We’ve been holding out hope for Kate Pryde’s resurrection, but Marauders #11’s funereal cover has been preparing us for the worst.
Marauders #11
Erick Arciniega (colorist), Federico Blee (colorist), Stefano Caselli (artist), Russel Dauterman (cover artist), Gerry Duggan (writer), Tom Muller (design), VC’s Cory Petit (letterer)
Marvel Comics
August 12, 2020
The pages dedicated to Kate’s funeral are few, which seems like a disservice at quick glance, but I give credit to the whole creative team for the pithy and poignant decisions on who and what to have on those pages. This is one of the moments where longtime readers will appreciate the depths that have been mined to bring us to where we are in Dawn of X. From Kurt’s emotional opening letter, to the references in the datapage of Xavier’s brief eulogy, to the particular women standing at the forefront as her coffin is set adrift into the ocean, there is so much history compounded here. These few pages ring with emotion for fans of Kate Pryde who have felt her loss yet again and dreaded what her prolonged absence from the pages of Marauders has meant since her murder at the hands of the Black King, Sebastian Shaw, in issue #6.
The funeral itself is visually stunning. The colours are pared down throughout the whole issue to maintain the sombre tone. Everyone is in mourning, so of course, many are in black. Or rather, you suddenly realize how many of the X-Men’s costumes are black and therefore funeral appropriate. Otherwise, everyone except Emma Frost is in their mutant attire. Emma is as stylish as ever, though of course she’s not going to completely relinquish her white aesthetic. Nor has she given up her hope for Kate’s return, especially when Lockheed finally makes it home with the key to the Black King’s undoing.
This issue reveals a character that has come to be near and dear to me as their correspondences and investigations from the X-Desk. Their clandestine meeting with Storm was comforting. We have seen so much of the hate against what the mutants are attempting in Krakoa, so it’s nice to see some of the other side that this character’s correspondences have been building to.
Marauders continues to be Emma’s story, with Kate as a close supporting character. Nightcrawler, as one of Kate’s oldest friends, has had some moments to show us what that friendship means, but as Emma’s growing relationships are important and long overdue character development. We are finally seeing her get some female companionship that does not relate to who they are sleeping with, and getting to see Emma’s responses to those relationships has been powerful. We’ve also seen Emma’s wrath, and we get to see more of that in Marauders #11 as well. 
The White Queen doesn’t earn her icy status without good reason. Her emotional explosions are quickly tempered and her cunning mind shifts to planning and plotting that results in an unexpected shift in the tone of this issue. Marauders remains a game of chess and now it’s Emma’s turn to make her move.
