X-Lapsed, Episode 187 – Marauders #19 (2021)
X-Lapsed, Episode One Hundred Eighty-Seven
Marauders #19 (June, 2021)
“Fire & Ice”
Writer – Gerry Duggan
Art – Stefano Caselli
Colors – Edgar Delgado
Letters – VC’s Ariana Maher
Design – Tom Muller
Head of X – Hickman
Edits – Bissa, White, Cebulski
Cover Price: $3.99
On-Sale: April 7, 2021
In which the Marauders look for a loophole around their United Nations ruling! It’s a story of flaming ice sculptures, sewage, vomit, and Morlocks!
Also: X-Cellent Mailbag and a teensy bit of X-News!
F.A. Comics History: Let’s meet Bliss!
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Twitter: @acecomics / Instagram: @90sxmen
I've exhausted Marvel Unlimited so I'm back in the future listening to episodes about comics I actually bought. I'm really not enjoying the Madripoor storyline in Marauders. I want to see them swashbuckling around the oceans not constantly on one island.
The most interesting part of this story was the choice of Morlocks and your fake-ass comics history of Bliss. I was there for that original Morlocks storyline with Jean's tentacles and the rotating artists but I was not familiar with any of other appearances.
Claremont seemed to really like body horror and Alien references (see also the Brood) so you can see where he got Bliss from but I'm amazed that anyone brought her back. Having said that isn't it interesting that the group of Morlocks who were selected were mainly from the era when Masque was the Morlock leader. That must be leading somewhere.
As for your discussion of Sabretooth's fate and the Morlocks knowledge of it, I'm not surprised that Morlocks know where Sabretooth is at all times – he's pretty much their arch-enemy. Don't forget the two Liefeld guys you mention first appeared in a Sabretooth story.
I also don't understand why being in a sewer made Kitty sick. She's spent a lot of time in sewers in old stories and seemed perfectly at home. Yes she was sick when she first visited the Morlocks but that was Plague/Pestilence rather than disgust. Also surely she phased through any microbes. I mean I think the entire X-Men lived with the Morlocks after leaving San Francisco when Freedom Force first appeared. Are they trying to convince us that Madripoor has worse sewers than New York? It seems unlikely.
By the way I like to imagine that the Fire and Ice sculpture was a series of tableaux from the romance novels Pyro used to write in the 80s. Is there any consensus on who they were dragging with the Fire and Ice stuff? I'm choosing to believe that it's aimed at George RR Martin and not at Giffen and DeMatteis.