Marauders #5 spoilers Review - end of the first arc

[Whim]

this whole thing felt so botched. From calling him Nemesis instead of Holocaust. To showing Acolytes that were never on Avalon or dead.

[Nyssane]

I wish Black Light and White Noise would be acknowledged as Deathbird's chicks.

I never liked the idea of Deathbird having children. She'd be a horrible mother.

[danielsan52]

I never liked the idea of Deathbird having children. She'd be a horrible mother.

Well she certainly didn’t “mother” them. If they’re hers she probably abandoned them.

[BobbysWorld]

I never liked the idea of Deathbird having children. She'd be a horrible mother.

Well that's why she's very selective about her partners. Like Vulcan. With him as her kid's father, even she looks great by comparison. She's like they'll already have my kid diagnosed with lifelong Daddy issues before I even pop the brat out, and its easy street from there. Anyone questions my parenting skills and thinks I've fucked up my kid in some way I just tell them oh that? Yeah that's not my fault, that's because of his dad. And then she rips out their carotid artery for daring to question her parenting skills because there have to be consequences to things or how else will people learn? She maybe shouldn't have done it right in front of her kid but whatever, its fiiiiiine. So it was a little traumatizing, if it wasn't her hitting that crucial Baby's First Murder milestone, the kid would have wound up seeing that cuz of their dad anyway, and how he kills people is waaaay worse. People smell so gross when they've been cooked from the inside out by a solar-fueled temper tantrum, like the stench really does just...love to linger. Anyway, if you really think about it, her ripping out someone's throat in front of her kid is one of the best things she could have done for them when you consider how much more traumatizing it would've been if it'd been Vulcan who handled Baby's First Murder. Brat better be grateful and love her more when it gets old enough to be interesting.

[Sutekh]

Anyway, I unabashedly love the 2099 universe and characters and so am beyond hyped to see Cerebra used in the present day.

I am a huge fan of Meanstreak, Krystalin, Desert Ghost / Xian Chi Xan, and, especially, La Lunatica, but I'm not sure I'd want to see them brought over to 616 Earth / modern-day time.

Then again, on the way out the door, the 2099 writers pretty much destroyed their setting with Biblical flooding, so I guess it would beat the alternative?

[DAHX]

Ugh, sometimes I am a truly ridiculous person. I took my Adderall right before sitting down to do a work project that got pulled at the last second leaving me with gas in the tank and nothing to spend it on, so I hyper-fixated like a boss and pounded out a literal 13K in six hours expounding on my theories for where I think Hickman was actually going. And what his intended Third Act was all along. And what the entire line is building towards if in fact they are keeping to his outline as they insist. And like. Other stuff. It was LONG, yo.

And then I fell into a rabbit hole of examining what the actual themes and underlying messages of all his major story beats suggest IMO and how its totally the exact OPPOSITE of what most of the people who wish he stayed so he could write 'and it all falls down' usually assume was his actual intention....and to be completely honest its also pretty opposite from what I was thinking until I literally just changed my mind too - but like I think the usual interpretation of what he was doing with Krakoa and Moira and Inferno might actually have everything totally backwards? Which could be just me projecting as much as anyone else does, but also if I'm right could end up being fucking HILARIOUS instead. Anyway, the really funny part to me is all of that came out of me posting an initial reaction to this thread, cocking my head and going huh as something I hadn't considered before occurred to me....and then the train left the station and 13K later here we are.

So like, the specific source of the LULZ, especially considering how much (and which posters in particular) hate this fucking arc with a vengeance and are like 'wtf Orlando' for even coming up with it let alone devoting his first year to this whole storyline....

Is I feel pretty confident that none of it is actually even Orlando's idea? Like, the 2099 elements are his own preferences and flavoring, I suspect. But I'd bet anything right now that Threshold was Hickman's idea and a key part of his outline and integral to his proposed Act Three. Its not like, the actual END goal of what he was building towards, I don't think, that was a specific climax I've got a hunch about too, but Threshold's entire story and concept is IMO actually entirely born of his Third Act and crucial to it, and Orlando's literally just writing the part of Hickman's outline that the X-Offices wanted his book to tackle.

But like I said, ridiculous essay is truly absurd even by my standards and it'd like, probably take a literal seven posts because I was working it out in my head as I was writing so I got a bit....flowy with my musing lol and of course I'm not going to post it here and I'm just debating whether or not its worth making a whole thread just to dump it in and also the inevitable 'I'm not reading all that' stuff. And by debating I mean of course I'm going to DO it, like I literally have no self-control and I already wrote it and also I do not take constructive criticism so I have immunity, duh. Soooo...yeah. I'm probably gonna go do that unless I don't and it only just occurred to me that I probably should at least say something relevant to this thread because I did enjoy this a lot, actually, and not just because I'm a slut for Cerebra. (The biological/organic but still fictional version, not the robot version of course. I'm no Madison Jeffries. I don't say 'microplastics' nearly often enough, for starters).

Anyway, I unabashedly love the 2099 universe and characters and so am beyond hyped to see Cerebra used in the present day. I hope she sticks around for a good long while. And given how much time-traveling this team is doing and the fact that the comics have ALWAYS made a point to stress how Shakti is basically an organic version of Cerebro...I'm betting Orlando intends to extend that similarity to her discovering she can back-up the consciousnesses of other mutants the Marauders meet while time-traveling...as long as they grab a strand of hair or something to take with them on their way back to the present, they can thus resurrect any mutant from an alternate timeline. Thus by introducing Cerebra (most likely to serve a specific plot function in wrapping up the Threshold storyline, or to resurrect key Threshold mutants in the present day), I think Orlando's also backdoored his way into being able to bring back any XSE characters he might want to, like Shard. I'd bet anything that at the very least Shard does come back in his run, with him using Shakti to do it. If I'm wrong and he doesn't actually have any plans to use Shakti to bring back Shard, then like....whoops, but also I think he should still do it anyway.

I also thought that this was a possibility. The idea of the first generation of mutants was Hickman's creation right at the very beginning in HOX/POX, not Orlando's, he just picked it up and went to explore it. It was also Hickman -according to Orlando- who encouraged him to go this route and make his story big and to be on the forefront. The X-Office/Hickman said that they planned the stories for the X line for the next couple of years together, and that they're still on the paths of Hickman's plans.



Also some interesting things Orlando said in a recent podcast:
Looks like Marauders will have a big impact on Krakoa(actually Orlando was saying this from the very beginning), and it will affect other books too!

- "You'll see Al touches a little bit on politics and stuff in X-Men Red, which is related to stuff we're doing in Marauders.

- A lot is coming and there are revelations that are going to reflect not just in Marauders but in X-Men, in Krakoa in general, provided we stick to the landing
which we're trying hard to do.

- You're gonna find out new ways that things are connected that hopefully come as an exciting surprise and its gonna be in Marauders.

- We will reward you with foundational revelations about Krakoa.

- You'll be able to get in on page 1 with a huge new part of X-Men lore and you could be there when it starts. So I would get on the ?spot? if you're not reading it."

[Devaishwarya]

All well and good but...a pity his storytelling isn't as clear as his intensions and Carlini's art just makes it even more obtuse, visually.

[Hulkout42]

How does all this tie into the box from Hellfire Gala vol1, that Mystique uses to get Emma's vote in Inferno, which leads to the Marauders Annual?

Eh, i didn't care enough about to pay it any attention, or else i would tell you.

[Sutekh]

How does all this tie into the box from Hellfire Gala vol1, that Mystique uses to get Emma's vote in Inferno, which leads to the Marauders Annual?

In a more cogently written story, Kitty would have requisitioned a Mysterium box and left herself the clue back in time to be discovered 'later' and set off this whole chain of events, basically leaving herself a clue to kickstart the whole shebang. But the writer doesn't appear to have watched a Bill & Ted movie, and this might be expecting too much.

[Thirteen]

So, Daken is no more now? Now it's...Akihiro aka Fang? I dig the new costume, and I get Daken is a slur, but man....Fang?

Daken is a slur? (for a moment I thought that was a typo for "slut" because...y'know...Daken). But wrt to the slur aspect, what does it mean that's offensive (in terms approved by the Comics Code Authority if possible)?
And, yeah the way that the Fang costume is depicted in that Peach Momoko cover, the neck detailing makes it look totally like "Yellow Panther".

Aurora fights the Kin Crimson and uses a Storm-like lightning with her light power(this is new)

I was wondering about that...WTF? Are they extending her powers to controlling borealis type phenomena as a literal extension of her namesake? Also her X-Factor design doesn't seem to be playing as well as a Marauder, I wonder if a redesign is coming for her as well. She'd rock a "pirate wench" look.

I thought this was cute lol. Aurora giving Storm a shoutout haha.

this whole thing felt so botched. From calling him Nemesis instead of Holocaust.

The name Holocaust was basically scrubbed from the character's history out of respect for the Jewish Holocaust and public outcry when the AOA characters started getting toys. "Dark Nemesis" was born. Soft retcon, methinks...

[Sutekh]

The writers seem to be leaning into Aurora's powers changing somehow. When she was resurrected in X-Factor, a point was made that her powers were reverted to their original state, where she only generated a flash of bright light when she touched her brother, and not the slower-flying 'doesn't-detect-as-a-mutant' state where she could generate light solo.

But in this book, she seems to have her light-generation back, and more, besides, since it seems to actually do stuff, and not just be 'bright light.' Who knows. Tempo's powers, originally just to slow down others and use that stolen speed to speed up herself and her allies, seems to have evolved to 'generic timey-wimey stuff' like Tempus (aging people, time travel, stasis beams, whatever), so maybe it's just the way things go in comic-book land. Anybody with some specific unique power of their own is going to gradually turn into every other character with an even vaguely-related power, just like how anyone with even a vaguely telepathic adjacent power eventually becomes a full telepath and can do anything Xavier can do.

[Frobisher]

this whole thing felt so botched. From calling him Nemesis instead of Holocaust. To showing Acolytes that were never on Avalon or dead.

Why is there someone called Nemesis who looks exactly like Holocaust? Didn’t understand that at all.

[Thirteen]

Why is there someone called Nemesis who looks exactly like Holocaust? Didn’t understand that at all.

Before he became the contained energy being, he had a "human" form as Apocalypse's son, Nemesis, in AOA. When they stopped using the name Holocaust, they reverted to his former name, sometimes adding "Dark" to it...
https://uncannyxmen.net/characters/holocaust
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Nemesis_(Earth-295)
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/holocaust/4005-15071/

[Grunty]

Before he became the contained energy being, he had a "human" form as Apocalypse's son, Nemesis, in AOA. When they stopped using the name Holocaust, they reverted to his former name, sometimes adding "Dark" to it...

Makes me wonder why they didn't went with "Genocide" instead? It basicly carries the same nasty implication of being a destructive powerfull evil being, but is more a general term, rather than commonly refering to a specific case in history.

It would also match the theme naming of Apocalpyse and his Four Horsemen much more (essentialy all named after events which cause massive suffering and destruction), whereas Nemesis refers to a specific personal or arch enemey (also being the name of a female goddess of retribution in Greek mythology).

And if that was still too problematic there could have been plenty of other biblic or destructive terms they could have picked.

[BobbysWorld]

In a more cogently written story, Kitty would have requisitioned a Mysterium box and left herself the clue back in time to be discovered 'later' and set off this whole chain of events, basically leaving herself a clue to kickstart the whole shebang. But the writer doesn't appear to have watched a Bill & Ted movie, and this might be expecting too much.

I mean, the story's explicitly continuing in the next arc with them actually going back to Threshold, so I don't think that Orlando left that out so much as the part where that happens literally just hasn't happened yet. Its too early in events for her doing that to actually be relevant and have any real effect....she only needs a mysterium box as of the jump back to Threshold.