REVIEW: Marauders # 1
Here’s my quick review for Marauders # 1 by Gerry Duggan with art by Matteo Lolli and Federic Blee
The second book to be released under the X-Men’s new and bold direction is definitely hitting the right chords. It stars fan-favorite characters like Iceman, Shadowcat aka Kitty Pryde, Storm, Emma Frost, Bishop, Pyro and Lockheed. It’s the X-Men roadtrip book without actual roads and neatly ties-in to the current story that Jonathan Hickman is developing for his X-Men book.
I’ll spare you the little details and you can check out what’s the main conflict for Marauders and we can do more on the technical aspects of this book.
Gerry Duggan can do lighthearted comedy books with a touch of drama and tension really well. He also likes his characters getting injured and brandishing swords. And while the new tennets of the mutant nation of Krakoa doesn’t allow the killing of human beings, it never said anything about badly injuring them and he writes those action scenes at the end beautifully having Kitty Pryde, now calling herself Kate Pryde, do all the butt-kicking.
He’s playing with a bunch of great characters too including Emma Frost and Storm, two characters that have been integral parts of the X-Men in different points in time and will never see eye-to-eye. There’s conflict but respect and trust though and he has Kitty play middleman.
I liked that we are also not forgetting that Bobby Draka aka Iceman is still gay and that he had a casual fling with the second mutant to call himself Pyro (which happened back in Marc Guggenheim’s X-Men Gold book).
The main problem is one that also circles back on Kitty; her inability to enter the portals that are being used in the island. Without this she’s effectively cut off from the X-Men and all the characters now inhabiting the island of Krakoa. Duggan and the rest of the team however gives this problem a sort of happy remedy, use this inability as a point for her to travel via ship.
I also have to commend the art of Matteo Lolli for the stellar art that we got for Marauders # 1. His is strong lines with beautiful faces. The colors rendered here are also top notch. There’s this scene with Pyro and Lockheed where they really showed strong art style that suites the book’s tone of adventure and high-seas risk.
Lastly, love that segment in Marauders # 1 where Kitty’s log reads “I’m the captain now”.
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