Marauders #10
Written by Gerry Duggan
Art by Stefano Caselli and Edgar Delgado
Lettering by Cory Petit
Published by Marvel Comics
‘Rama Rating: 8 out of 10
It’s been a while since we last saw the Marauders, and this is a welcome return for Emma Frost’s merry band of mutants as they look to retrieve the one man who can recreate Forge’s old power-dampening technology. While the comic industry’s COVID-19-related delay certainly hasn’t helped the flow of this arc, writer Gerry Duggan’s meaningful approach to characterization is on full display here. Every part of the cast gets at least a small moment to shine and Duggan even uses the info pages to sow some intrigue. Artist Stefano Caselli turns in some good work here that’s highlighted by really great expressions across the issue, and that makes this chapter a net positive even if it feels like it’s over before it really gets going.
In a lot of ways, Marauders has become the platonic ideal of an X-Men title. It has an interesting cast, a tangible core concept, conflict that relates back to the line as a whole, and feels unique in terms of how that conflict is handled. Duggan’s ability to balance out powerful mutants like Emma Frost, Forge, Storm, Bishop, Pyro and Iceman by relating them back to Kate Pryde’s absence gives us as readers a foundation to draw from. And the still-mysterious nature of Krakoa forces characters to ask the same questions that we as readers have. Duggan’s ability to anticipate those questions and vocalize them through his cast makes the reading experience that much more enjoyable. We aren’t competing with these characters or rolling our eyes that they haven’t figured something out that we already knew. Instead, we are right there with them.
But where Dugan stumbles a bit is in his delivery of overarching themes inherent to the X-Men. Emma’s speech to the enemy ship’s captain about what’s going to happen to them now that the Marauders have taken over is a little overwrought and preachy. Given her use of mind-wiping telepathy, Emma is talking to someone who isn’t going to remember this conversation, and while I am onboard with the sentiment that she is expressing, it feels like an odd moment for her to savor. (Especially since we aren’t getting any sort of reaction from the captain.) I think Duggan and Caselli had an opportunity to make that bit more impactful but essentially don’t have the pages.
And it’s a shame that we don’t get to see the captain react to Emma more, because Caselli really nails this issue with his expression work. Caselli has been an artist that has evolved so much over the years. His linework has always been slick, but that sometimes gave it a somewhat posed quality that didn’t lend much energy to the pages. (This was particularly a problem when he was working on Amazing Spider-Man.) But over the course of his tenure on Marauders, I’ve seen Caselli loosen up quite a bit. The linework is still as slick as ever, but he’s varied his shot selection more and found ways to pose his characters that gives them more implied movement on the page.
Marauders is the kind of book that I didn’t realize I missed so much in its absence. Duggan has developed a great rapport between these characters and is doing his best to have his story as fully informed by this new era of X-Men as possible. (Though, it is odd that Kurt calls Kate “Katya” in his e-mail to her rather than “Katzchen.” Is Colossus borrowing Kurt’s computer?) Caselli is doing his part to make sure that Marauders feels like an essential X-title despite not technically having an X in the title. In a lot of ways, this is the platonic ideal of an X-Men book. It was missed.