{"id":5125,"date":"2020-02-19T22:28:11","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T22:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5125"},"modified":"2020-02-20T07:40:33","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T07:40:33","slug":"marauders-8-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5125","title":{"rendered":"Marauders #8 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Storm and Emma Frost, in a very stylised version of their argument from later in the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 2-6.<\/strong> Bishop reports Kate’s death to Emma Frost.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mars.<\/strong> We’ve seen the Mars outpost mentioned a few times before, and I think this is the first clear confirmation that it’s being used as a farm for Krakoan flowers (or at least that’s a big part of it). This makes a degree of sense; Krakoa isn’t big enough for large-scale agriculture, and they need to grow the flowers somewhere that’s entirely inaccessible to hostile forces. (Wolverine<\/em> this week suggests that they’re still struggling to keep up with demand, though, to the point where the transformative effect of Krakoan drugs remains somewhat theoretical as far as many humans are concerned.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forge’s automatons.<\/strong> These are new. Presumably they’re just organic tech robots… but, um, isn’t that essentially a person…?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

“Flatscan.”<\/strong> A derogatory term for ordinary humans which has been around for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Magneto’s secret island.”<\/strong> Island M – but it can’t be that<\/em> secret if Emma is taking tour groups there. Incidentally, note that while all the adult mutants wear stylised clothes or costumes from their back catalogue, the children are dressed normally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emma and the Cuckoos.<\/strong> Bishop is understandably surprised that his telepathic call for help is picked up only by Emma, and not by any other telepath. Emma attributes this to the Stepford Cuckoos “acting like an antenna”, but she’s a little evasive about why that is. For example, she suggests that this works because they’re spread across the globe – but why<\/em> are they spread across the globe? The Cuckoos don’t normally like being separated. It’s almost as if Emma knew she might need an antenna. That said, she seems<\/em> shaken by Kate’s death, especially after she’s alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To me, my Marauders.”<\/strong> Referencing the “To me, my X-Men” line which has somehow become associated with Professor X, even though he hardly ever said it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 7-8.<\/strong> Credits and recap. The story is “Furious Anger” by Gerry Duggan, Stefano Caselli and Edgar Delgado. The reference is to the Ezekiel 25:17 speech quoted in Pulp Fiction<\/em> (“and I will strike down on thee with great vengeance and furious anger…”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 9.<\/strong> Emma breaks the news to Iceman.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iceman seems to be the only Marauder currently available on Krakoa. We’re told that Pyro and Storm are in Brazil, presumably still helping to rescue some of the mutants trapped there – Storm shows up later in the issue, but we never see Pyro. That has the happy effect that Homines Verendi (who have bugged Pyro) don’t get to see these scenes, and we don’t have to do a sequence of them gloating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 10-18.<\/strong> Bishop retrieves Kate’s body. Iceman takes out the Homines Verendi mercenaries.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main point here is that Iceman – who is normally the nice one – takes Kate’s death very<\/em> badly and does everything short of breaking the rule against killing. Recall that in issue #6, Sebastian Shaw strongly implied that he had enlisted Christian Frost in his plans against Kate – if he was telling the truth, then that’s clearly leading to trouble in due course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Frostbite never quite heals.”<\/strong> Not always true, but it certainly can<\/em> cause permanent damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 19-21.<\/strong> Storm confronts Emma over Kate’s death.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emma basically confirms the indications in earlier issues that Storm and Iceman were specifically tasked with shadowing Kate and keeping her safe, until they figured out why she wasn’t able to use the Krakoan gates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emma says that they both know that Kate wouldn’t have tolerated being stuck on the island, which is interesting, since most characters persist in speaking about Krakoa as a paradise. Other teleporters do exist (like Gateway or Kate’s good friend Magik), so why are they so sure that she couldn’t have tolerated life on the island until the problem with the gates was sorted out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, for whatever reason, Emma and Storm seem to take very seriously the risk that Kate cannot be resurrected. The logical connection between this and the doors is far from clear, but plenty of characters have asserted that it’s a worry. Maybe Emma and Storm know something more, or maybe they’re just buying into that theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“…when you reintroduced Cyclops after the assault on Orchis.”<\/strong> House of X <\/em>#5, when Storm gave the ceremonial speech to the people of Krakoa, telling them that the seemingly deceased X-Men had been brought back from the dead, and (symbolically) confirming their identities. Emma seems to have found this particularly touching. Note that she refers to the reintroduction specifically of Cyclops, her longtime partner, even though a number of other characters were resurrected at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 22.<\/strong> Shinobi Shaw introduces Fenris as the new Black Knights.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shinobi. <\/strong>Sebastian Shaw seems pleased with Shinobi, but it’s still not clear how much Shinobi really knows about Sebastian’s plans. He responds by talking about their success in their official <\/em>missions. But maybe this is for the benefit of the waiters. Come to think of it, it’s interesting that Shaw has<\/em> conventionally dressed waiting staff on Krakoa – is he just hiring from the mutants on the island? If so, he’s conspicuously choosing the most-human looking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fenris.<\/strong> The Fenris twins are Andrea and Andreas von Strucker, the children of the Nazi scientist Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. They were genetically engineered to have super powers, but they are<\/em> mutants, albeit deliberately created ones. Their powers only work when in skin-to-skin contact. Andrea was killed in Citizen V & The V-Battalion<\/em> #3, which was a plot point in later appearances by Andreas (he had her tanned skin wrapped around his sword handle, so that he could keep using his powers). Despite that, Andrea clones have shown up subsequently, the most recent being in the 2016 Illuminati<\/em> series. It’s not immediately clear whether this is a resurrected Andrea or another clone (or one that we’ve seen before).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 23.<\/strong> Data page – more blind items from Mr Sinister’s gossip column.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinister Secret #16.<\/strong> Sinister is referring to Kate Pryde’s persistent absence from Quiet Council meetings, which he takes to be some sort of show of power. As he points out, though, even he<\/em> has enough sense of responsibility to show up for the meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinister Secret #17.<\/strong> Sinister seems to be suggesting that “Bar Sinister” has literally become a bar on Krakoa. At any rate, he refers to “a certain quirky Q that can’t quite catch his quarry.” I suppose that might refer to Christian’s attempts to corner Bobby, or it might be something we haven’t seen yet on the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinister Secret #18.<\/strong> The first mutant to become pregnant on Krakoa is… Stinger. Stinger was a henchman of Apocalypse back in early issues of X-Factor<\/em>, but she’s done almost nothing since then. She was among the mutants living on Utopia about ten years ago, so it’s not particularly surprising to learn that she’s on Krakoa. As best as I can tell, she was last seen in the Deadpool v Gambit<\/em> miniseries in 2016, when she was among a bunch of random villains at a barbecue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinister Secret #19.<\/strong> Sinister is appalled by Fenris, though he doesn’t spell out why. Most likely, he’s referring to the frequent implication that the twins’ relationship is incestuous, usually conveyed by body language. New Thunderbolts <\/em>described Andreas as “a man whose prime motive for working with us is your promise to clone his dead sister, for whom he has a … well, let’s be charitable and call it an unusually intense attachment.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong> Lockheed lives!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course he does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the trailer page, we get a straightforward “next issue” caption, promising something to do with the Yellowjacket and Pyro plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 25-27.<\/strong> The Krakoan trailer text reads NEXT: YELLOWJACKET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. COVER \/ PAGE 1. Storm and Emma Frost, in a very stylised version of their argument from later in the issue. PAGES 2-6. Bishop reports Kate’s death to Emma Frost. Mars. We’ve seen the Mars outpost mentioned a few times before, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5125"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5130,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5125\/revisions\/5130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}