Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: deadpool, marauders, marvel, recaps, wolverine, X Of Swords, x-force, x-men, X-ual Healing - The Weekly X-Men Recap Column

Marauders #13 – In Which Someone Should Have Picked Up a Phone [XH]

Published Mon, 12 Oct 2020 18:30:54 -0500

by Jude Terror

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Four X-books were released by Marvel last week: Wolverine #6, X-Force #13, and Marauders #13 comprised three parts of the X of Swords crossover. I also cover Deadpool here in this column, even though Marvel doesn't really treat it like an X-book (even though it is). I read them all, so you don't have to. You're welcome!

Sworn to sell comics for Marvel executives who feared and hated the fact that Fox owned their movie rights, The Uncanny X-Men suffered great indignities. Still, thanks to a corporate merger, a line-wide relaunch, and Jonathan Hickman's giant ego, the X-Men can finally get back to doing what they do best: being objectively the best franchise in all of comics for lovers of soap opera drama.

MARAUDERS #13 XOS
AUG200611
(W) Vita Ayala (A) Matteo Lolli (CA) Russell Dauterman
X OF SWORDS, PART 5
A secret flight. A long journey. A Thief and a Queen.
Rated T+
In Shops: Oct 07, 2020
SRP: $4.99

Marauders #13 Recap

Kate Pryde gives Storm a pep talk as Storm prepares to go get her sword. Then we get a brief history of Skybreaker, a Wakandan sword made of vibranium, wielded by the first Wakandan king and passed down through the generations, with a sharper edge than any ever that never grows dull, and partially responsible for Wakanda's success as a nation. And we never heard of it before now because… reasons.

Storm goes to visit Black Panther's step-mama on a diplomatic mission. She asks for Wakanda's help in the battle against Arakko. She recaps the last four issues of X of Swords on basically one page, in case you were wondering how decompressed this story has been so far. Ramonda is happy to help. She says warriors will be ready within the hour. But Storm explains she doesn't need warriors. She needs a sword. Ramonda all like, "well, okay, take one of these weapons" and offers a bunch of sacred Wakandan weapons, but Storm is all like, "no, I need Skybreaker." That, unfortunately, is a non-starter. Only T'Challa is allowed to touch that. Storm will have to come back in a few days and ask him. Storm agrees and leaves… but Shuri looks suspicious.

We get some prose pages explaining the Otherworld kingdoms of Sevalith (vampires, basically), and Mercator, a kingdom made up of people of light. Either that or these are both metalcore bands. I dunno. I didn't read them.

Shuri goes to visitS Storm in her hotel room and brings her dinner. While they eat, Shuri apologizes for not being able to just hand the sword over. Storm points out that monsters from another dimension will annihilate the Earth and all that. Shuri points out that Krakoa hasn't exactly been endearing itself with the rest of the world either. Storm gets offended, but Shuri explains that this is the viewpoint of a lot of people, and handing over the sword would cause political unrest. Storm says Krakoa is fighting this war for everyone, not just mutants. They are unable to come to terms, and Shuro leaves.

Storm changes from a white Storm costume to a black Storm costume and goes to break into the Temple of the Heart of Wakanda. Conveniently, a flashback shows us T'Challa once gave Storm a full tour of the facility, detailing all of its security measures. She makes it to the sword… and Shuri is there to stop her. They fight, a fight with lots of regretful narration, and Storm wins by electrocuting Shuri through her knife.

Storm begins her escape. The building goes on lockdown, and she has to blast through a bunch of robots. Then Black Panther shows up. He's like, "damn, Storm, you could have waited like half an issue, and I would have given you the sword," and Storm is like, "this is bigger than us," which really isn't a valid argument since he was gonna give her the sword anyway. He lets her leave with it and has the Krakoan gate destroyed behind her.

After a prose page about Skybreaker's unique properties (it's sharp and made of vibranium), Storm returns to Krakoa, says hi to Kate, and then joins Wolverine and Magik. Interestingly, in the past scenes at the seal, Magik and Wolverine were just standing there on their symbols, as if they were going to stand still until all ten mutants got there. But here at least they're sitting down and chilling.

It's a mixed bag for the X of Swords crossover this week. On the one hand, the story in Wolverine and X-Force was good enough, but it was stretched out to two issues when it could have been one. On the other hand, the Storm story here in Marauders was done in one issue, but it featured one of those contrived conflicts where everyone is behaving stupidly in order to serve the dramatic tension of the plot. I mean, are you telling me Storm couldn't have picked up a cell phone and called T'Challa to sort all this out ahead of time? Do mutants not have cell phones? In any case, that's three swords down and seven to go, so I expect this crossover will need another three dozen issues added to it at least.