Warning: contains spoilers for Marauders #12One of the most tragic events in X-Men history has just been given beautiful closure in the pages of Marauders #12, as Kate Pryde and her team communicate with the ghosts of the Genoshan Genocide and use their DNA to create an entire mutant civilization.
More than two decades ago, over 16 million mutant and human lives were lost in the Genoshan Genocide, when ancient mutant civilization of Threshold.
X-Men's Ghosts of Genosha Have Finally Been Given Closure
Marauders #12 sees the mutant Wicked, one of the very few survivors of the mutant massacre on Genosha, using her powers of "necroplasmic manifestation" to allow Kate Pryde to have a beautiful and emotional moment with her human father, Carmen Pryde. Kate explains to her father that by using the DNA-rich soil from Genosha, her mutant circuit of Polaris, Theia, Cerebra, Wicked, Tempo, and Fang can actually create the ancient mutant civilization of Threshold, which eventually gives rise to the mutant Grove, who themselves will become the island Krakoa. Not only is Kate able to get closure with her father, but she is able to ask explicit consent from the Ghosts of Genosha to use their DNA as a blueprint for the creation of life billions of years ago in the Proterozoic Era, which Kate and her circuit successfully do.
X-Men Creates a Loop of Mutant Life
The mutants and humans who died on Genosha have now been avenged in body and spirit, with Emma Frost and Kate Pryde manipulating Cassandra Nova throughout the entire Threshold adventure, eventually trapping her and leaving her for dead billions of years ago. Now, not only has their murderer been brought to some sort of justice, but their deaths have become an integral part of mutant history, helping to create an entire thriving, beautiful civilization. Thankfully, this complex time travel mutant circuit plot also ties up a huge loose end left by the discovery of the ancient civilization Threshold, namely that for years now the mutants of Earth believed that the first generation of mutants began thousands of years ago with Selene and Apocalypse. Marauders #12 made it clear that this is still true, because Threshold is actually the second generation of mutants, created in the future by Pryde's circuit but sent back billions of years to live and die, before the first generation of mutants ever naturally manifested.
The X-Men Use Time Travel For The Greater Good
While almost all Marvel heroes have engaged with time travel at some point in their heroic careers, no other group of characters has traveled the timeline more than the X-Men, who repeatedly use time travel to save the future and the past. In this way Marauders #12 is not only a way to honor the humans and mutants killed on Genosha, but also the mutants' history of time travel heroism, from classic stories like Days of Future Past, to the New X-Men arc "Here Comes Tomorrow," and pretty much any story that involves Cable or Bishop.
The Genoshan Genocide is perhaps the single worst mutant massacre in X-Men history, and after more than 20 years of mourning the loss of millions of mutant and human lives at the hands of Cassandra Nova, Kate Pryde and her incredible team have been able to give themselves and the Ghosts of Genosha new meaning.
Marauders #12 from Marvel Comics is available now in stores.
