Marauders, Vol. 2

Marauders (2022)

by Steve Orlando, Andrea Broccardo (Illustrator), Eleonora Carlini (Artist)

As A.X.E. makes waves, the Marauders hold on for survival! The Progenitor has risen, and - like the rest of the world - the crew will face judgment! Who among them was able to justify their existence? Who among them failed? And just how excited is Orchis for a chance to scapegoat mutants for Earth's brush with Celestial destruction? Plus: Captain Kate Pryde promised to help mutants in need, no matter where they are or when. But can the Marauders rescue an entire civilization in the past without erasing the future? Perhaps with an assist from one of the greatest X-Men of 2099?! When the Threshold Three are revealed and take their place in Krakoa, the shocking secrets of the first mutants may upend all of history! All this...and Detective Lockheed! Collecting Marauders (2022) #7-12 and X-Men: Before the Fall - Mutant First Strike #1

Genres: Comics, X Men, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Superheroes, Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

Published August 29, 2023

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 2 out of 5]

So apparently this iteration of the Marauders is a well known bomb, and I can see why. I finished this volume this morning and I've already forgotten the details! The faux-manga art is horrible and reminds me of the manga-esque excesses of the 1990s. It's the inane smiles on everyone's faces that really riles me up! I don't even recognise the personalities of any of the cast, even Lockheed's is incompatible with his pats appearances :D. A book well and deservedly cancelled by Marvel at the end of this volume. The only thing worth reading is for the ongoing story of Genosha, Cassandra Nova and Kitty's leadership skills. Two Star, 5 out of 12 read.

2025 read

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, now I see why everyone has disliked Steve Orlando's Marauders. The first volume was dense, but mostly engaging. This volume, on the other hand, is obtuse. Kitty Pryde feels bad about the mutant Threshold society (2 billion years in the past) having been wiped out, even though it, y'know, occurred 2 billion years in the past.

Thus begins a mad quest to go to the past and defeat multiple insane enemies (mutant bacteria??), followed by an even madder quest to use Genosha's dead to birth Threshold's mutants even further in the past. Essentially, the plot in this volume sees the entire mutant race seeded by Kitty Pryde. It's a lot.

There's one interesting twist (The Threshold leader, Grove, is revealed to be Okkara, tying together the Threshold society with all the Krakoa/Arakko history we're more familiar with), but Marauders is otherwise thoroughly skippable. If any of this matters in the long-run for Fall of X, I'll be pissed.

Even worse, the hyperkinetic art is impossible to follow in action scenes, particularly if you're trying to follow Orlando's endless train of nonsense dialogue. Glad this run is over.

[johnny ♡ · Rating 1 out of 5]

this sucks. give me back 2019 marauders now.

[Tom Ewing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Steve Orlando’s Marauders already has the reputation of an all time bomb, and the criticisms of it aren’t wrong. It tries to fit in about twice as many things as it can actually manage, and that’s before you factor in Orlando’s penchant for using the most obscure elements of mutant marginalia. (This is a comic where Maggott appears for a scene and I don’t think “oh wow they used Maggott”, I think “thank god, a familiar face”)

Meanwhile the stuff that is happening is often wilfully obscured by the art and storytelling. There IS a big picture story here and seemingly jarring elements do pay off but the creative team seem set on making sure you don’t notice it. (I’m also not sure anyone has thought through the implications of the big story, but that doesn’t matter so much as it’s as likely to be mentioned again as the Neo are. The who? Exactly.)

So Marauders is a chaotic mess that barely makes sense. But I’m inclined to defend it, for two reasons. Firstly it’s genuinely unpredictable and packed with incident - its very rare these days to read a comic which ends up every month in a completely different place and seemingly plot from where it started. Marauders swashbuckles through continuity and lives up to its title.

Second, even if this example goes off the rails it’s an example of what I think the X-Books should be doing post Hickman: stressing less about the grand plan, hiring voicey writers and turning them loose on the X-Universe for a year or so. The Krakoa era is a one time opportunity for writers to play with whatever weird bits of continuity or favourite characters they want. Marauders feels more like Legion Of X in this regard, which is plainly a vehicle for Si Spurrier’s pet characters but equally plainly telling a big, sprawling ambitious tale that revels in the weirdest corners of mutantdom. Far better a failed version of that than another slow year of steady as she goes plotting a la Wolverine or X-Force.

[Sean · Rating 1 out of 5]

Steve Orlando takes the worst parts of the pretty bad first volume to give us one of the worst X-Titles in recent memory. The plot was beyond bad. How this passed the brainstorming phase is questionable at best. The team put together here was weak to start with and then there is no development and new characters added that are lacking. The art was also subpar and didn’t fit the book at all. Multiple panels where it was impossible to tell what was happening. This was abysmal. There was an unrelated issue that was collected at the end that was fine but this collection and story was awful. Overall, I’m so happy to not be reading it anymore.

[Tyler Jenkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!! Damn Marvel time travel! I can’t!! My mind is incapable of keeping track of all the nonsense that comes with Marvel time travel.

[Michael Church · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m being kind of generous with this rating, partially because I expected to hate it so much more than I did. Between the last volume being a huge miss and the fall off in quality from the creative team switch, I was bracing for a 1 star. While this wasn’t perfect, I enjoyed it a reasonable amount.

Kate still doesn’t feel like herself. There are still way too many characters who don’t get enough spotlight. The art is not my preferred style. But I’m a sucker for a closed time loop story, and that’s what we have here. If I think about it too much, I’ll probably decrease it to 2 stars, because it is kind of silly, but accepting the overall premise allows it to work.

Cassandra Nova was still a stupid pick for this team. Even with where it ends up, I hate that choice. It also undermines Krakoa in general because their chosen justice system supposedly can’t handle her, so then what’s the point of having that justice system instead of another one?

I didn’t love the new characters that were introduced, and I will be absolutely gobsmacked if they get used again any time soon. We learn next to nothing about who they are (we only have like 4 issues with them, and there were already 8 characters on this overstuffed team).

The rebranding of Daken/Fang is an exercise in futility. It’s not iconic enough to stick, it confuses him with another Wolverine clone that was the inspiration for an iconic Wolverine look, instead of giving Akihiro something new. On top of that, his arc in the story is barely there and seemed like a rushed way of trying to tie up some loose ends before the book was canceled. They practically ignore his relationship with Aurora, but do keep reminding us of his past with Somnus (maybe 1-2 times, but it was forced exposition I stead of character development).

I still absolutely love the concept of Somnus, but he has no purpose. He doesn’t get to do anything, and Steve Orlando has to keep finding excuses for him to be on the team, and they all boil down to him being a diet telepath, something that we have an abundance of in the X-Men line.

Aurora’s main contribution is in the form of an X-Factor examinations rip off where Birdy (the girl who followed Sabertooth around in the 90s before he killed her) does “psychic therapy” with the team. They claim it’s months of work in the span of 10 minutes, but each character gets 2 pages to relate what they saw with the Progenitor during Judgment Day. Hardly doing any deep work or reflection on their part.

That also showcases a stylistic choice from Orlando that annoyed me through the whole volume. Almost every page ended with an ellipsis in a dialogue bubble which carried over to the next page turn to finish the dialogue or thought. It was completely unnecessary 90% of the time, as that is most useful as a button on specific scenes or to show some sort of thematic irony connection between disparate plot points.

The main things I did like were the hopeful tone that this title received thanks to Issue 12 and the ending. I liked what this did for mutant kind and providing some closure while also cleaning up some questions that the book itself raised. Like I said, I’m a sucker for a closed time loop, and this one landed for me. It won’t for everyone.

The last issue, for Before the Fall, was also really up my alley. A team of X-Men helps a town to recover from a disaster. It shows how mutants can really be heroes when they have the resources and ability to work together and get to where they are needed. It was a really refreshing look at heroics in the Marvel universe. That said, Orlando still made some baffling choices, like Cyclops using his optic blasts against a bunch of civilians (albeit hostile ones) while the whole purpose of the mission was to avoid and undo some bad press.

So that’s why it got the middle of the road for a score. I didn’t like it in the details, but the overall themes landed for me.

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gotta get back....in time!
(That's right, kiddos. It's another X-Men time travel story arc. You love em'. You hate em'. Let's go!)

This one is going to get confusing. Kate Pryde has her new team of Marauders and boy are they an eclectic group. They get some dream-state therapy courtesy of Birdie (she's still around?) and get past their trauma and past issues. Nice, right? Could be. Have to figure out how Cerebra (an X-Men 2099 survivor. [Thanks, Cable.]fits into this group)

Guess it all comes down to the puzzle box that Kate Pryde has. It's billions of years old and contains some of the earliest recorded mutants. If you can open the box, you might learn a key piece of history that current generations of mutants have never known. Easy? Hardly.
-------------
Wow, this is a rollercoaster of a book. Luckily, the characters are all set up to be tied integrally to the plot. The art has shifted to more of a manga style and it fits in well with this weird time jump. Time travel stories are getting TOO popular, but this one was spun in such a way that it is still a page turner.

Bonus: The only good use for Tempo on a X-Men team is for these time jumps. Smart thinking!
Bonus Bonus: Akihiro, Daken, and now Fang. New name, new..personality?
Pseudo Bonus: Somnus, the most closeted mutant to get another chance at life with a resurrection...
MEGA Bonus: Dirtnap?! Seriously??

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Orlando's first volume of Marauders was horrible.

Much to my surprise, he manages to clean up some of that mess in V2. He actually explains what's going on with Threshold in a meaningful way by answering the questions that should have actually been asked in the first volume. And clarifies that it's actually in the past of Earth, which obviously makes it more meaningful — and is something that wasn't at all clear to me from V1. In the end, his story of Threshold's creation would actually have been touching and important in the hands of a more skilled writer.

But, his writing continues to be pretty mediocre, and that's even more on display in the Before the Fall story that ends this volume, which is a big muddy mess of nothing.

And the art, oh the art is really, really bad. We get a guest artist for #6 who doesn't know how to draw a nose. Seriously, look at the first image of Kitty. Her nose is in line between her right eye and mouth. Once you see that, you can't unsee the rest of the nasal problems in the comic. Then the rest of the volume looks like low-quality anime.

Bleh. I hope this is the last volume of this mess.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Se você considera Chuck Austen o ponto mais baixo que os X-Men poderiam chegar, é porque você ainda não conhece os Carrascos de Steve Orlando. Sim, aqui os X-Men encontram o seu pior escritor de todos e não sou só eu quem diz isso, mas a grande maioria dos reviews do GoodReads. Dando continuidade ao estrago que fez no primeiro volume de Carrascos, Orlando quer ser grandiloquente inventando uma raça alienígena que já era mutante éons antes de o planeta Terra existir, mas falha incrivelmente. Os desenhos lembram a fase ruim de Chuck Auster, quando os X-Men tomavam um estilo mangá por Kya Asamiya. Carrascos é X-Men tentando ser com muita força algo distante do que os X-Men são. Eles não são mangás e nem Eram os Deuses Astronautas. Eles são comics que trazem elementos de ficção científica para lidar com temas que preocupam a contemporaneidade. Não dá pra inventar a roda, Steve Orlando. Me desculpa se você também é do vale, mas não tá mais funcionando pra mim. Tá difícil, amiga, melhore.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Steve Orlando wraps his Marauders run with a trip to the future, a revisiting of Threshold, Genosha, and an appearance by Sublime and his sister Arkea.

There's a lot going on in these six issues, but it does all wrap up fairly neatly at the end as the time-travelly nature of this series means that we have to close the loop. Everything comes full circle, for better or worse for those involved. I did hope Cassandra Nova might have gotten a better ending, for example.

I wasn't quite as enthused with the Fall Of X one-shot, that's basically about the Marauders dealing with a routine mission. It's fine, but it feels safe after the last twelve issues of time and space travel shenanigans, and it doesn't feel very Fall Of X-y either.

Okay, but not great. Basically like the last volume, I guess. Points for trying something new, but I do think the previous Marauders run was much better.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

The primary focus of this Volume is to "establish the origins of Krakoa". Through a very long story (that got a little confusing at points and read more like Grant Morrison, ie overcomplicated for complications sake), modern day Krakoan mutants are able to send genetic material (90% from the lost of Genosha, 10% of current members of Marauders) back in time to be the catalyst that starts Threshold, a prehistoric fully mutant society, learned of by recent resurrections of 3 mutants who were alive to live in Threshold.
Two other stories: 1) Mutant psychologist session post-A.X.E. and 2) Marauders and X-Men working together to overcome an Orchis attack on a city, making the destruction look like the X-Men did it.
Overall, the Volume was good, if a little long. Very happy to be working toward finally reading Sins of Sinister and getting into "Fall of X".
Recommend.

[Khurram · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this book is in the wrong format. This is a huge story with too many things, characters, and histories (past and future) for one comic volume. Even with full text pages in every issue/chapter. With how ambitious (over complex), the story was this need to be a novel.

What is or was the Treashold, the riddle of the "First Blood Spilt" and the seed solved. Is everyone where they need to be, and old scores are settled.

Part of my disappointment of this book is I mainly get it as it is the only X book with Psylocke (not Betsy), but with so much and so many people in the book her and everyone was a bit list in the book. This book is huge and might be the start of the fall of X. The book finishes with a cover gallery.

[Joey Nardinelli · Rating 2 out of 5]

I used to like Marauders back when they felt more like an X-Men version of the Thunderbolts. Carlini’s art here is pretty solid in 6/8 issues, but Orlando’s writing and character work is just so deeply tedious. I felt adrift with all the stuff about Threshold, Kitty’s dad, Genosha, Cassandra, and even the one-off ending issue that could have been a really neat look at how the Krakoan mutants continue to engage with hearts and minds of humanity. It all felt undercooked, underscripted, and just so tedious to read through. A low point in my Marvel X-Men-related reading of late when the curve on scores seems to be going down overall too.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

all the treshhold stuff was so boring im ngl,,, like the whole thing of making up for genosha with a brand new society two billion years back ??? very cool concept. somehow executed about as badly as it could be. this is so dense and boring

also can we like. stop. doing that(tm) to polaris. zero acknowledgment of her dad being dead. zero acknowledgment of her trauma from surviving genosha. and the bit with her having a coffee cup in every panel was cute until like the 4th time. now caffeine and being the "second best thing after magneto" is her whole personality. like please. let her GO

2 stars just cuz that extra comic was cute and kinda shows what krakoa is about imo

[Charles Korb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is bananas. I think Steve Orlando read a book on great extinction events and it inspired him to write a story around the first one. Unfortunately for him and us he is otherwise writing a modern superhero story.

Just last volume we were treated to a lecture from tempo about how her time travel changes the timeline so we have to use it very carefully but now instead we're doing the "there's only one timeline and it includes the time travel" approach and we use it to maybe start life on Earth.

The mutant first strike story was a little cute but at some point became closer to a roll call.

[Sam Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a two star book, yall need to chill out.

Similar to what I said about volume 1, Orlando is a character writer, not a plot writer. The plot really was all over the place, but god damn he is great with writing these characters. If only he’d focused more on the characters that we know and care about instead of introducing characters from the past and future. It’s fine to want to introduce new players, but not when you already have an overflowing cast. I still have to say he’s one of my all time favorite authors for Akihiro (Fang).

[Garrett Ballendine · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a bad book.
The writing was completely all over the place with zero concept of pacing. New characters are introduced so fast you don't even get to meet the character who was introduced a page earlier.

The Manga style also fell flat as half the comics cast was in identical uniforms so even the reader didn't know who was talking half the time.

I'm all for exploration and attempting new things, but have a plan.

[Afreen Aftab · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man, that was a weird and useless storyline that doesn't even make sense. All those mutants with those gifts and none of their usage makes any sense. So tempo can take a whole crew back in time (with no repercussions btw) but can't turn back time on a skull? The build-up with that mysterium box and the pay of was this?
The 'Mutant First Strike' comic was probably the reason this got at least 2 stars.
Also half way through the volume why does everyone look like they're related to Cassandra?

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved much of the first Marauders run in the Krakoan Age and still like many of the characters in this arc, but it came across very messy. I struggled to keep up with the huge cast and sprawling storyline, which was far-fetched even for comics. I really wanted to like it but it just didn't hit for me.

One saving grace, though, was the art. It's quirky, dynamic and colourful, and always enjoyable to look through.

[Litter Bug · Rating 1 out of 5]

“No no listen there was an even older and even more secret ancient society of mutants and it’s actually even more compelling than any other secret ancient mutant societies. You can tell it's so much cooler and better because of all the useless complex lore I've added and also the way I've refused to do absolutely anything with 90% of the characters."

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gems include the return of Judas Traveller, the resurrection of Threshold 3, Cassandra learns about the lost planet Teeamu, Aurora does Quebecois science, Cassandra surrenders to warring bacteria, Fang plays ball, & Shadowcat ghostdraws

[Mariano Hortal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lectura 281 Marauders vol 2 de Orlando/Carlini y otros
Parece mentira que la primera etapa de Marauders fuera de mis favoritas con todo lo de Krakoa... esto último es muy indigesto. Este Fall of X va acser una caida a todos los niveles
2/5

[Craig · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really dull, boring, and unnecessary story (why are we trying to save mutants billions of years in the past? it doesn't make any sense). And the artwork is mostly frenetic and ugly. I checked out about 2/3 of the way through this monstrosity...

[Fazun · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

[Andres Pasten · Rating 1 out of 5]

Y se pudo lograr que el vol 2 fuese peor que el primero. Leer esto fue un aburrimiento eterno. Ni la sombra de los Marauders de Duggan.

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too many ideas packed into too small a space, with an overly frenetic artist and dialogue that seems at times deliberately confusing. Falls short of expectations.

[Fiona · Rating 2 out of 5]

can't believe this series started out so fun and then ???

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

This stunk.

[Ben · Rating 1 out of 5]

Writing and art was incomprehensible.