WARNING: Spoilers for Marauders #1 ahead!
With the launch of the new Marauders from Marvel Comics, Captain Kate Pryde's own X-Men team are going on a search and rescue mission to Shi'ar space, with a promise that the ancient "first mutants" are being held against their will. If this eventual reveal turns out to be true (and not a carefully planned ruse from the still evil Cassandra Nova), this will be just one more major retcon to mutant history... and their cosmic origins.
Kate Pryde and her Red Bishop have recruited a new team of Marauders to fulfill a huge need for mutantdom: searching for and rescuing mutants in need. Her new team consists of Bishop, Tempo, Psylocke (Kwannon), Aurora, Daken, and Somnus, with Marauders #1 introducing Cassandra Nova, Charles Xavier's definitely still monstrous twin sister, as the final crew member. Nova's arrival has lead the team to their first major mission, with a a group of apparently unknown and unaccounted for ancient mutants held captive by the Shi'ar.
The trouble with this is that Cassandra Nova has a long and violent history with the Shi'ar, having taken possession of then Majestrix Lilandra in the pages of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's New X-Men, almost slaughtering the mutants on Earth and effectively wrecking the entire Shi'ar Empire for some time. In Marauders #1 - written by Steve Orlando with art by Eleonora Carlini and Matt Milla and lettering by Ariana Maher - Pryde confronts Cassandra Nova over a 2 billion year old box she found in the pages of Marauders Annual #1. Apparently the ancient box, written in Pryde's own handwriting, led her to the area of Krakoa where Nova had been isolated, prompting Cassandra to reveal to Captain Kate that the box itself is not important, but what is in it is. Nova tells Kate that the box is connected to an ancient event called "The First Blood Spilled."
If Nova is to be believed, that the Okkaran mutants unveiled during the X of Swords event are not the first mutants, this is a huge retcon to X-Men lore and the origins of mutandom. The Okkaran mutants already retconned that Selene was the oldest mutant at 17,000 years old, so introducing "ancient mutants" older than 2 billion years is a huge change. All of this potential retconning is especially interesting given the massive mutant retcon that is happening in this summer's Judgment Day, which will reveal that mutants are not an evolutionary offshoot of humans, but instead an offshoot of the Deviants, the Eternal's mortal enemies.
This begs the question: Are the "first" mutants somehow tied to this retcon of Marvel mutant origins, perhaps connected to the Celestials who created the Deviants in the first place? Or is this just some devious scam by Cassandra Nova, Erik the Red, and the Kin Crimson to wipe out the current Shi'ar regime and install a new one?
Make sure to read Marauders #1 available now from Marvel Comics to prepare for the eventual reveal of the X-Men's ancient ancestors.
