Warning: spoilers for Marauders #19
With the Marauders stuck on the sidelines in Madripoor, Marvel Comics’ X-Men must turn to its mutant outcast community to save the day. With Krakoans attempting to cement their power and influence across the globe, it isn’t surprising that they encounter resistance along the way. What they didn’t count on were the consequences their actions would have on innocent non-mutant bystanders. Thankfully, the underprivileged of Madripoor’s “Lowtown” have the Morlocks on their side.
Created by Chris Claremont and Paul Smith, the Morlocks—named after the subterranean offshoot of humanity in H.G. Wells’ seminal novel The Time Machine—made their first appearance in 1983’s Uncanny X-Men #169. Lead by Callisto, the community offered a safe place in the vast network of tunnels beneath Manhattan for mutants whose powers manifested in ways as to make them unwelcome on the surface. Originally conceived as villains, over the decades the Morlocks eventually became reluctant allies of the X-Men, though they maintained their distance from the more “mainstream” mutants. Even now, in the age of Krakoa and the Reign of X, the Morlocks have chosen not to join their fellow mutants on the idyllic living island.
Recently, however, readers have gotten to see Callisto and the Morlocks drawn into the fold by Kate Pryde in the Marauders storyline. In last month’s Marauders #18, by Gerry Duggan, Stefano Caselli and Matteo Lolli, the former villain Masque got his taste of redemption when invited to the island of Madripoor’s newly minted mutant-run hospital. There, rather than use his body-altering powers to torture and disfigure, he uses his abilities to heal those who would have otherwise had no access to conventional medicine. In the latest issue of the comic (#19), by Gerry Duggan and Stefano Caselli, the state of affairs in Madripoor has escalated to violence in the streets of Lowtown (the island’s poor district) where a mercenary force of bioengineered Reavers are preying on the marginal and destitute.
To make matters worse, the X-Men have been politically outmaneuvered by the cabal of evil child-geniuses known as Homines Verendi. If they act against the Reavers in any official capacity they risk forfeiting their seat as a recognized sovereign nation among the United Nations. Not ones to sit and watch as innocent people are driven out of their homes and killed in the streets, Kate Pryde and Callisto come up with a plan. It may be too risky for the X-Men to be seen, but the Morlocks are used to operating in the shadows, and, now that they’ve had a taste of vindication, they have some skin in the game. The mutants Masque, the expert fighter Marrow, Bliss and her wicked monster-tongue, along with the aptly named Hump and Brute arrive on the scene keen to crack some skulls, and that’s exactly what they do. Unprepared for any resistance, especially from a group of angry and dangerous mutants, the Reavers are sent crawling back to their masters. The battle is short, but it’s incredibly satisfying for readers to see the Morlocks come in clutch for the X-Men and protect those, who like themselves, were cast out of society.
By their courageous acts, the Morlocks have left their mark on Madripoor in a way the X-Men or the Marauders couldn’t have conceived. With Lowtown cleared of police and bloodthirsty Reavers, the people have chosen to rename their neighborhood in recognition of their saviors and chosen the name “Mutietown". With Verendi stoking the flames of anti-mutant sentiment on the island and abroad, this honorific is a bold statement of gratitude on the part of Mutietown’s inhabitants. Just goes to show, it’s high time Marvel Comics highlighted more of their underdogs.