Marauders Annual review *spoilers*

[jwatson]

This is probably a minor nitpick, but because Orlando DOES know his X-lore so well in most respects, I admit to being a tad disappointed that he had a Morlock, Carver, voicing the same stuff writers have had Morlocks voicing about other mutants for decades, forgetting their origins.....

Like, its just kinda gah that writers always have Morlocks talk about how they're rejects even among mutant society for being the undesirables, not 'pretty mutants' etc....

Which not only ignores that like, mutants like Glob Herman have been mainstays among the X-Men and their communities for a looooong time, but more than that.....

The Morlocks were NOT originally a collection of mutants who banded together because they were the ugly, unwanted mutants. Most of their 'ugly appearances' are the result of MASQUE'S INITIATION of them, NOT their own mutations! Just like he gave Callisto tentacles for a number of years, that had nothing to do with her original powerset. The Morlocks in their earliest appearances DELIBERATELY altered themselves to fall outside the generally accepted standards of beauty or humanity, as symbols of THEIR rejection of humanity and desire to make a culture and community of their own that didn't cater to humanity's priorities or general mindsets. Like, one of the key reasons Skids stood out among the original Morlocks was that yes, she was one of the 'pretty mutants' - but her fellow Morlocks didn't RESENT her for that, hell, they tended to ostracize her because she COULDN'T embody the willful rejection of human norms that the rest of them embraced....because her force field power meant that Masque physically couldn't lay his hands on her and make changes to her body and appearance the way he did the rest of them.

And when the Morlock Massacre happened, it wasn't because Morlocks were an eyesore or anything like some writers have characterized them as being after the fact.....Sinister had the original Marauders wipe them out not because he gave a shit what they looked like, but because he'd noted that their powers showed signs of being meddled with or experimented on with techniques he recognized from his own work, and he was like.....offended because he's literally just like that. It was implied for a long time that the experimentation had something to do with Apocalypse, whose technology and experiments were the basis of most of Sinister's own science and techniques.....with Apocalypse clearly having had some connection to or interest in the Morlocks at some point, given that his Horseman Famine was originally a Morlock, and later he made Caliban a Horseman too (and that alone should be a HUGE CLUE for most writers that they're looking at the Morlocks all wrong - why would the very same writers who created BOTH the Morlocks AND Apocalypse, have the dude who's entire SPIEL is survival of the fittest and only uplifting the truly strong....like....pick a Morlock to be one of his iconic vanguard if Morlocks were actually supposed to be viewed as the dregs of mutant society by other mutants?)

And of course then ultimately after the original Age of Apocalypse event, they revealed that the Sugar Man from that reality had wound up in 616 twenty years in the past and he'd been the one to experiment on the Morlocks with techniques he'd learned from the AOA Sinister. But the point remains. Morlocks were never ostracized by the rest of mutants for not being on the same level as the 'pretty, powerful mutants.' Morlocks were originally the ones pointing out nah dudes, WE'RE rejecting YOU, on account of we think you're too preoccupied with trying to be accepted and respected by humanity and we don't vibe with that.

But my point just being.....there's a definite irony in current writers holding up Morlocks as proof of Krakoa's flaws by saying Krakoa doesn't want them and they're not pretty or powerful or useful enough to be accepted there, when not only are there already tons of mutants on Krakoa who put the lie to that.....the bigger irony is that the Morlocks, rather than being the lowest hierarchy of mutantdom, were originally depicted as the spiritial pre-cursors of the modern Krakoa, mutants who weren't outcast by society, but who voluntarily REMOVED THEMSELVES from society, mutants who weren't FORCED to live in the dark because they were hideous, but rather used a single mutant's power - Masque - to MAKE themselves visible standouts from human society who said they'd rather be what humans judged as hideous, and live where humans wouldn't deign to, than live among humans. And like, special irony shout-out to the fact that most Morlocks alive today would have had to be resurrected because of the Morlock Massacre, and since many of their inhuman or hideous appearances WEREN'T part of their own powersets and surface level changes made by Masque, they shouldn't even have been resurrected looking that way and would have had to seek Masque out to make those changes to them again. Actual inhuman appearing Morlocks like Tommy and Scaleface were RARE in the original generation of Morlocks, and other than the changes made by Masque, most of the nonhuman appearing Morlocks only migrated to the tunnels and joined the community because they'd HEARD of the Morlocks' reputation and rejection of human standards of beauty and normalcy.

Just saying, its funny and a tad disappointing to see Morlocks written as being particularly anti-Krakoa because they feel they're a source of shame because the original Morlocks were literally PROUD of being Morlocks and tried to build a society in directions deliberately counter to human norms, as like....the entire POINT of removing themselves from human communities. If anything, the Morlocks should be taking POINT in a lot of the society-building happening on Krakoa and be like 'glad to see the rest of you finally caught up with what we were saying from day one, here, this is how its done.'

I didn't think about this at all but this is also 100% facts. Very deep observation. While Carver is only one morlock and one perspective this opens a ton of things that never even crossed my mind about the morlocks and this era and rebirth. They should do a modern morlocks book. This line of questioning and reflection can be a strong story.

you really got my mind running. Like would some feel guilt. I mean living in the tunnels besides the massacre in relative speaking morlocks were kind of safe during some of the more modern stuff because they were where humans would not go but then what masque did with changing people is there guilt there for that. Like if your a mutant on krakoa that was a morlock and you weren't more mutated from what is considered normal in your appearance but now your hearing stories from mutants who always were like shark girl, what does that say. Was that a form of mutant appropriation. Like my mind just never went there.