It's also very much a Kitty Pryde-focused series. It turns out there's a good reason why Miss Pryde hasn't been featured in the Dawn of X relaunch before now. The opening few pages make a strong statement, making it clear Kitty occupies a unique place in the new X-Men hierarchy. She's very much the fuel powering this particular series. Marauders is a book that takes full advantage of Kitty's long and storied history, finding a fun and fruitful new way of propelling her forward and showing just how much she's changed from the days of being a wide-eyed teen recruit to the X-Men. Writer Gerry Duggan clearly gets Kitty and is intent on pushing her into the next phase of her superhero evolution.
Matteo Lolli is an inspired choice of artist for the series. Lolli's lines, especially when paired with Federico Blee's bright, cheery colors, create a comic that fits right in line with House of X and Powers of X while also carving its own niche. The art channels the humor of Duggan's scripts nicely, while also leaving a bit of room to reflect the more serious themes at play. Lolli also takes full advantage of Kitty's unique fighting style when rendering the lengthy action sequence near the end, adeptly conveying a fighter who can become intangible or solid in the blink of an eye.
There is a certain blandness to some of Lolli's figures, however. That's most noticeable during a scene of anti-mutant demonstrations, where all the protesters look like generic copies of one another. Emma Frost is also strangely lifeless, a problem which mostly extends from her body language. She lacks the haughty arrogance so common in many portrayals of the character, instead looking like another blond woman in a suit.Marauders succeeds because it works as an antithesis to Hickman's books, even as it feels like a natural offshoot of House of X. Where Hickman's comics have so far favored plot and word-building over characterization, Marauders is heavily character-driven. And while House of X and Powers of X could occasionally be amusing (Mister Sassy says hello), Marauders is a very humorous book. That's not to say it doesn't deal in some fairly dark subject matter, but this series features exactly the swashbuckling tone you'd expect from something with *that* cover. Marauders also looks to feature a much smaller and more intimate cast of characters, which is a nice change from the sweeping scope of Hickman's books. None of this is to say one approach is inherently better than the other. It's just nice to have variety. And really, isn't that the whole purpose of Dawn of X in the first place?