The Marauders

From Cassius Comics

The Marauders

Current Roster	none (inactive/disbanded)
Base of Operations	formerly mobile
First Appearance	Uncanny X-Men #210 (October 1986)

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History

Several decades before he would become Mister Sinister, Nathaniel Essex was likely the world's first genetic researcher, having already partially cracked the human genome by 1859. To further his research, Essex formed the marauders, then just a group of criminals and ne'er-do-wells, paying them to abduct homeless men and women to serve as test subjects. The fates of these early Marauders are unknown, though Sinister (as he was now know) presumably left them behind when he moved to America in 1891.

By 1944, Sinister was working with Nazi scientists, though his experiments terrified Axis and Allies alike. During this period, Sinister rescued John Greycrow, an American soldier who had narrowly survived an execution attempt after being found guilty of murdering a fellow officer. Sinister soon learned that Greycrow was a fellow mutant, a surprising discovery in a time when there were likely less than a hundred mutants in the world. Greycrow took on the alias Scalphunter, and became one of Sinister's most loyal servants.

Decades later, Sinister discovered the existence of the Morlocks, mutants whose freakish nature had forced them to withdraw from society, founding their own community in the sewers beneath New York City. Sinister was shocked to learn that many of the Morlocks bore the marks of his genetic experimentation; unbeknownst to Sinister, most of the Morlocks were former test subjects of the time- and dimensionally-displaced Dark Beast, who has learned everything he knew from his reality's Sinister. Furthermore, The Dark Beast's colleague The Sugar Man had also made the trip from their dimension to this one, and he too had used his world's Sinister's work to create the Genoshan Mutates. To Sinister, this perversion of his experiments was unacceptable; though he chose to ignore the Genoshan mutates, as their mutations left them sterile, Sinister refused to allow the Morlocks any chance to reproduce.

Thus the Morlocks were reformed. Sinister first called in a marker with the enigmatic mutant Gambit, whose life Sinister had saved many years before. On Sinister's orders, Gambit gathered together a small army of mutants that he would lead into the Morlock tunnels, though Sinister was careful not to give away his true intentions. A late addition was made to Gambit's team- the feral mutant Sabretooth, whom Scalphunter had personally recruited in Vietnam.

As Gambit led half of the Morlocks into the tunnels, the rest of the team (led by Scalphunter) ambushed a young Morlock named Tommy, murdering her boyfriend and trailing her back to a hidden entrance to the Morlock tunnels, where they killed her as well. The Morlocks now had two points of attack, and they began to massacre the Morlocks, murdering hundreds of their number. One man took no part in the attack- Gambit fled the tunnels as soon as he saw the violent deaths that he had unwittingly enabled.

The Marauders were soon opposed by both The X-Men and X-Factor, who arrived separately to try to end the loss of life. Both teams suffered devastating losses: The X-Men's Shadowcat was trapped in an ethereal half-phased form, Nightcrawler was left comatose and Colossus was briefly paralyzed from the neck down. The worst injury was suffered by X-Factor's Angel, who was crucified by the Marauders Harpoon and Blockbuster, who nailed him to a wall by his wings. Angel's life was saved by the intervention of Thor, while the X-Men and X-Factor were aided by the arrival of The New Mutants and Power Pack. Though the surviving Marauders were driven away, the damage was done- the Morlock population was devastated, their remaining numbers low enough to practically ensure that they would die off within a few generations. Additionally, Sabretooth has broken away from the main assault to follow Wolverine to the X-Mansion, where he destroyed the mutant-locating device Cerebro.

Though a number of Marauders were killed in the assault on the Morlock tunnels, the team's roster remained mostly unaffected; Sinister used genetic samples to create back-up clones of all of his soldiers, with the exception of Sabretooth and Malice, whose individual mutations prevented him from replicating their forms. Sinister also implanted all of his Marauders (other than Malice and Sabretooth) with a genetic trait that would kill them should they ever turn on him, ensuring their perpetual loyalty. Despite this, Sinister has used the Marauders only sporadically since the attack on the Morlocks, often relying instead on his second strike-force, The Nasty Boys.

The Marauders have proved less than effective since the attack on the Morlocks. When sent to kill Madelyn Pryor, Sinister's clone of Jean Grey, the Marauders were soundly defeated by X-Factor. Shortly thereafter, Pryor incited a demonic invasion of New York as The Goblin Queen, and the Marauders were killed while trying to protect Sinister's main laboratory. The team was briefly led by Malice while she was trapped in Polaris' body, until Sinister allowed Malice to be destroyed by Polaris and Havok. Finally, the Marauders were sent at one point to attack the mutant Threnody, though her companion X-Man used his incredible psychic powers to kill the entire team (or at least the clones that were present at the time).

Following the events of M-Day, most of the Marauders lost their mutant powers, leaving only Arclight, Scrambler, Scalphunter and Prism with any superhuman abilities. Arclight is currently on the mutant "reservation" at the X-Mansion, Prism is incarcerated in a maximum security mental institution and Scalphunter has sworn his allegiance to Apocalypse. Scrambler's current whereabouts are unknown.

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