Set Sail With Captain Kitty In Marauders #1
by Josh Davison
[*Mild Spoilers Ahead!]
Kitty Pryde, Storm, and Nightcrawler are shepherding mutants from Central Park to the island nation of Krakoa through one of the portals. Things seem to be going well until Kitty herself tries to move through a portal, only to realize that, for some reason, it’s impassable for her and her alone. We rejoin Kitty a week later on a boat she stole to sail for Krakoa. She arrives to a welcome wagon from Iceman and Wolverine, the latter of whom is looking for a package from Kitty. Emma Frost contacts Kitty soon after via telepathy; she has an offer for Kitty. Many nations of the world are refusing to allow mutants to move through the Krakoa portals, and Emma thinks Kitty would be the ideal one to bring them home. Meanwhile, Iceman is almost killed when he goes through a portal to Russia, and Bishop is monitoring anti-mutant sentiment in Taiwan.
Marauders #1 continues the Dawn of X by showing us the expansiveness of the X-Men’s efforts to bring safety to mutants on Krakoa. In this particular tale, we see Kitty’s own troubles with Krakoa and the opportunity it offers for her to be the woman who can shepherd mutants to their new home.
Her inability to move through the portals goes unexplained in this issue, but we do get to see how her new mission in life kicks off.
Coincidentally, it heavily involves her old adversary, Emma Frost. It does, however, get to the core of what the X-Men are about now: saving mutants and giving them sanctuary.
The comic is equal parts political drama and slapstick comedy. Kitty gets knocked down a few pegs by her unexplained inability to pass through the portals, and a good deal of humor is made of that. However, we also get to see how mutants are being further oppressed by bigoted regimes and how the X-Men are going to resolve this crisis.
Matteo Lolli does a stellar job rendering the visuals of this tale. Kitty’s black eye and nose bandage almost become a visual trademark of the comic, but we still get to see her and the other new Marauders kick ass in visually gripping action scenes. Federico Blee backs it up with bright and popping color art that fills the story to the brim with vitality and life.
Marauders #1 is a fun and engaging first installment for this new X-Men series. We get to see how Kitty gets saddled with this particular mission, how she forms her team, and how needed they are even in the Dawn of X. This one definitely gets a recommendation. Give it a read.
Marauders #1 comes to us from writer Gerry Duggan, artist Matteo Lolli, color artist Federico Blee, letterer VC’s Cory Petit, cover artist Russell Dauterman with Matthew Wilson, and variant cover artist Mark Bagley with John Dell and Israel Silva; Aaron Kuder with Jordie Bellaire; Rick Leonardi with Richard Isanove; Tom Muller; Todd Nauck with Rachelle Rosenberg; Philip Tan with Jay David Ramos; and Russell Dauterman with Federico Blee.
Final Score: 9/10
