Marauders 18 - Consequences *Spoilers*

[Rev9]

I'm not crazy about Krakoa either and I can tell you there's no room for any other conclusion: when the U.S. ambassador says "What did you think we would do?" he's admitting to what Xavier is accusing him of.

Discussions like this that degenerate into bad-faith attempts to divorce the story from the storytelling -- and bludgeon "technically possible (but not really)" twists of wording into the place of what is actually said -- aren't worth anyone's time.

Watch me ignore my own advice, though:


The Wakandan attache didn't know the U.S. ambassador was expecting armed agents to arrive, and one of the other dignitaries chides him for acting unilaterally. The ambassador’s response to that is to try justifying his actions to the other dignitaries on the basis of "what they are" and that Xavier, et. al. can't be trusted.

It's a conversation, not words floating in from the unknown and destined for nowhere in particular.

The U.S. ambassador may genuinely have not have had anything to do with the assassination attempt on Xavier in "X-Force" #1 ... but he admits twice to attempting an assassination at the summit in "X-Men" #4. You can't try invoking plausibility as an argument while remarking that the ambassador of the United States of America would respond with "What did you think we would do?" to an accusation of attempting to assassinate a foreign head of state ... were that not at least an accurate account of what had occurred =P

The question we ask is Xavier talking about the purported 'attack' in Krakoa that didn't happen in HoS1 or the one that did in X-Force? My argument that he is talking about X-Force is because Esmee or Sophie in HoX 1 said ' As for the others they've been trained to withstand telepathy ,just not trained enough they're all plants sir' She was adamant she read them all and some were spies but nothing more, she could have mentioned Reilly was there to kill Xavier that moment,why didn't she? Especially since she is so adamant she cracked them? I think people are reading into that excursion to Krakoa a bit too much,as I said a gun on an ex security/intelligence official not taking his safety for granted in foreign land is so standard that I don't see why having a pistol is construed as nefarious Esmee didn't come to that deduction,so why should we the readers? Logically at Davis, Xavier is referencing the X-Force attack that did happen.Thus Reilly's answer speaks of two alternatives either in that moment he is pluralising his answer to speak for his colleagues in the hall and that response is not speaking for any sort of admission or the 'we' stands for humanity in general precisely because he is speaking about the X-Force attack , although he was not the instigator of it(unless proven in later issues),he approves of humanity's recourse to this action. As for the wakandan not knowing what Magneto is talking about underscores that it was their own security team.I mean knowing how unique wakandan security detail is, it is apt that he and not any other is surprised. If he kept his contingent seperate from the others they would have alerted him if anything is amiss.(that is assuming he had different detail) if they all shared it then why would he be alerted when the detail communicated directly with Reilly the one in charge of it? Imagine if he had his own detail would they not hear Cyclops' optic blasts? I did not see any typical tracer rounds or bullet sounds on the panel,I see no reason to think it was some rogue team.

The dignitary chiding just saw sense in keeping a cool head because it would be precarious for them all