There’s a lot going on right now in the world of the X-Men in Marvel Comics. Last week saw the launch of Jonathan Hickman’s new X-Men series, in which Cyclops is leading the team of Mutants to protect their newfound home on Krakoa. Now, we have a new team being assembled.
Kitty (sorry, Kate now) Pryde has been chosen for a very important job for the future of mutantkind in the first issue of the new series – “Marauders.”
A great deal of mutants are now safe on Krakoa and the X-Men are going to continue to work to keep it that way. But what about those who haven’t been able to get their? They’re still being mistreated by humans and are unable to get to Krakoa. That’s where Kate comes in.
Emma Frost, the incredibly powerful telepath and longtime member of the X-Men, has selected Kate to lead a new team of mutants who will help the remaining oppressed mutants around the world to get to Krakoa. She calls this new group of heroes, the Marauders.
If I’m being honest, this is my new favorite part of this massive X-Men event that has been going since the launch of “House of X” back in July. To this point, the story has pretty much been the same old X-Men story we’ve been used to. Mutants looking for a safe home, Humans fear them, it all leads to a fight. But now we have a team of X-Men-turned-pirates sailing around the world, rescuing stranded mutants. How could this not be awesome?
To make it even cooler, the lineup on this team is great. With Kate Pryde leading a group that includes Storm, Iceman and Pyro, while Emma Frost is pulling the strings behind the scenes, this has all the pieces for a really fun series.
Not to mention, Kate doesn’t get the credit she deserves as a truly awesome comic book character. Most people know her as the girl who ran through walls in some of those X-Men movies. The ability to phase through solid objects can be much more useful than that though. Writer Gerry Duggan and artist Matteo Lolli make sure you see that in this first issue.
What I really like about “Marauders #1” is how it plays its role in the huge, ongoing X-Men story, while still allowing readers to focus in on this small group of characters. There are elements of the issue that seem as though they’ll come back in a big way in the future of other series, but the main focus is on Kate and her team.
This is certainly a great start to an exciting new series. The only thing it’s missing is a major villain, or even a tease of one to play the role of the main antagonist down the line, Surprisingly though, it doesn’t need one. This story is interesting enough without one. It can focus on the Marauders taking on the humans to rescue other mutants and that would be enough. I wouldn’t be shocked though if we see some other, more ominous threats emerge in future issues.
Marvel’s “Marauders #1” is available now.