Am I the only one that notices that Marco feels different, in the same way that Jinbe felt different in Marineford and the aftermath? Of anyone outside of the top dogs of the arc (and Ace and Luffy), the only person to get more focus than Marco in relation to Luffy was Jinbe (not counting Ivankov, because he was then and still is affiliated with someone).
And now that we see his message, the dude dropped everything after he took care of what he had to in order to run to Luffy. A guy that he doesn’t know that well, the same way Jinbe did everything he did for Luffy despite not knowing him well. Plus we’re going to have Marco for the remainder of this arc and more...He fees different to me. I don’t hop on the x-character-is-crew-potential bit at all, but Marco registers on that radar for me.