Originally Posted by
rogueisbae
I think the most important takeaway from this issue is the root of Rogue’s inability to control her powers—the events that took place in Genosha. It was implied (but handled poorly) back then at the time of its publication that she was sexually assaulted to a certain a degree by the guards when she had her powers stripped away, but it was made much clearer in this issue itself, based on her resistance and denial on confronting this specific trauma (“I don’t want to think about what happened here...”). What I understood from this series of panels is that her skin had always subconsciously been on defense mode ever since this incident, more so than ever before, to protect her (“If nobody could touch me then nobody could hurt me. I wouldn’t have to risk anything, my heart, my body”). She buried this so deep in her memory that she’s essentially trapped there till her present self appeared and “rescued” her after accepting what happened and is ready to conquer that fear. In a way, it’s much more organic than Charles and Danger “fixing” her in Legacy and her problems just magically disappearing; this feels more like an on-going process that may involve a few obstacles along the way. But we haven’t seen yet how her powers have evolved with control; before this issue, she would ALWAYS involuntarily absorb everyone around her without touching them and had to use a suppression collar. I don’t know if she’ll still retain the part about not needing to touch anyone to absorb them?