When was the last time you laughed out loud reading a comic book? I can tell you that for me, it was last Wednesday morning as I was reading Gerry Duggan’s Marauders.
Marauders #2
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Matteo Lolli
As part of the new Dawn of X line-up, Marauders finds Captain Kate Pryde (formally Kitty) leading a band of X-Men (Storm, Iceman, Pyro and Bishop) across the proverbial Seven Seas, helping to transport mutants to Krakoa from regions where their governments won’t allow them to leave, while also working with the Hellfire Club, as led by Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw, a duo with a history.
There is so much fun being had in this particular issue, from Iceman’s quips and Kate’s increasingly intoxicated actions to the conflict between Frost and Shaw when it comes to the appointment of a new Red Queen. Duggan has the tone for all the characters perfectly nailed, and I was consistently laughing at the team’s antics. Each X-Man gets their moments to shine throughout the issue, which isn’t always easy when you’re working with such a large group of characters. Artist Matteo Lolli is on point throughout the issue, and I absolutely love his design for Captain Kate, long one of my favourite mutants.
If there’s a particularly shining moment in Marauders #2 that speaks to the book’s strengths, it’s the group’s layover in Taipei, where’s tattoos, booze and some subtle lovin’ is the order of the day. In the other Dawn of X books, there’s a lot of real drama going on, including the sudden assassination of Charles Xavier. While I’m enjoying the interconnectivity of these books, and genuinely crave more, Marauders is so well crafted that having it feel a little more removed from all the goings-on in other X-books is not a bad thing.
When Marauders #2 ends with the revelation we could all see coming, it’s done in such a great, entertaining manner that it doesn’t matter how telegraphed it was. All hail the new Red Queen!
