{"id":8250,"date":"2022-09-08T22:45:28","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T21:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8250"},"modified":"2022-09-08T22:45:28","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T21:45:28","slug":"marauders-6-annotations-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8250","title":{"rendered":"Marauders #6 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>MARAUDERS vol 2 #6<\/strong>
\n“Even Odds of Destruction”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Steve Orlando<\/strong>
\nArtist: Andrea Broccardo<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Matt Milla<\/strong>
\nLetterer & production: Ariana Maher<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> A group shot of the Marauders with the Progenitor looming behind them.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong>\u00a0Lockheed watches the Theater of Pain.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is picking up on the subplot from the opening page of issue #2, where Lockheed found some mutilated corpses in a ruined church with “X” symbols on the altar, and “LOVE” spray painted on the walls. The same symbols appear on the wall here, confirming that Lockheed has been on the trail of\u00a0the Theater of Pain<\/strong>. The Marauders fought the Theater’s leader Brimstone Love in\u00a0Marauders Annual<\/em> #1 (effectively the first issue of Steve Orlando’s run). That issue also saw Brimstone Love pushing the angle that the Xavier’s dream of coexistence was the right one, the point being that the mutant separatism of Krakoa was a betrayal of it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Scratch.<\/strong> This is Lee Franks, a minor villain from Warren Ellis’s run on\u00a0Excalibur <\/em>back in 1996. He was a Black Air agent who helped the London Hellfire Club to summon up a demon.<\/p>\n

Dirt Nap.<\/strong> The mouse with a smiley face on its back in the final panel is Dirt Nap, a recurring villain from Larry Hama stories in the mid 1990s. He’s a mutant who can consume other beings and then take on their form. In Hama’s run, he was an agent of Cable’s evil son Genesis. He first took on the mouse form in\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> #95 (1995) in order to escape, but seemed to stick with it as a matter of preference after that. He was last seen in\u00a0Generation X<\/em> #39 (1998), where he was blown up – but to be fair, he’d come back from that sort of thing before.<\/p>\n

As far as I know, the unfortunate on the table is a new character.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.<\/strong> Kate recaps the plot.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is mostly just recapping the first two issues of\u00a0A.X.E.: Judgment Day<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Altar\u00a0<\/strong>is Legion’s pocket psychic dimension from\u00a0Legion of X<\/em>.\u00a0The fact that some of the Arakkii mutants survived by fleeing to the Altar is new (but unsurprising) information, and it’ll probably be covered in the\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> tie-in issue in due course.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.<\/strong>\u00a0Kate brief Fabian and Cassandra.<\/em><\/p>\n

“That sounds like a rescue to me.”<\/strong> The original premise of\u00a0Marauders<\/em>, back in the early Gerry Duggan issues, was meant to be that they would rescue mutants and bring them to Krakoa (as well as smuggling Krakoan medicine). That angle fell by the wayside but Orlando is keen to re-enact it.<\/p>\n

Fabian Cortez<\/strong> is currently a minor character in\u00a0Legion of X<\/em>, which is presumably the justification for him having a role in helping people out of the Altar. Consistent with his status quo over in that book, he’s a bit annoying but he’s genuinely trying to be useful.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got a pear doing your job on our boat.”<\/b> The boost fruits, which the Marauders have used throughout Orlando’s run to get temporary power increases. Fabian’s powers do basically the same thing.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.<\/strong> Data page. A memo from Aurora to Kate.<\/p>\n

“You and Bishop have been passing notes.”<\/strong> We’ve seen Bishop’s notes to Kate in previous data pages.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been on my own journey for a long time…”<\/strong> Aurora’s mental health and multiple personalities have been among her defining traits since the 1980s.<\/p>\n

Birdy <\/strong>was a minor early-90s character who basically tagged along with Sabretooth and gave him a psychic “glow” that kept him appeased. Her resurrection was covered in the recent\u00a0Sabretooth<\/em> #5 and in\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #3. She also showed up as one of the stand-in Marauders who fought X-Men Green in\u00a0X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic<\/em> #44.<\/p>\n

“When the Kin Crimson blew up the New Marauder, Somnus dropped us all into his dreamscape…”<\/strong>\u00a0Issues #2-3.<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.<\/strong>\u00a0Birdy’s introduction.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGES 8-9.<\/strong>\u00a0Bishop is judged.<\/em><\/p>\n

Malcolm\u00a0<\/b>and\u00a0Randall<\/strong> are the two XSE officers who came back to the present with Bishop in\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #282 and got killed off in\u00a0issue #287. As with most of these scenes, we’re told how the Progenitor appeared to Bishop, but not how he was judged; Birdy specifically says she’s not interested in that (presumably because she wants to downplay the Progenitor’s opinions having any wider significance).<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-11.<\/strong>\u00a0Aurora is judged.<\/em><\/p>\n

Aurora’s various personalities all manifest separately here.<\/p>\n

Inner Active Cards<\/strong> are a real product<\/a>, intended for use in therapy and to depict various parts of the personality.<\/p>\n

Nemesio Pietri<\/strong> was indeed a prophetic mutant painter, who appeared in\u00a0District X<\/em> #6-12 (2004-2005).<\/p>\n

Headlok<\/strong> is a psychic villain first introduced in\u00a0West Coast Avengers<\/em> #10 (1986). He fought Aurora in\u00a0Alpha Flight<\/em> #93-94 and #102-104. He has no particular back story, so he might be a mutant. He’s a curiously obscure focus for Aurora’s judgment, being a minor villain who fought her on a couple of occasions over thirty years ago.<\/p>\n

PAGES 12-13.<\/strong>\u00a0Tempo is judged.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sumo<\/strong> was a lesser member of the original Mutant Liberation Front, alongside Tempo. He debuted in\u00a0New Mutants<\/em> #93 (1990) and died in\u00a0Cable: Blood & Metal<\/em> #1. The name “Jun Tenta” comes from the\u00a0Official Handbook<\/em> and isn’t exactly an improvement in terms of Japanese authenticity – it’s a reference to the Canadian professional wrestler John Tenta (1963-2006), who was indeed a sumo wrestler earlier in his life.<\/p>\n

Eugenix<\/strong>, who Tempo says wiped out X-Force and the MLF in a timeline that she and Sumo reversed, are\u00a0New Warriors<\/em> villains who went around killing people whom they deemed unfit. They didn’t debut until 1995, long after Sumo had died, so Tempo is talking about an untold story here.<\/p>\n

PAGES 14-15.<\/strong>\u00a0Psylocke is judged.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mr Sinister<\/strong> manipulated Psylocke in\u00a0Fallen Angels<\/em> and\u00a0Hellions<\/em> by taking advantage of his possession of the only surviving copy of the mind of Psylocke’s daughter (which was destroyed at the end of\u00a0Hellions<\/em>). The other two beloved characters that Psylocke references are\u00a0Matsu’o Tsurayaba<\/strong>, her lover in her back story, and\u00a0John Greycrow<\/strong>, her Hellions teammate and current partner.<\/p>\n

PAGES 16-17.<\/strong>\u00a0Somnus is judged.<\/em><\/p>\n

Somnus is judged by Northstar, in the costume he wore circa\u00a0Alpha Flight<\/em> vol 1 #106, his coming out issue. An image from that issue also appears in the magazine cover on the wall. Basically, Somnus is challenged over why he lived out his life in the closet when he could have followed Northstar’s lead and come out.<\/p>\n

The two viruses that Somnus mentions are HIV and the Legacy Virus, a mutant-targeting virus which was a major plotline in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Apparently Somnus is powerful enough within his own dreams to drive the Progenitor out. (However, part of the idea with Somnus is that he’s\u00a0only<\/em> that powerful within his own dreams – he’s much less powerful when visiting other people’s dreams.)<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-19.<\/strong>\u00a0Daken is judged.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Progenitor confronts Daken as, well, himself. This scene seems to be saying that Daken is claiming the name Fang for himself, after being told that he’d earned it in the previous issue. He doesn’t seem to like the name “Akihiro” simply because it was inherited rather than chosen for himself; “Daken” means “mongrel”. (The recap page still lists him as “Daken.”)<\/p>\n

Unusually, it seems that the Progenitor didn’t reveal to Daken what his judgment was.<\/p>\n

PAGE 20.<\/strong>\u00a0Birdy debriefs the Marauders.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGE 21. <\/strong>The Altar portal opens.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGE 22.<\/strong>\u00a0The Marauders depart to fight the Progenitor.<\/em><\/p>\n

The recap page tells us that this is after\u00a0A.X.E.: Judgment Day<\/em> #3, so presumably this is a mission we haven’t seen yet.<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.<\/strong>\u00a0Judas Traveller gives commands.<\/em><\/p>\n

Judas Traveller<\/strong> is an evil psychologist with illusion-casting powers; he’s a Spider-Man villain from the Clone Saga period. Orlando has alluded to him being involved in Orchis in previous issues, but this is the first time his full name has been given in\u00a0Marauders<\/em>. For real completists, however, we’ve already seen Judas Traveller on panel with Orchis in X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic<\/em> #45, an X-Men Green story also by Steve Orlando.<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong> Data page. Back to regular stories, as\u00a0Cerebra<\/strong> – who showed up from the future last issue – confirms that she can use her powers to help resurrect the Threshold mutants whose data was retrieved from the Shi’ar in the previous arc.<\/p>\n

PAGE<\/strong> 25.<\/strong> Trailers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. MARAUDERS vol 2 #6 “Even Odds of Destruction” Writer: Steve Orlando Artist: Andrea Broccardo Colour artist: Matt Milla Letterer & production: Ariana Maher Design: Tom Muller Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1: A group shot of the Marauders with […]<\/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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8250","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=8250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8252,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8250\/revisions\/8252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}