Marauders #22 Spoilers and Review

[Devaishwarya]

I like that this issue read like a direct continuance of issue 20. Looking ahead, with the Marauders out in space I hope we get a reveal with regards to Emma's spaceship.

[Pumpkin King]

Yeah, there was a slow (too slow!) boiling story here, it seemed, and then, pfft, fat lot of nothing. I have no idea if some of the events (X of Swords, Hellfire Gala) took up more room than the writer expected and they never got around to it, and then suddenly it was too late, or it was just some poor planning, but it feels like there was a story here, that got set up, the first pieces moved into position, and then ended up dying in the editing room.

I also felt that way about the "poisoned medicine" subplot in the book. We get a couple of reminders, as Delores (?), the X-Desk human ally tries to frantically to warn the Marauders. I was expecting some major repercussions, or at least a side story in which the character have to recover and replace the poisoned meds. (Maybe that would have actually given Bishop, Iceman and Pyro something to do.) But then Storm suddenly shows up and says, "Never mind, we took care of it (off-panel)." Maybe the point of that story was just introducing and developing the character of Delores? But it still felt like a let-down.

There are honestly some times when it seems like plots and character development is just happening in the background, and every now and then Duggan will go back to it, but it feels abrupt because it hasn't really been developed in the story. Like in the first few issues, we see Iceman and Pyro being vaguely friendly with each other, and chatting in the background. Then they don't interact at all for at least 10 issues, and in issue 20 they are suddenly good buddies who are calling themselves "The Two" and making naughty fire-and-ice sculptures together. And hey, that's great, but it would have been nice to see more of that relationship actually developing on-panel.

I guess Duggan just has a lot of balls in the air, and some of them are getting dropped. I'm still holding out hope that he'll eventually go back to at least Shinobi's story, since he seems to be treating him sympathetically.

[Marvel Wars]

I thought her death and resurrection explained that she can now use the gates

I don't even think it was confirmed in the comic and even if it's the case they never explained why she couldn't at the beginning.

[Anduinel]

What's the editorial line-up on this issue?

[Big Joe]

Anything previously involving Banshee and Ireland (when it’s not mixing us up with the North) has involved faith and begorah and his family castle full of James Joyce reading leprechauns. Not that the British writers have been much better, considering Scarlet Witch’s solo had her express surprise we didn’t still live in mud huts

You're right of course, and Banshee has always been written as such a terrible caricature of pre conceived ideas of what Americans think Ireland is. It's why I was so excited by the possibility of X-Men Green a while back by Declan Shalvey, and his variant cover for an issue a few years back with Sean flying past the Cliffs of Moher. There have been times in the past where he's been written slightly more sympathetically. But, man, the way his accent is always written is just so bad. I'm really hoping he's going to be properly written over the next few months.