X-Lapsed, Episode 103 – Marauders #12 (2020)
X-Lapsed, Episode One Hundred and Three
Marauders #12 (November, 2020)
“The New Phase”
Writer – Gerry Duggan
Art – Matteo Lolli
Colors – Edgar Delgado
Letters – VC’s Cory Petit
Design – Tom Muller
Head of X – Hickman
Edits – Robinson, Amaro, White, Cebulski
Cover Price: $3.99
On-Sale: September 9, 2020
We tease her a lot… cuz we got her on the spot – Welcome Back, Kitty!
Yes, friends – Call Me Kate is back… re-tatted, and ready for revenge – which might have to be put on hold so we can sidebar into #EcksofTens. Let’s talk about it!
Also: Our X-Cellent Mailbag features some… kind words regarding Empyre-colon-X-Men??? All that, and much more – You won’t wanna miss it!
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@acecomics / @cosmictmill / 90sxmen@gmail.com
It's really interesting when we disagree on an issue. It makes me wonder if you read Excalibur 24 way back in 1990.
Since that issue I have been waiting for Kitty to be presented as bisexual so this issue feels like a culmination of 30 years of waiting.
This means Marauders 12 takes on an almost talismanic significance for me. I was 15 and closeted when I read that issue which featured Kitty being seduced by a woman on her 15th birthday. Looking back with adult eyes it's pretty creepy but at the time it was thrilling.
The scenes that Duggan wrote with Illyana and Rachel and then the kiss have made the subtext into text. The day that I read this I went online and sent thank you messages to Gerry Duggan and Jordan White. This has so much personal significance that I can't really judge it objectively as a comic.
What I loved most is the fact that the resurrected Kitty has frizzy hair and a star of David. She is reclaiming her true self and while she is repeating the behaviours of Marauders 2 it is with more control and focus. I'd still prefer that she didn't get a tattoo but I feel like the same behaviour has a different meaning. In issue 2 it was about loss of control and putting on a persona whereas in issue 12 it reflects acceptance of who she is and determination.
I think I've proved that half of what we get out of our comics is what we bring to the book.
Onto other elements of the story, I like the way that the anecdote about Kitty rejecting Storm because of a haircut is repeated continuously. It gives an authentic feeling of a found family teasing each other. I know my friends and family tease me about stupid things I said and did as a teenager. It makes it more real.
I loved the way Duggan framed Storm's call and response with Kitty as personal rather than religious. It has a very different feeling to how it was presented in HOXPOX. Storm is Storm, not an automaton.
In conclusion this was my favourite comic of 2021 and it will be one of those that resonates with me for years.