Return Of The Mutants: Reviewing ‘Marauders’ #25

In early 2020 as the pandemic was first hitting the United States and the rest of the world, there was a moment where the comic book industry basically ground to a halt. Distribution was down and it took a great many months for the industry to get out all the delayed books as schedules had to shift once distribution began again. This led to a time where a lot of plotlines had to change, and books had to find ways to plug the holes in the meantime.

This led to the feeling that some books were treading water or were aimless, but the reasons behind it were out of the control of those behind the books. Marauders was very much one of those books over much of the last year, but with these last two issues, the book seems to have really found its stride again.

At the same time, that doesn’t take away from criticisms levied against some of the issues that tried to tackle big issues that face marginalized groups in very ineffective or insensitive ways.

While the last issue very heavily was influenced and paid homage to Star Wars, the current issue picks up from the cliffhanger and takes things in a very interesting direction. Gerry Duggan uses this issue to showcase what each of the Marauders who are trapped in space can do with their powers and their knowledge. Essentially this issue is split down the middle between their fight for survival in space and Kate’s fight against Eden Rixlo to gain back the ship they stole from him that he stole back last issue.

This feels like the first issue in quite some time that focuses on many of the members of this cast and showcases their camaraderie.  When Duggan isn’t trying to tackle issues of assault or making glib racial tinged moments in his issues this book can really work. It’s a shame that a book that started so strong lost its way for some time (through reasons out of its control in most cases as noted above) and will be remembered for that since this volume is nearing its end before the year is out.

A space story still is a great one for Phil Noto to tackle, the very open style working well within the open void of space and the tight confines that the characters are relegated to this issue. Last issue he was able to bring a lot of life to our first real look at the very Mos Eisley-like part of Arakko pulling hard at the Star Wars influences. Here though we get some great emotional closeups from the characters as they fight to live as well as gorgeous renditions of their powers working in conjunction to achieve that survival.

There is very dynamic energy throughout the whole issue, especially in the scenes where we watch Kate and Rixlo fight. The scene of her leaping out of the ice and floating through space to the ship with her Kill Shaw tattooed fists leading the way was worth the issue cost alone. In fact, that fight had a lot of things that felt similar to her fight with Shaw so many issues ago but taken up quite a few notches.

Really solid lettering work is provided by Cory Petit, who knocks the ball out of the park every time, including getting to really go hard with a variety of colorful and distinct SFX through the issue. Every use of their powers or weapons comes with the SFX and adds a ton to the fun science fiction atmosphere of the issue.

At last, Marauders has seemingly found itself once more, but it comes just in time for the series to undergo a big creative change right around the corner.

Marauders #25 is now on sale in print and digitally from Marvel Comics.