Ahoy, folks! Uh…avast ye scabbies? Look, I’m going to level with you here, that’s about the extent of my pirate lingo. What I’m trying to say is Hey! I’m taking over for WWAC’s Marauders coverage going forward, starting with the final pre-Hellfire Gala tale, Marauders #20. A rare Storm spotlight, it’s an issue I would love to say was a great farewell to the character, but it, unfortunately, fails to deliver on several fronts.
Marauders #20
Stefano Casseli (artist), Russell Dauterman (cover artist), Edgar Delgado (colorist), Gerry Duggan (writer), Cory Petit (letterer), Chris Sotomayor (colorist), Matthew Wilson (cover colorist)
Marvel Comics
May 5th, 2021
The entire issue follows the collective Marauders ensemble sharing one last dinner before the Hellfire Gala arrives and changes their world forever. Whatever plans are afoot for the event, Ororo is poised to play a pivotal role and is officially departing the cast of Marauders as a result. In her honor, her fellow teammates spend the evening telling stories in her honor. Given the relative minor role she has played in the book up to this point, with her only really notable spotlights being with Callisto’s crucible match and the X of Swords Wakanda heist, this celebration of Storm, unfortunately, ends up feeling like too little, too late.
That isn’t to say there aren’t worthwhile moments to be found here. Even at its worst, Marauders has maintained a good flow of endearing character moments that help elevate things above utter mediocrity, and this issue is no exception. From the fun running bet on how many knives Storm has hidden on her person by everyone at the dinner to a surprisingly touching moment between Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw of all people, there’s some satisfying meat to be found here even if it is amongst a largely empty story.
The actual stories about Storm go for various satisfying emotional swings, such as having her free an Indian mutant from indentured servitude or beating the holy hell out of Hate-Monger, but for various reasons fail to connect beyond a shallow surface level. Following through on the mission statement of the Marauders as rescuers of mutants in nations that refuse to play ball with Krakoa should be a good thing, but by tying the new mutant, Lash, to the now thoroughly visited well of India as a bastion of mutant bigotry it contributes to a problematic trend in X-Books. While India absolutely has societal issues worth noting, the continued focus on it, beginning in Tom Taylor’s X-Men: Red, as a real-world nation home to a billion people, as a shallow source of racist villains by white writers is something that needs to be addressed and, ideally, just stopped outright.
Similarly, the beat down of Hate-Monger is a viscerally satisfying fight scene well-rendered by Casseli’s regularly outstanding composition and expression work, but is thoroughly undercut by the myriad of problems with both Storm and Marauders clumsy handling of racial commentary in previous issues. Storm has spent the bulk of the Krakoan age playing a passive role in half a dozen different books, even those meant to spotlight her like Giant-Size X-Men: Storm, and being plagued by the now infamous coloring issues that plague characters of color across the board at Marvel.
In Marauders itself, the series has stumbled when handling sensitive topics, such as the complete absence of Kate’s queer identity following Marauders #12 and the execution of her funeral-by-flame in the issue prior, but most recently dipped into a particularly messy well by having Bishop very literally throwing his hands up and asking the newly born Reavers to not shoot before immediately getting shot and returning fire with his mutant abilities. In the hands of a Black writer, Bishop’s nature as a somewhat bullet, or laser in this case, proof protector of mutantkind could be a fascinating concept but given Gerry Duggan’s status as a white as hell white dude, it can’t help but feel like an upsetting line to cross. All of this baggage can’t help but weigh on this spotlight of Storm beating up a KKK-analogue villain and render any satisfaction beyond an appreciation of the art itself hard to find.
The moments that do truly feel celebratory of Storm as a character are, unsurprisingly, grounded in her history with other members of the cast. Callisto’s love and respect for her sister-in-arms manifesting in refusing to play the How Many Knives game and calling back to their Crucible match and her rebirth is genuinely effective and solidifies the pair as one of Marauders‘ greatest successes as a book. Similarly, Emma revealing that Storm’s previous confrontation and helping hand in the original Hellfire Club Saga way back in Uncanny X-Men #152 played a pivotal role in her eventual heroic turn is a satisfying bit of historical connective tissue to weave into the current plot.
Marauders #20 is a hell of a mixed bag, in the end. Stefano Caselli’s art is, as always, gorgeous and expressive, but the actually successful character beats are drowned out by a tidal wave of problematic storytelling choices and wheel-spinning hollow celebration of one of the series most underserved cast members. With the inevitable spotlight that will be cast on the Marauders cast as part of the Hellfire Gala, hopefully the series corrects its course during and after the event, because as it stands it’s a slowly sinking ship with too many problems to stand up against the heights of the rest of the X-Line.
