Marauders (1st series) #19

Verendi’s new Reaver clones are attacking Lowtown in an attempt to force the people out, allowing Verendi to gentrify the area.

The members of Verendi look on from the balcony of a villa.

Max Frankenstein enthuses about how much they will make on the towers they are planning for Lowtown, then announces he has to return to the lab for a new batch of Reavers to be ready at nightfall, just in case.

Watching the ocean, Xhao muses that the mutants can only watch what happens to their friends in Lowtown. If they come ashore, they forfeit the recognition they crave at the United Nations.

Aboard the ship, Kate Pryde is discussing matters with Iceman, Calisto and Pyro. Callisto asks if she is volunteering to get put in the Hole. Kate insists they can’t turn their back on the people of Lowtown. Pyro and Iceman agree with Kate.

Cal retorts that they can save Lowtown and avoid being banned for starting an international war. She kicks the top of a crate, showing some weaponry. She tells them to sneak into town and plant this where no one will find this. She gets the cavalry. If she is wrong, they can still always throw away everything they have worked for. Kate announces she’ll go in low, as she takes off her jacket and her necklace. She could use a distraction.

She has heard of the Five, right? Pyro asks. She’s about to see what the Two can do, Iceman boasts. No bodies, she reminds them. Boring! Pyro opines, but she is the boss. She asks him to hold her pendant and asks what the Two can do. Iceman explains if they’d called themselves Fire and Ice, nobody would take them seriously, so it’s the Two.

Kate dives into the ocean.

Iceman muses that he spent his whole life afraid to cut lose. Pyro admits that he wishes he could say the same, but he left enough bodies in his wake. Being part of this feels like restoration for the old days.

They work together creating a distraction: an ice sculpture that shoots pyrotechnics, leaving the other ship baffled. Kate reaches the shore and enters Madripoor via the sewers.

Above, many poor people, like the fisher and his daughter who saved Lockheed, are fleeing, fearing that no help will come.

In the sewer, Kate plants a Krakoan gate seed.

Callisto exits a Krakoan gate in Arizona, disgusted by the bright sun. Meeting, Morlocks! she shouts as she plants a gate flower.

Masque shouts back that it’s his day off. Impressive that he’s only been a doctor a couple of days and already has the bourgeoisie shtick down, she deadpans.

They are joined by Marrow, Hump, Brute and Bliss. Callisto explains the situation: There is a group of good people in Lowtown Madripoor and now the cops are going to brutalize them and force them out of their homes. She knows they are not mutants, but they are their people. They wouldn’t have turned them away from the tunnels. Are they gonna turn their back on them now?

Masque cynically guesses that it’s bad for the fancy mutants to go there… so what? They need some low-profile ones to go to Lowtown? Callisto explains they could wait for the formal complaints to go through the proper channels, but the new hospital he doesn’t seem to hate clocking in at is gonna burn down before the situation is under control.

Masque swears, then steps through the gate as the first. Let’s go crack some skulls! he orders. He exits on Kate’s side in the sewers of Madripoor. Very funny, he remarks tartly. Take the Morlock back to the sewer. Real cute, Kitty. Kate, still sick from the waters, tries to correct him then vomits again. The other Morlocks join Masque.

In Lowtown, the fisher and his daughter are running but get attacked by some of the new Reavers. They, in turn, get attacked by Masque, Marrow and Hump, who wonders aloud if those Reavers count as human or posthuman. Slicing him apart, he continues it only counts if they go to Krakoa. Bliss, on the other hand, isn’t interested in going to the hole, so she doesn’t quite poison her foe.

As Kate swims back to the ship, Pyro tries to make her believe she is being followed by a shark. Iceman helps her up and tells her the plan worked. The chatter is a bunch of sewer monsters have engaged the Reavers. Kate remarks she destroyed the Verendi bulldozer and complains she is going to be sick again. She needs the Healing Gardens or Arbor Magna. Pyro tells her nonsense, she needs a Pyrorita. Yes, she does, Kate agrees and takes the drink. Now ask them where Bishop is, Iceman grins. Where is Bishop? Kate ventures. Iceman replies he has no idea and some of their heavy ordnance is missing.

Bishop surprises Max Frankenstein in his lab. Holding a gun to the boy’s head, he orders him to stop creating living weapons. Unimpressed, the boy replies he is just using what the Marauders are serving up. Maybe the mutants should stop turning people into hamburger meat. He reminds Bishop he was on the boat when they were flash-frozen. Bishop is just a sloppy co-creator, sorting his materials - Max is an artist.

Bishop throws down his weapon. He asks what the point is of all the pain he is inflicting. Just to stick a thumb in Krakoa’s eye? To make a couple of bucks? To hell with that. He is taking the lab from him!

Max smirks that Bishop can only slow him down, not stop him. Besides he has video footage proving Bishop is here in spite of the UN resolution. Bishop replies he found and disabled the cameras fifteen minutes ago, when he planted the explosives.

He presses a button. Max becomes nervous. He turns silent and runs. A little later, the lab explodes.

Elsewhere, Masque is trying to encourage thinking on one’s life choices by literally rearranging a Reaver’s face. Brute and Hump are tearing another Reaver apart and Bliss chases away another one.

Finally, the head Reaver gives the order to fall back. Masque shouts after them that’s what they get for attacking a hospital! The Reaver retorts they had orders to raze everything but the hospital. Masque curses Callisto, however the Lowtowners celebrate the Morlocks as heroes.

Later, at the now mutant-owned hotel and Princess bar, Morlocks and Lowtowners celebrate.

The fishergirl is grieving the death of her father, who died in the fight. Marrow, tending bar, brusquely tells her at least she had a dad once. She asks the girl for her name. Ai Tran, she replies. Marrow offers her a job tending bar.

Masque muses that, ever since the New York winters, he has wanted to live in a hotel. He is going to try to make a go of this, until the Lowtowners have had enough of him and run him out of town. A Lowtowner tells him he needn’t worry about that. They don’t even call the place Lowtown anymore. It’s Mutietown now. Bliss laughs. They broke it, they bought it, she guesses.