Sebastian Shaw has machinations. Machinations bore out in Gerry Duggan, Michele Bandini, Elisabeth D’Amico, and Federico Blee’s Marauders #3. His son, Shinobi, is reborn, and Shaw sees this as an opportunity to consolidate power on Krakoa. Ever the scheamer, he tells Shinobi that his previous death was orchestrated by Emma Frost & Kate Pryde, setting his son up as a wild card in the Hellfire Trading Company.

Christi Eddleman: We’re back for another round of MaREADers! While our first two issues plunged us headfirst into our merry crew, this issue took a deep dive in a way I didn’t anticipate. My heart sunk just a bit as I saw this week’s featured mutants were Sebastian Shaw, Egg, Professor X, Pyro, and Shinobi Shaw. Not what I anticipated, but this issue definitely has some plot thickening that takes us to the depths of the Shaws and the Hellfire Club.

Vishal Gullapalli: Yeah, I was a bit disappointed by the limited Pyro content, but Duggan really gave us enough quality food with this issue even without the best character of the series. There’s a good amount of character work here and I’m very excited for the wrench that this issue has thrown into the story.

The Shaw Bloodline

CE: I’ve seen a lot of troubling child-parent relationships, but Shinobi and Sebastian are quite the pair. They have both killed each other, both held the title of Black King, and yet family ties still seem to convince Sebastian that resurrecting Shinobi is 100% the way to go. Fatherly affection or determined to overpower Emma?

VG: It felt to me like a weird version of fatherly love, Shaw wanted his son brought back but he also wanted to make sure that Shinobi didn’t remember anything he didn’t want him to remember. This has a lot of implications about the resurrection process, especially for characters like Vulcan who have returned with a whole change in personality. Sebastian’s reasoning for bringing his son back probably had to do with both aspects, though. He loves his son in his own messed up way, and he also really hates Emma. A lot.

CE: I do appreciate the way Duggan has written Sebastian here. His love or affection for his son (or whatever this odd relationship contains) still manages to buy him only very little sympathy from the reader. His egotistical nature and unreliable voice as our narrator leaves him solidly in an easy to dislike category. I would have hated to come out of this issue with a soft spot for Sebastian Shaw. Although I did really enjoy Shinobi proving he was himself by remarking with a smile that he still wants to kill his dear old dad. [Ed. Note: How come he got clothes for this part?]

VG: Looks like the heroic nude is only a requirement for heroes on Krakoa. Also, I love Sebastian’s response to Shinobi saying he wants to kill his father. He definitely implies that he also wanted to kill his own father as a child, which is just a wonderful family dynamic. No wonder Shinobi turned out the way he did. Sebastian keeping the cause of Shinobi’s death close to his chest is obviously the biggest shift in their dynamic, though. Especially how he uses this information to initiate his own aims within the Hellfire Trading Company.

CE: What better way to bring the two closer than by lying to Shinobi about his own suicide to turn him against Kate and Emma? I would expect no less from the Black King.

Hellfire and Intrigue

VG: Sebastian, after a lot of evasion, finally tells his son Shinobi how he died – or at least pretends to. For those of you unaware, Shinobi phased his own hand through his head during Rosenberg’s Uncanny X-Men when he discovered he was secretly working for Emma Frost the whole time. Sebastian, however tells him a very editorialized version of the story, claiming that the Red and White Queens conspired to have him killed.

CE: This conversation takes place not long after Sebastian has to break it to Shinobi that he won’t be the Red King after all, saving quite a bit of face in the process. Shinobi seems to accept the position of Black Bishop, but perhaps more out of a desire to be able to make good on his debt to a mysterious master he meets in Tokyo. Perhaps his loyalties lie more with this yakuza oyassan than his father. [Ed. Note: He’s never been associated with The Hand, so this is a new development.]

VG: This mysterious master is a very interesting development, and I’m curious to learn more about him and who Shinobi will choose to serve when his two masters inevitably come into conflict. Shinobi’s appointment as Black Bishop happens on panel, but another Bishop gets appointed, or close to it, in one of the data pages to the issue – namely Bishop. That’s right, Bishop is being recruited as a Bishop for the Hellfire Trading Company. Specifically, Kate Pryde is trying to convince him to be the Red Bishop, claiming that he’ll be able to keep an even closer eye on the people he doesn’t trust.

CE: I am certain I called this one in our last MaREADers. Bishop Bishop is too good to pass up. Though we don’t actually get to see Kate and Bishop in this issue, we know that they are hanging out on Island M, while the Marauder sailed away. I am dying to know what they are up to. They’re going to need new burners for T? [Ed. Note: Their text transcript opens up a lot of questions.]

These data pages are getting more and more exciting. Some of what we saw in this issue has me thinking about the cove of submarines mentioned on a data page from last issue. Are they Shaw’s? This issue has me thinking ‘yes.’

VG: The data pages have been really great. Duggan and Muller are doing an awesome job making them informative but still really fun. One of them this issue continues the trend of human governments and militaries keeping tabs on the Marauders. This is becoming a theme in this book – not just how governments are dealing with the new status quo for mutants, but how the entire human world is coping with it.

Cults & Culture

CE: We’ve seen a lot of negative human response to Krakoa and mutants, but I really loved the cultish fan boys just begging for a mutant to step on them. It’s a welcome juxtaposition to all of the organizations we’ve seen that seek to destroy Krakoa and all that it stands for. The fact that the US has its own version of customs for the Krakoan gate in Central Park seems entirely believable, but it also seems unbelievably efficient. No lines or metal detectors? People must really like those Krakoan drugs.

VG: Mutants are definitely benefitting from an ease of transport that I can’t remember ever having, even beyond the Krakoan gates. I’d love to go through immigration with my only declaration being “I am the Black King.” With that being said, there’s some really neat tidbits about how humans are dealing with this. I love the idea that there’s a bunch of cults forming around mutants, all with totally different ideas and goals. [Ed. Note: I’m feeling personally attacked.]

CE: It definitely emulates X-Fans in its own fun way. We need a Buzzfeed quiz to sort us into our X-Men fan cult. Are we worshipping Hickman’s X-Men or determined to destroy the man who holds it together? I personally am not a fan of the hoods and masks from this issues cult, but I’d probably wind up as part of the former. Mutant culture has become so exciting to watch evolve in all of it’s strange and glorious ways.

VG: I would absolutely wear one of their hoodies, personally. I love the big yellow X, it reminds me of the Morrison era in the best way. Marauders has been doing a great job reminding us that the human world has continued to exist alongside the current X-Line, and that they’re reacting in really interesting ways.

CE: While this issue fleshed out Sebastian Shaw and his motives, it left me disappointed in the pacing. Perhaps Shinobi will be a key player moving forward, but I wanted more plot points touched upon. Parts of the data pages left me equally as excited and intrigued in one page as I was with the rest of the issue. I hope this is a slow build to something great.

VG: Yeah, Duggan hyped up this issue as the one that would break our hearts, and while it’s definitely far more dour than the previous two, I felt like this one was more getting me excited for a future conflict. I’m really enjoying how much character development is being worked into this series, though, even for the Shaws.

X-Traneous Thoughts

“Fine, Bishy.”

I’m really excited by Sebastian’s plan to exploit the one-percenters

Pyro continues to be a delight – “A Shaw — and a mutant!”

If I never have to see a hand through a skull again it would be too soon.

Krakoan reads: NEXT: INTERNATIONAL

Make sure to check out our discussions on X-Men and Excalibur too!

Christi Eddleman is the worlds first Captain Kate Pryde cosplayer and co-host of Chrises On Infinite Earths

Vishal Gullapalli is a comics enthusiast studying computer science to enable his media consumption. He’s currently reading through the entirety of DC’s New 52 (for some reason) and logging his experience.