Marrow is a pretty crazy gal!
Quote: "As leader of the morlocks you let me down......Let All of us Down! Look at what your weakness CREATED." Marrow
Synopsis:
Not the type to refuse friend or foe assistance Callisto is quickly moved into the med lab so she can receive medical attention. When she regains consciousness, she informs the X-Men that a group of second generation Morlocks, calling themselves Gene Nation, are planning to kill a human for every Morlock who died during the “mutant massacre” ( in essence a slaughter of their people orchestrated by Mr. Sinister). The X-Men rush to Manhattan where they hope to stop the would be re-enactment. Gene Nation however have already set their plan in motion and hold a group of humans hostage in the subways. Their young leader, Marrow going so far as even, attaching incendiary devices to them, linked to her own heartbeat. (She’s just a peppy little bundle of fun isn’t she?)
After a brief skirmish between Storm and Callisto in the tunnels where tempers flare and egos (the size of bananas) are roused they encounter the first casualty of the day. A man is killed and his bicycle is wrapped around him and a sign painted in blood points the x-men toward our villains (Creepy stuff). Marrow’s teammates attack with Vessel taking Wolverine, Hemingway taking colossus and Callisto taken down by a bullet through the shoulder by Glass. Storm saves Callisto and finally locates Marrow. Their Marrow reveals the nature and origin of her hate, Storm has failed as leader in her eyes, she recounts how as a child she witnessed Storm defeat Callisto. Storm “the bright lady” and Calisto “the dark” and how she had such hopes for her and her people to finally be free of the tunnels but storm eventually did nothing and that lead to the “massacre” and from that she was born.
Marrow then challenges Storm to a fight, as payback for Storm’s shortcomings when she was the leader of the Morlocks. Storm intent on rescuing the civilians (typical Xavieret behavior) takes up the challenge and they begin a vicious battle. Storm draws first blood while Sarah slices off ½ her hair on one side of the face and cuts her cheek. As the battle rages on marrow and storm seem evenly matched and her compatriot Reverb interferes only to be killed by storm. As Marrow grabs storm and has her face the soon to be exploding civilians she loses it completely, she goes crazed with madness in her eyes and she lets her guard completely down. Storm realizing that she has no choice and that the only way to prevent the bombs exploding and killing all the civilians is to stop Marrow’s beating heart. Storm break free and before marrow even knows what happens she rips out her still beating heart, from her chest, thus she disarms the bombs, but kills Marrow in the process.
Meanwhile…….
Gambit receives a phone call from Rogue, she’s with Iceman who happens to be her traveling companion for now (their actually on a road trip but hey that sounds lame). While they talk Gambit senses that she may be remembering things that she absorbed during their kiss (which only happened because of the crystal wave…but that’s a story for another time) He heads out to try and speak with her. Shortly there after, Mister Sinister (the Goth mutate man himself) is informed by Threnody (a sexy black succubus mutant) that Gambit is traveling to Seattle. Turns out she was asked to inform him if Gambit ever went there (so she has been keeping tabs? I wonder what “things” she’s seen our Gambit do when he thinks no one is looking?) . However, Sinister seems a bit preoccupied and is busy worrying if all his well-laid plans are heading towards certain ruin.
The Good! The art of Joe Maduera is beautiful, hands down some of the best art you will ever see in comics, sure it has a cartoony feel some even say a little manga feel but it just looks damn good! The dialogue between Marrow and storm was good stuff, marrow had quite a few good points too, Storm was a lousy leader for the morlocks and they did not benefit in anyway from her being leader!
The Bad! The story was a bit contrived.......some parts felt forced...seriously and apart from Marrow's fight with storm everything else was dealt with off screen, even the question os what happened to Marrow's body? Reverbs? or even the poor man mangled by his bicycle? The X-men just waltz out of the tunnels with little to no resolution..... I mean why rip out her heart and have her body disappear? besides the obvious "She's not dead" comic riff!
The Ugly! Beautiful art mired by a questionable story but man was marrow entertaining ( in a Psycho B!tch kinda way)