{"id":6399,"date":"2021-02-17T21:58:21","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T21:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6399"},"modified":"2021-02-17T21:58:21","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T21:58:21","slug":"marauders-18-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6399","title":{"rendered":"Marauders #18 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>MARAUDERS #18
\n“Saving Face”
\nby Gerry Duggan, Stefano Caselli, Matteo Lolli & Edgar Delgado<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> Just an action shot of Iceman and Pyro. I think it might be going for a yin-yang thing, but if so, it’s pretty loose.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> Quote from an anonymous UN ambassador about Madripoor. Could well be Madripoor’s own ambassador, Donald Pierce. In terms of the way Madripoor has been presented in\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> stories over the years, the comment isn’t unreasonable.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.<\/strong>\u00a0Professor X and Magneto arrive for Emma’s ceremony.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I know you have been helping Emma with her gala…”<\/strong> The Hellfire Gala, first mentioned in issue #7. It’s finally going to happen in upcoming issues of\u00a0X-Men<\/em>, where the new team line-up is going to be held. Magneto helped Emma by acquiring the location in\u00a0Giant-Size X-Men: Magneto<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

“[D]id she offer any hint as to why she insisted on our presence in Madripoor this morning?”<\/strong> This\u00a0is<\/em> interesting. Emma has insisted that two of the most important mutants in Krakoa come to Madripoor, not to actually participate in this ceremony, but so that they can watch it from the audience. And she does it even though the ceremony is televised (as we see next page). Why? See further below.<\/p>\n

Presumably Magneto and Professor X arrived by a gate, not by the Marauder, despite what the art suggests.<\/p>\n

The ceremony.<\/strong> The people on stage – from left to right – are\u00a0Callisto, Pyro, Kate Pryde\u00a0<\/strong>(with\u00a0Lockheed<\/strong>),\u00a0Emma Frost, Bishop, Christian Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Iceman, Shinobi Shaw\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Proteus<\/strong>. Proteus is the only one of these characters not associated with Hellfire Trading, and he makes a rare appearance here without the rest of the Five – taking him off Krakoa to a state with a hostile government seems kind of risky.<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.<\/strong>\u00a0Homines Verendi watch the presentation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Emma’s basically right that Madripoor has always been a kleptocracy, even before Homines Verendi got involved.<\/p>\n

PAGES 5-6.<\/strong>\u00a0Emma unveils the memorial.<\/em><\/p>\n

Not only is Emma setting up a hospital, but it’s a memorial to Moira MacTaggert. This is why her son Proteus is present. We know, from\u00a0House of X<\/em> and\u00a0Powers of X, <\/em>that Moira is hidden on Krakoa and has regular dealings with Professor X and Magneto. Nobody else is meant to know that, and Emma describes Moira in her traditional, pre-Hickman role (“one of mutantdom’s most staunch human allies”). Professor X and Magneto look distinctly uncomfortable about the mention of Moira’s name, as well they might when they’ve been concealing her role as the power behind the throne.<\/p>\n

Emma says to Kate that this was “worth it just for the look on Erik’s and Charles’ faces”. Which is… interesting. If she knew nothing about Moira then she’d have no reason to expect any particular response from them. So how much does she know, and why is she poking Xavier and Magneto about it? Is she just stirring, or is there some reason why she wants to provoke them and observe their reaction?<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES 8-10.<\/strong>\u00a0Masque is put to work in the hospital.<\/em><\/p>\n

Masque’s power to alter faces always had potential applications for plastic surgery – here, to cure a cleft lip – but in the past he always used it sadistically, or to help mutants fit in as Morlock outsiders. In some ways that was a precursor of the mutant-nationalist attitudes of Krakoa.<\/p>\n

PAGES 11-12.<\/strong>\u00a0Bishop, Iceman and Pyro buy a bar.<\/em><\/p>\n

Apparently you can buy a bar in Madripoor just by handing a sack of money to the owner and reaching an oral agreement. Seems a bit relaxed even for Madripoor. Let’s assume the Marauders just forge the necessary documents once he’s out of the way, though the timescales do seem to suggest that in the next scene Kade somehow learns about this transaction right away.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-14.<\/strong>\u00a0The new Reavers emerge.<\/em><\/p>\n

Max von Frankenstein is taking the lead in creating these things, consistent with his junior mad-scientist persona. The original Reavers’ leader, Donald Pierce, is also on the Homines Verendi payroll, but it’s not apparent that he has any particular involvement in this. We’ll see later that these are all people who’ve been injured by the mutants in the Krakoan era, and have become cyborgs in order to get revenge. This is time-honoured stuff for the Reavers – it was basically the motivation of Cole, Reese and Macon from the classic team.<\/p>\n

PAGES 15-21.<\/strong>\u00a0The Reavers attack the bar.<\/em><\/p>\n

Largely self-explanatory. Page 19 has three flashback panels showing battles where the Reavers suffered their injuries. One of them appears to have lost an arm to Iceman in\u00a0Marauders<\/em> #10 (as confirmed in the later data page), which must have happened off panel. Gorgon’s battle with mercenaries at Davos was shown in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #4. The other panel is a fairly generic image of Wolverine in Madripoor, wearing a jacket and clawing two individuals – this seems to be generic, since there hasn’t been a Krakoa-era story with Wolverine in Madripoor dressed like that.<\/p>\n

PAGE 22.<\/strong> Data page. Bishop reports to the Beast. It’s basically recapping the plot we just saw, but it also reminds us that Bishop joined the Marauders in part because the Beast suggested it was an intelligence opportunity (in issue #4).<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.<\/strong>\u00a0Donald Pierce addresses the United Nations.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ah, it’s one of those stories where the United Nations is a fast-moving organisation that actually does stuff fast. For some reason Krakoa is completely unrepresented at this meeting. Who\u00a0is<\/em> the Krakoan ambassador to the UN, come to think of it? Was anyone particularly qualified for that job?<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong>\u00a0Homines Verendi send the Reavers into Lowtown.<\/em><\/p>\n

Okay, this bit doesn’t really make sense. The government of Madripoor doesn’t need the UN’s permission to bar the Marauder from its waters. True, they did ask the UN for a peacekeeping force, but does Madripoor really not have its own navy to do this? And it’s not as if the Marauders is the mutants’ only way onto the island – even if the gates are destroyed, they have plenty of teleporters.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: MAD WORLD.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. MARAUDERS #18 “Saving Face” by Gerry Duggan, Stefano Caselli, Matteo Lolli & Edgar Delgado COVER \/ PAGE 1: Just an action shot of Iceman and Pyro. I think it might be going for a yin-yang thing, but if so, it’s pretty […]<\/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":[31,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6399","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=6399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6401,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6399\/revisions\/6401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}