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This book has a few problems in aspects that are quintessential for it to work as an X-Men book. "X-Men" is traditionally known for its round, well developed characters. They may change exponentially, but that change will usually happen in ways that feels inherent to the story being told, throughout many issues. That continuity of motivations and characterization have been Claremont's greatest legacy to this book, you can read X-Men annual #11 and Psylocke's longing to prove herself a great warrior will remain to be her motivations, and culminate into her actually becoming a ninja in Uncanny X-Men #256, two years later. Marauders has a problem with its characters, specifically the protagonist Kate Pryde, that seems to work against that tendency of creating well rounded internal conflicts to force the characters to change -- many times into their extreme opposite. In about 40 years of her existence, Kate most of the time showed a lot of restrainment by using her powers very conscientiously, in ways that wouldn't cause any harm to the ones she's fighting against. It's a character trait that has been consistent to the point of her bluffing to use her phasing power to kill or maim, but never actually fulfilling the threat. This version of Kate seems to simply ignore that: she's over aggressive when she doesn't have to be, phasing objects into people's bodies, to which the book doesn't seem interested in addressing the consequences. And this change of attitude doesn't seem to be backed up by convincing conflicts. Kate can't use the Krakoan portals, but she can still live in the island nation with everyone else, she's still surrounded by her friends and family, things has actually turned out pretty good for everyone she loves amongst the X-Men... so why is she acting so extremely all of a sudden?!
Another problem that her protagonism seems to cause is that everyone around --- be it new, inexperienced characters or consolidated combatants like Storm, Iceman and Pyro -- become fragile supporting characters that constantly need her help in action to get out alive. They have no depth, they're only there to be cool characters with cool powers. They don't question Kate's choices (how come naming the team after the group of assassins that massacred the Morlocks was excused after one line of dialogue?), they don't question Krakoa's choice as a capitalist nation (is capitalism really the best option to succeed as a utopic nation for a marginalized group? Is illegal trafficking of drugs a good move?), they fall for the same trap of depowering weapons more than once, they react with extreme violence as their first resort, and they don't seem to have lives of their own! It's the same trope that made X-Men Gold one of the most flawed books of its time, by not being able to handle a great cast of characters in a satisfactory way. It's a shame because this is a book that has everything to be an X-Men classic, I wonder how it'll be viewed as when the run is over. Maybe there'll be a turning point somewhere in the future. One can always hope!
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