 #2.
The Grove. Emma claims to have had a sudden vision about the box while in the Council Chambers. The implication is that this is right next to Krakoa’s main presence (the giant head) and that Krakoa wanted Emma to find the box. We established in issue #10 that one of the Thresholders, Grove, became Okkara, which in turn became both Krakoa and Arakko – so Krakoa is closing the time loop that leads to his own creation.
PAGE 23. A farewell party.
Guests include some of the cast of the first volume, with Pyro and Iceman in the background and Callisto sharing a drink. Christian Frost is also present, along with Storm. Magik and Birdie are top of the ship. I’m not sure who the dark crouching guy next to them is, but it doesn’t really matter at this point, does it? On the right hand side Triage and (I think) Wind Dancer, in the red and white uniforms they wore as ad hoc Marauders in X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #44.
PAGE 24. Data page – a coda from Theia about the story of Threshold, the main plotline from this season.
PAGE 25. Trailers. In the absence of an issue #13, we’re pointed to X-Men: Before the Fall – Mutant First Strike #1, which doesn’t appear to be a Marauders story, but is by Steve Orlando.
Note that Illyana is still wearing her old costume AGAIN- can’t any of the artists remember?
Paul Bushwacker was originally a Daredevil villain from the Ann Nocenti run. In his early appearances, circa Daredevil #248, he was indeed hunting down artist mutants. That hasn’t been his primary focus in later years, but sure, it’s a thing he does.
Wasn’t he pretty definitively killed off in Immortal Hulk?
I was wondering if Bushwhacker was meant to be dead too, but he just vanishes in a huge explosion (admittedly, that might have taken place in Hell); pretty sure we do not see a body afterward.
@SanityOrMadnes, Joe- he inexplicably showed up again fighting Ben Reilly when Ben was working for the Beyond Corporation.
You know, after all the effort spent on emphasizing Krakoa not displacing anyone despite the implications of their rhetoric (ignoring any offscreen people displaced by those farms in the Savage Land) it’s an interesting choice for Orlando to have this celebratory air around the Marauders creating and seeding a civilization that will attempt a genocide against the indigenous inhabitants of the land they’ll be occupying.
‘who remembers the “2 December” page in the 2019 Merry X-Men Holiday Special?’
I for one had totally forgotten. That was a nice idea, even if some of the celebrity pages were duds, I’ll have to re-read.
As for this series… Well, Orlando certainly managed to cover a lot of ground while essentially dragging out the same a-plot over 13 issues. There’s something very throwback about his approach to this book, that I want to like, I just can’t get past the art. And unfortunately I think he wasted too much time in space and in the past. But he certainly drew a line between the previous run and his.
So Kate and the Marauders used the DNA of genocide victims to do a colonialism. The land is already occupied and the colony is going to attempt a genocide against the Indigenous population. That’s the legacy of Genosha – their descendants will perpetrate the horrific crime they suffered.
Wow. I really hate it.
…
But hey, that looks like Xilo popping out of the box, right?
I guess the Threshold story really went in one ear and out the other, but who did they colonize then? There was no sentient life on earth two billion years ago, no? I vaguely recall Stryfe was there allied, somehow, with …. something that couldn’t breath?
I don’t think the idea is that they wipeout an indigenous population for what it’s worth. They just sent back genetic material, long before the threshold we saw, that eventually will evolve into Threshold. Or something. Right?
At least they finally confirmed that Bushwhacker is indeed an X-gene generic mutant .
So, the box takes the dead of Genosha (human and mutant?), seeds them in the past, they evolve into Threshold, they still die anyway, except for the Three and Okkara?
What does this mean to the dead Genoshan mutants the Five are supposed to have on their resurrection list?
“I’m not sure who the dark crouching guy next to them is”
I think she is Warbird (the Shi’Ar warrior) with the Zzzxx symbiote, as they bonded in the first storyarc.
John Wyatt-It doesn’t seem to change anything as the dead of Genosha are still dead in the present day.
@Joseph S: I don’t blame you for not really parsing the Threshold plot, but basically it turns out there was already an indigenous sentient civilization on the planet at this point that Threshold called the Unbreathing, who waged war against Threshold. Threshold created Sublime and Arkea to destroy them.
I’m fond of obscure cameos, but at certain point they get in the way of good storytelling. For example, the Fang/Brimstone Love plot. Fang’s resolution is to show up with an ally who has never appeared in the story before. That’s not exactly satisfying. Just off the top of my head, say Akihiro bursts in, Brimstone Love kills him and gloats, and then it’s revealed Somnus trapped him in a dream. Cliche, sure, but it uses someone Fang has an established relationship with.
But how far back in the past did Kate go to see Threahold before the Threshold that we saw? Millions of years? They didn’t take back the actual people of Genosha but just their genetic material, right? So it would take a very long time to life to emerge, let alone a high civilization. So did the indigenous non breathing civilization already exist or did they evolve in that same period?
I really wanted to like this book but God was it incomprehensible most of the time. The artist’s style kind of grew on me over time but it was terrible at clearly conveying action. The dialog generally didn’t help. As a fan of obscure minutiae I liked the shootouts to lesser known characters, but they often served to further disrupt the narrative.
Still better than X-Corp, at least.
Re: Illyana’s costume, where exactly in the timeline is this story meant to fit? It’s certainly possible it was before the Limbo arc in New Mutants, especially since there’s a time jump referenced at somepoint.
“As we established last issue, these aren’t real ghosts but psychic echoes of the people who died in Genosha.”
How do we know that’s not what is in the waiting Room?
Threshold was clearly described as appearing suddenly to the Unbreathing. In addition to wiping out the indigenous population, the only things that survived from Threshold were Sublime and Arkea, the former of which is blamed for much if not most of the anti-mutant prejudice.