{"id":7553,"date":"2022-01-30T20:28:45","date_gmt":"2022-01-30T20:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7553"},"modified":"2022-01-30T20:28:45","modified_gmt":"2022-01-30T20:28:45","slug":"marauders-annual-1-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7553","title":{"rendered":"Marauders Annual #1 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>MARAUDERS ANNUAL #1<\/strong>
\n“Hellfire & Brimstone”<\/strong>
\nby Steve Orlando, Creees Lee & Rain Beredo<\/strong><\/p>\n

MARAUDERS ANNUAL.<\/strong>\u00a0This is the first\u00a0Marauders Annual<\/em>, and something of an odd release in the Krakoan era, when the X-books haven’t generally been doing annuals at all. It seems to exist as a one-shot serving as the launch for the upcoming\u00a0Marauders<\/em> vol 2 – billing it as\u00a0Marauders Annual<\/em> #1 rather than as\u00a0Marauders<\/em> vol 2 #1 allows it to ship during the season break.<\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Daken, Kate and Psylocke fight Brimstone Love.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-4.<\/strong>\u00a0Daken is ambushed while investigating a mass grave.<\/em><\/p>\n

Greenwich, Connecticut.<\/strong>\u00a0It’s a wealthy, largely white area, something that Daken also notes on page 12.<\/p>\n

Daken.<\/strong>\u00a0Wolverine’s son is joining the cast of Marauders\u00a0<\/i>in vol 2, and this is his introduction. He was previously a member of X-Factor, which is why he’s looking for proof of death – his main job is to find evidence that mutants have really died, so that they can be safely resurrected without awkward doppelgangers resulting.\u00a0Although he repeatedly calls himself “Akihiro” in this scene (his surname), the recap page still calls him Daken. However, he’s dumped his X-Factor<\/em> outfit in favour of a variant of his costume from\u00a0his\u00a0Dark Wolverine<\/em> days. To be precise, the opening panel seems to be loosely based on the cover of\u00a0Daken: Dark Wolverine<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

We see on page 12 that Daken specifically asked the telepaths he mentions to look out for his mental signals.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Morlocks’ Alley.<\/strong> The underground tunnel complex where the Morlocks lived back in the Claremont era (and beyond, for those who survived). The Morlocks lived under New York, and Greenwich is 26 miles from Manhattan, but the “Mutant Massacre” had tunnels extending out as far as the X-Men’s mansion in Westchester county (which is even further out than that), so this is fair enough.<\/p>\n

The voice speaking at the end is\u00a0Brimstone Love<\/strong>, who we’ll meet later. His powers are responsible for the lava.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.<\/strong> Recap and credits. The small print now reads “Destiny of X”, making this the first book to carry that tag. (Lives of Wolverine<\/em> doesn’t have one, and\u00a0X-Men<\/em> still says “Reign of X”.)<\/p>\n

PAGES 6-7.<\/strong> Kate and Bishop talk.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kate and Bishop were the two characters who stayed firmly in the cast when everyone else was being rushed out of the door in\u00a0Marauders<\/em> #27. This is basically the start of a “gathering the team” story.<\/p>\n

The Marauder.<\/strong> The Marauders’ ship was destroyed on the night of the Hellfire Gala thanks to a scheme by Solem, but that’s a Wolverine<\/em> plot which needn’t detain us further.<\/p>\n

Bishop’s age.<\/strong> Kate suggests that he was born 15 years in the future. Leaving aside the technicality that he comes from a different timeline, it ought to be more than that –\u00a0Bishop’s earliest appearances are understandably vague about\u00a0precisely<\/em> what time he comes from, but\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #287 says directly that he was born around 70 years in the future, and travelled back in time at around 100 years in the future. (To be fair, it also says that the criminals he’s pursuing was imprisoned<\/em> 70 years in the future, so there’s a bit of wiggle room in these numbers, but not nearly enough to get you to 15.)<\/p>\n

“Hellfire Trading’s held together by blackmail.”<\/strong> Not really what we saw in\u00a0Marauders<\/em> #27, when the Inner Circle was reshuffled, but maybe fair enough in terms of the general behaviour of some of the characters involved.<\/p>\n

“[B]oth sides of our current [mission].”<\/strong>\u00a0Early issues of\u00a0Marauders<\/em> did indeed set up the team as a group who were going to distribute Krakoan medicine through the black market, but also rescue mutants in danger in parts of the world where they couldn’t reach the Krakoan gates. That second part of the remit fell by the wayside in later issues.<\/p>\n

“You’re Captain Commander of Krakoa.”<\/strong> The leader of the four Captains, who are broadly responsible for Krakoan defence. Bishop was appointed to the role in\u00a0Inferno<\/em> vol 2 #1. Kate\u00a0isn’t<\/em> one of the four Captains, but and referring to her as a captain (because of her nautical role) is wordplay, but Bishop is effectively deferring to her authority anyway.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.<\/strong> Kate approaches Psylocke.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I did terrible things to get my daughter back and lost her anyway.”<\/strong> This is the plot of\u00a0Hellions<\/em>. A copy of the mind of Psylocke’s daughter survived in the possession of Mr Sinister; he used it as leverage to get her to collude in his manipulations of the Hellions; and eventually the copy was destroyed when the Hellions brought down Sinister’s New York operation. Psylocke is understandably still very upset about all this. Since the Hellions are no longer active, Psylocke is at a loose end.<\/p>\n

PAGE 9.<\/strong>\u00a0Bishop approaches Tempo.<\/em><\/p>\n

Tempo.<\/strong> Heather Tucker was invited to join the Marauders in issue #23 (which is where she “gave Pryde a ‘maybe'”) but Gerry Duggan never followed up on that. Bishop is here to press the point.<\/p>\n

Bouncer.<\/strong>\u00a0This is\u00a0Renata da Lima<\/strong>, a Brazilian mutant whose only previous appearance was in 2002’s\u00a0Muties<\/em> #4 (a miniseries which consisted of unrelated slice-of-life stories about ordinary mutants). Although Marvel Fandom lists her codename as “Bouncer”, so far as I can see, the original story actually just says she’s a bouncer – as in, that’s her job. But it’s definitely her, wearing her bar security gear from the original story.<\/p>\n

The Green Lagoon.<\/strong> The only recognisable character in the background is\u00a0Anole<\/strong>, working behind the bar.<\/p>\n

“I don’t even know your chosen name.”<\/strong> A slightly odd comment. Not her\u00a0given<\/em> name, her\u00a0chosen<\/em> name. This can’t have been a very close relationship, even over three months, if Bouncer doesn’t even know what Heather prefers to be called.<\/p>\n

“Plus, you were sort of a terrorist…”<\/strong> Tempo was a member of the original line-up of the Mutant Liberation Front in early 90s\u00a0X-Force<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“[Y]ou betrayed them…”<\/strong> In\u00a0X-Force<\/em> vol 1 #28. Specifically, she stopped them from assassinating Henry Peter Gyrich and got kicked out of the group.<\/p>\n

“[I]t’s been cool since then…”<\/strong>\u00a0That’s debatable. Tempo joined the Acolytes after M-Day and showed up again as a villain in a few stories. This is largely forgotten stuff, though, and it’s understandable if Bouncer just doesn’t know about it. Or it might not be an issue for her, since that version of the Acolytes was led by Exodus, a respected Krakoan citizen.<\/p>\n

PAGE 10.<\/strong>\u00a0Kate and Psylocke visit Daken’s room.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Boneyard<\/strong> is\u00a0X-Factor’s headquarters.<\/p>\n

Aurora<\/strong> was Daken’s partner in later issues of\u00a0X-Factor<\/em>, and presumably still is. We’ll see in the next scene what she’s been up to.<\/p>\n

The photograph<\/b> shows Daken’s genetic sister Laura (Wolverine) and Laura’s clone Scout, both of whom he regards as his sisters. “Thick-necked father” not shown.<\/p>\n

“He won’t take a rescue from just anybody.”<\/strong> I mean, he will. He literally called out to “anyone in range” on page 3.<\/p>\n

PAGE 11.<\/strong>\u00a0Tempo and Bishop catch up with Aurora.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stitch.<\/strong>\u00a0This is Jodi Furman, who was a member of the proto-Alpha Flight team that appeared in 1992’s\u00a0Alpha Flight: First Flight<\/em> one-shot. Again, this is really obscure stuff.<\/p>\n

“[S]urviving Department H.”<\/strong> The Canadian government department that sponsored Alpha Flight. Some versions of it were more abusive than others; it’s not obvious whether Stitch has as much to complain about as Aurora.<\/p>\n

PAGE 12.<\/strong> Data page. A report that Daken filed just before the start of the issue, explaining what he was doing. We’ll see Bishop read it on page 18.<\/p>\n

Carver.<\/strong> Orlando’s\u00a0really<\/em> been trawling the backwaters. Carver was the leader of a splinter sect of Morlocks who fought Wolverine in\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #157. He’s a Rob Liefeld creation, though his story was drawn by Ian Churchill.\u00a0Daken suggests that Carver speaks with a woefully unconvincing Australian accent – that’s\u00a0not<\/em> a reference to the original story, where Carver spoke fairly normally.<\/p>\n

“A Morlock living in Madripoor.”<\/strong> Many of the Morlocks moved to Madripoor in\u00a0Marauders<\/em> #19.<\/p>\n

“My weekly shot with Marrow.”<\/strong> Marrow was indeed among the characters seen in\u00a0Marauders<\/em> #19, and this seems to confirm that she’s still living in Madripoor. It’s not clear what Daken’s “weekly shot” with her is, but maybe it’s a sparring session.<\/p>\n

“Wasn’t happy in Arizona.”<\/strong> Before moving to Madripoor, the Morlocks (those who refused to come to Krakoa, at any rate) had been living at a private golf resort in Arizona.<\/p>\n

Port Brimstone<\/strong> is another hidden city below New York, appearing in 2017’s\u00a0Spirits of Vengeance<\/em>\u00a0#3-4.<\/p>\n

Monster Metropolis<\/strong> is, you guessed it, another hidden city below New York, first appearing in Rick Remender’s 2009\u00a0Punisher<\/em> run before becoming part of\u00a0Deadpool<\/em>‘s mythos.<\/p>\n

Mr Clean<\/strong> was an anti-mutant mass murdered who killed a Morlock-like community in the United Kingdom in\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #395-398. Either Carver is confusing two separate incidents, or Clean had some sort of mass attack on the US Morlocks which the X-Men failed to notice before fighting him in England.<\/p>\n

“The First<\/strong> Marauders.”\u00a0<\/strong>The capitalised First seems intended to distance the current Marauders from the current group, but Orlando is also reminding us that this is the re-used name of a death squad. Daken seems to approve, though.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-14.<\/strong>\u00a0Kate and Aurora recruit Somnus.<\/em><\/p>\n

Iceman and Christian Frost<\/strong> were effectively written out of the series last issue, but maybe they’re not gone just yet. Iceman is right that he never had a high school prom – he was with the X-Men by that point. Christian did indeed have a very bad relationship with his late father Winston Frost, who was more or less as shown here, but quite why Christian’s prom fantasy would be enhanced by adding Winston, even in this role, is a bit beyond me. Seems unhealthy.<\/p>\n

Somnus.<\/strong> Carl Valentino debuted in\u00a0Marvel’s Voices: Pride<\/em> #1, which contains his back story (also written by Orlando). He and Daken had a one night stand in 1967, but because of Somnus’s dream-based powers, they subjectively spent a lifetime together. Carl went on to live an apparently uneventful life before dying of old age; Daken arranged from him to be resurrected in his prime. The premise of the\u00a0Pride<\/em> story is basically that Somnus is getting a second chance to live openly in the way that he couldn’t in 1967.<\/p>\n

PAGES 15-17.<\/strong>\u00a0Daken is tortured by Brimstone Love.<\/em><\/p>\n

South Salem, New York.<\/strong> The X-Men’s Mansion was in the fictional location of “Salem Center”, but South Salem is a real place. “Part of the New York metropolitan area, the town centre has a post office, town hall, library and recycling centre.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Brimstone Love<\/strong>\u00a0makes his mainstream Marvel Universe debut here, but he’s a villain from\u00a0X-Men 2099<\/em>. It’s not clear whether this is the same character having travelled through time, or his counterpart in the main timeline. In the original stories, he ran a group called the Theatre of Pain, who basically ran sadistic entertainment shows for the amusement of the rich. On his own account, this seemed to be both a way of controlling his clients, and some sort of quasi-artistic endeavour. The Theatre’s “shows” seem to have basically consisted of a mixture of gladiatorial combat and psychic torture.<\/p>\n

At any rate, it’s no accident that Brimstone Love shows up here in a gated community (and also in Greenwich). On the other hand, the wealthy residents at this point seem to be manipulated into following him, rather than acting as his customers.<\/p>\n

His general angle to them is that they were loyal liberal allies who have been abandoned by the mutants, and that the mutants have become the elite that they always (self-)loathed. Obviously, Brimstone has a point about the mutants having embraced the sort of separatism that Xavier always decried – Krakoa is absolutely\u00a0not<\/em> the traditional “Xavier’s Dream” of humans and mutants living together in harmony – but the data page on page 31 confirms that this is just an angle he’s exploiting to foment unrest.<\/p>\n

An obvious subtext is that the rich white folk rather liked being the good guys and resent being deprived of that self-congratulation opportunity by an underclass taking control of its own destiny rather than relying on their goodwill. However, that doesn’t really explain what people like Carver are doing in the group. Carver wasn’t an outright villain so much a mutant isolationist, but he certainly didn’t seem to be a fan of Xavier or the X-Men. Later on, Carver seems to tell us that he feels mutants like him are excluded from the new Krakoan society, and sees the placement of the Morlocks on Arizona and Madripoor (even at their own wishes) as evidence of that, which his fellow Morlocks are choosing to overlook. He claims that the exclusion of humans is the first step towards excluding undesirable mutants. Psylocke tells us later that the mutants in the group are formerly closeted mutants, but that doesn’t exactly describe Carver (except in the sense that he hid away from mainstream society altogether).<\/p>\n

The reaction is also pushed to such a degree that you have to figure there’s a degree of mind-control going on here; that’s not among Brimstone’s normal powers, but he did have followers with those sorts of abilities.\u00a0He refers to himself as “Brimstone Love and the Theatre of Pain”, but we don’t actually see any other followers – it’s unclear whether “the Theatre” is meant to be the people in the crowd, or the performance that Brimstone is laying on, or some people behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

PAGE 18.<\/strong>\u00a0The new Marauders are on Akihiro’s tail.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kate isn’t here yet, apparently because she’s “secur[ing] our boat”. (Greenwich is on Long Island Sound.)<\/p>\n

“I grew up in a neighbourhood like this.”<\/strong> The\u00a0Pride<\/em> story is vague about Somnus’s background beyond showing that his encounter with Daken took place in Toronto. There’s a montage of the rest of his life, but all it really tells us is that he had quite a large, loving family.<\/p>\n

PAGES 19-30.<\/strong>\u00a0The Marauders rescue Daken.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is pretty straightforward. The fact that Brimstone loses part of his right horn strongly suggests that this isn’t just the\u00a0X-Men 2099<\/em>\u00a0villain at an earlier point in his timeline, though I suppose it maybe grows back. At any rate, Brimstone escapes. The art is rather vague about whether he takes anyone with him, but the dialogue tends to suggest not.<\/p>\n

What does Somnus, who has dream-based powers, actually\u00a0contribute<\/em> in a fight scene? It’s not obvious.<\/p>\n

PAGE 31.<\/strong> Data page. Brimstone Love writes to an unnamed ally about the footage obtained from his first Theatre of Pain – presumably the event we’ve just seen.<\/p>\n

“The innovative mind of your Zaha Gehry.”<\/strong> Zaha Gehry is the head of engineering at Orchis, as named in a data page in\u00a0House of X<\/em> #1 (and never mentioned again, until now). So Brimstone is writing to someone at Orchis.<\/p>\n

PAGE 32.<\/strong>\u00a0The new Marauders toast their new vessel.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the shapechanging\u00a0Mercury<\/em>, previously used by Christian Frost.<\/p>\n

PAGES 33-34.<\/strong>\u00a0Kate meets with Emma and Sebastian.<\/em><\/p>\n

This scene is a bit odd, since both Emma and Sebastian vacated their Hellfire positions in the previous issue in order to focus on their roles on the Quiet Council. So it’s not obvious why she would need to agree anything with them. But maybe she’s speaking to them in their role as Council members. At any rate, Christian Frost is appointed to do the actual running of the Red section of the Hellfire Club, leaving Kate free to get on with Marauders things.<\/p>\n

Mysterium<\/strong> is a cosmic\/mystical metal recovered by mutants in\u00a0S.W.O.R.D. <\/em>The Krakoan writing ont he side of the box reads PRYDE. The map is roughly the map of Krakoa from\u00a0House of X<\/em> #1, complete with the contour lines.<\/p>\n

PAGE 35.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: SET SAIL. Note the small print here reads “World of X”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. MARAUDERS ANNUAL #1 “Hellfire & Brimstone” by Steve Orlando, Creees Lee & Rain Beredo MARAUDERS ANNUAL.\u00a0This is the first\u00a0Marauders Annual, and something of an odd release in the Krakoan era, when the X-books haven’t generally been doing annuals at all. It […]<\/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":[31,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7553","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=7553"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7556,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7553\/revisions\/7556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}