Marauders (comics)
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The Marauders are a group of mutant supervillains in the Marvel Comics universe and enemies of the X-Men. They were created by Chris Claremont and made their debut in Uncanny X-Men #210 (Oct 1986).
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[edit] Origins
The Marauders are a mercenary group that serve as the personal strikeforce of Mister Sinister, and are best known for their involvement in the Mutant Massacre, in which they slaughtered the mutant community known as the Morlocks. Most of the members of the team were assembled by Gambit at Sinister's behest. However, Scalphunter was already serving Sinister since World War II and he personally recruited Sabretooth, while he was roaming in Vietnam.
[edit] Lineup
- Arclight (Philippa Sontag), a super-strong mutant who is always spoiling for a fight; her mutation allows her to release shockwaves (like Avalanche and Rictor most often to amplify the impact of her blows. She served with the American ground forces in the Vietnam War, and is still haunted by memories of that place. She has a romantic interest in Scalphunter.
- Blockbuster (Michael Baer), a superhumanly strong mutant who has stood up to punches from Thor, though a single hammer blow from an enraged Thor killed him. He did some work with German terrorists before hooking up with Sinister.
- Harpoon (Kodiak Noatak), a young Inuit who can charge objects (usually his Slayspears - 20 pound (9 kg) barbed harpoons) with electrical, concussive force, or stunning energies.
- Malice, one of Sinister’s top lieutenants whose sadistic orders are followed without hesitation or question. She exists as an incorporeal psychic being who possesses others, though she often 'hides' in the person's subconscious and reveals herself in a mirror or as the dark side of the target’s consciousness. For much of her public activity with the other Marauders, she used the X-Man Polaris as a host. Malice was apparently killed by Sinister for disobeying orders in X-Factor #105 and hasn't been seen since.
- Prism, an overconfident and cold-blooded killer who often underestimates the fragility of his crystalline body (which can deflect/reflect most forms of energy attacks, but not physical impact).
- Riptide (Janos Questad), a brutally evil man who can spin his body at superhuman speeds and fling out shurikens (made from a resin his skin secretes) for amazing amounts of damage. He was the first of the Marauders to "die", when his neck was broken by Colossus.
- Sabretooth (Victor Creed), the longtime enemy of Wolverine.
- Scalphunter (John Greycrow), a ruthless ex-G.I., and the group’s tactician. His orders are overruled only by Malice or Sinister. Scalphunter is the most cold-blooded of the group. He is capable of "technomorphing" (altering the configuration of any technological device), a power he uses to create a number of weapons from his battle armor. He also has incredible regenerative powers -- he survived being executed by his fellow American soldiers in 1944 after having murdered and scalped eight fellow officers.
- Scrambler (Kim Il Sung), the youngest Marauder, can disrupt electrical, mechanical, physiological, and genetic (Mutant abilities) systems with a touch. This Korean is a psychopath more concerned with looking stylish than with the suffering he inflicts on others.
- Vertigo, who can psionically induce a sensation of vertigo in others; she was originally a member of Magneto's Savage Land Mutates.
- Hans, a creation of Sinister while he was infiltrated at the Weapon X Program, at a time in which only Scalphunter remained loyal to Sinister. Even though he possessed a wide array of powers, he was nonetheless killed by Sabretooth. Hans was the first of Sinister's creations dubbed The Children.
Although several Marauders died during the "Morlock Massacre", they reappeared during the Inferno crossover; it was later revealed that Mister Sinister has created numerous clones of all of the Marauders save for Sabretooth, whose regenerative abilities made cloning difficult, and Malice, who was a purely psychic entity and therefore had no genetic material. Uncanny X-Men #350 revealed that Gambit had organized the group, although he was never actually a member. The Marauders' loyalty to Sinister is ensured through gene imprints they all possess that would kill them should they turn on the geneticist. Sabretooth is the only Marauder who was never cloned.
As of M-Day, the event where the Scarlet Witch depowered over 90% of the worldwide mutant population, only Arclight, Prism, Scalphunter, and Scrambler were seen to still have their powers. Arclight and Scalphunter have become two of the 198 who are camped at the X-Mansion, while Prism is in a maximum security prison (as seen in the limited series Generation M).
[edit] Original Marauders
The modern day Marauders who were responsible for the Mutant Massacre were not the first group of henchmen Sinister that had this name. While Sinister was still Nathaniel Essex, the Marauders were a band of criminals hired by Essex to kidnap homeless people to be experimented on. Many of them were altered by Apocalypse into cyborgs after they accidentally awakened. One of the Marauders, Oscar Stamp, repented from his crimes and became the adoptive father of a boy named Daniel, one of Essex's victims. Together they travelled to the United States and took on the surname Summers in honor of the time-travelling Cyclops, who was actually Daniel's descendant.
[edit] Alternate versions
[edit] Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse, the Marauders were a band of human terrorists serving Apocalypse. As they lacked powers of their own, they employed gliding discs and energy gauntlets to wreak havoc among the human settlements of Wakanda, until they were killed by Gwen Stacy and Clint Barton. The Marauders were Dirigible (Wilson Fisk), Red (Norman Osborn), Arcade and the Owl.
[edit] House of M
In the House of M, the Marauders are a covert ops group leaded by Callisto and formed by T-Rex, Mammomax, Blob, Banshee, Sunder, Black Tom Cassidy and Caliban. They are charged with capturing Nocturne.
[edit] In other media
Some of the Marauders appeared in the X-Men Animated Series, though the Nasty Boys were Sinister's enforcers in the show. Both Blockbuster and Arclight made numerous cameo appereances as random placeholders, while Vertigo, shown first with the Savage Land Mutates, like the comics version, later became the sole female member of the Nasty Boys.
