The King of Thieves - Gambit Appreciation 2023

[thjan]

spoilers:

Candra has often been called the goddess of thieves. They also have a statue dedicated to her because she's the Benefactress and founder of the Thieves Guild. Also the External Gate was transformed into a monster so I'm assuming it released the souls of the Externals, hence why Candra is back at large.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

Off the top of my head I really can't remember Candra ever being considered a goddess by the guilds. Benefactress yes, for sure, but not a goddess that I can remember. Especially the goddess of thieves since she was benefactress to both the Thieves and Assassin's guilds, and also by now everyone should be well aware that she is a mutant, albeit a powerful and long lived one. I could be wrong though, I love and read a lot of Gambit comics, but my memory is not perfect ha. I still really don't get why they would want to honor her with a statue though since the guilds have had a more complicated relationship with her ever since the first Gambit solo where they saw her true nature and both guilds rejected her. And ah yes! I had forgotten about Selene messing with the External gate(see my imperfect memory, I even read those issues). That makes perfect sense. Thanks!

end of spoilers

[thjan]

Oh, and I forgot to mention Gimmick had a really enjoyable story in the Pride issue. She started out in the Gambit homage costume but during the story she debuted her own original costume that I thought was cool and I really liked. It was also some set up for the Dark X-Men series.

I really hope that series doesn't bungle the moment when Gambit and Gimmick meet. It would be nice for someone to like and admire him in the actual X-Men comics for once in this era(exaggerating of course, but not by much).

[Nyssane]

spoilers:

Off the top of my head I really can't remember Candra ever being considered a goddess by the guilds. Benefactress yes, for sure, but not a goddess that I can remember. Especially the goddess of thieves since she was benefactress to both the Thieves and Assassin's guilds, and also by now everyone should be well aware that she is a mutant, albeit a powerful and long lived one. I could be wrong though, I love and read a lot of Gambit comics, but my memory is not perfect ha. I still really don't get why they would want to honor her with a statue though since the guilds have had a more complicated relationship with her ever since the first Gambit solo where they saw her true nature and both guilds rejected her. And ah yes! I had forgotten about Selene messing with the External gate(see my imperfect memory, I even read those issues). That makes perfect sense. Thanks!

end of spoilers

spoilers:

The Black Cat series had a Candra flashback in one issue so I think they're still worshiping her. And she referred to herself as the goddess of thieves in Excalibur before she "died", so I think the Guilds probably see her as one if that's what she's been telling 'em.

end of spoilers

[Zoks]

Yeah, today wasn't a good day for Gambit fans. Even his appearance in today's Marvel Voices: Pride was just okay and also indicative once again of how little Marvel cares about the character-

spoilers:

Black Cat is in New Orleans and talking to Gambit. I and a lot of other fans have always wanted Gambit and Black Cat to interact more, but while they have some good interactions here and they act like they are friends, I am kind of over all the off-screen good friendships popping up all over the place. I really wish Marvel had shown them working jobs together every once in a while and actually building a friendship between them instead of just making it materialize here while ignoring that they haven't interacted on panel since some 90s Spider-Man issue. Oh well, anyways Gambit is showing her around the city and trying to get her to open up about her relationship troubles(this is set before the current Spider-Man series), while Black Cat mostly tries to turn the conversation to anything else. Gambit then brings her to the New Orleans Thieves Guild headquarters and just casually mentions that he USED to be, "king of this joint", and brushes off her inquiry about what happened. And that is the part that made me say Marvel just doesn't care anything about Gambit or his status quo earlier. This story also seems to downgrade the guild from being an International Thieves guild to just the New Orleans "branch" again, and I can't tell if that is just ignorance on the part of the writer or yet another sign of Marvel's indifference when it comes to Gambit and his lore. Anyway, he continues to show her around the headquarters and they have a fun exchange about how boring Cyclops' diary is(stolen and in the guild library, ha, ha), and how he had them beef up security in the place since he was bringing her there. They then come to a statue/fountain of Candra(who is called a goddess for some reason throughout) cast in Mysterium(that they stole) that has her gem in it's hand(somehow not part of the External Gate anymore, not really explained). Why the guild would want a statue of Candra is also not explained. Black Cat then shows that that is what she came for and dunks Gambit's head in the fountain so she can jump up to the gem and grab it. She is then transported into the gem somehow and Candra asks her what it is she wants. Riches? Long life? And so on. But Black Cat says she just wanted to go on a date with her. "Just for fun. No strings attached." Kind of bizarre, but whatever. Then it flashforwards to her talking to Spider-Man about it, but ending her story with, "A lady doesn't kiss and tell.", when he asked what happened.

end of spoilers

Not a bad appearance for Gambit, and I enjoyed his and Black Cat's interactions for sure even if I had some overall problems with the story, and the casual and offhanded reordering Gambit's status quo in the Marvel universe.

Black Cat is one of Gambit's poker buddies like Rocket Raccoon, the Thing, and Rhino. She gets kicked out with the Thing and Rhino when Rogue busts them playing in the X-Tree's basement.

[K7P5V]

Black Cat is one of Gambit's poker buddies like Rocket Raccoon, the Thing, and Rhino. She gets kicked out with the Thing and Rhino when Rogue busts them playing in the X-Tree's basement.

Indeed. Here's proof...

[thjan]

Black Cat is one of Gambit's poker buddies like Rocket Raccoon, the Thing, and Rhino. She gets kicked out with the Thing and Rhino when Rogue busts them playing in the X-Tree's basement.

Totally forgot about her being there! Thanks!

[NicoPony]

Oh, Rogue, this pattern of behavior has been evident all along…. Gambit’s next solo mini needs to focus on him going to therapy for survivors of abuse. Hopefully his therapist will offer him the mantra that he deserves to be loved for who he is. Conceding everything of yourself is no way to live. You can’t keep pouring from an empty cup, Remy. She has nothing to offer you, marriage requires compromise, not endless sacrifice. Rogue doesn’t care as much about you as she cares about than getting her own way. It’s time to live a full live of your own.

[Romy134]

Is this the lowest point? Milligan had me running for the hills. But this is… IDK. Can Dark X-Men change things? Hopefully The MCU does something good with Remy. Seems the only way the writers will exert any effort into him.

[Sparta]

Is this the lowest point? Milligan had me running for the hills. But this is… IDK. Can Dark X-Men change things? Hopefully The MCU does something good with Remy. Seems the only way the writers will exert any effort into him.

It's pretty bad, but this latest issue has me thinking that Rogue is worse.
I'm hoping X-Men '97 pulls through for us, there'll be more eyes on that than the handful of people that read comics these days.

[Zoks]

I don't particularly mind the result of the Milligan run (I like Deathbit) but the whole process was awful as a character. This mini actually isn't that bad, since it's likely something we can pretend never actually happened unless they really do get divorced. Unless we get into fights with Rogue fans later, we can keep this in our back pockets as evidence of her being a bad wife.

[Malachi]

Is this the lowest point? Milligan had me running for the hills. But this is… IDK. Can Dark X-Men change things? Hopefully The MCU does something good with Remy. Seems the only way the writers will exert any effort into him.

It's pretty bad, but this latest issue has me thinking that Rogue is worse.
I'm hoping X-Men '97 pulls through for us, there'll be more eyes on that than the handful of people that read comics these days.

It's not the worst for me. Milligan beats this. At least as I remember Milligan that is to say. Didn't he have Remy contemplate sleeping with Mystique in her Foxe form? And the sheer uselessness of both the defection to Apocalypse, his reasoning behind why he wouldn't be completly brainwashed and then how he was used as Death. All of those things really hurt Remy. Also Rogue for some inane reason got together with Pulse so that whole debacle hurt her too.

All of those things reeked of pinpointing reasons why Gambit was bad as a character and shouldn't be in the X-men books. For me it's character assination. Milligan or the editors might not have meant it that way, who knows anyway, but it felt like people out to not only remove him from the book but permanently hurt him as a character.

Anatartica was bad in a similair way that it showed us that the X-men didn't care for Remy and it was implied that we readers shouldn't either. Antartica was a big misstake that the X-office tried to fix in stages after. In many ways because they didn't realise how badly it reflected on Rogue and the the rest of the team.

I would rank them:

1 Milligan
2 Stepanie Phillips
3 Whoever wrote the trial of Gambit.

Stephanie Phillips is trying to do many bad things but seemingly there are story reasons behind it that shows us that the X-office wants to build upon. They might be crap, as they usually are when their is a couple involved, but they are there. I never got the same feeling behind Antartica or blood of Apocalypse. I just felt that whatever came out of it happened by accident or writers trying to make it work.

Or was the trial set up to spin Remy into his solo?
Was Blood of Apocalypse set up becasue Carey wanted Remy in that place for Messiah Complex?

[NicoPony]

I don't particularly mind the result of the Milligan run (I like Deathbit) but the whole process was awful as a character. This mini actually isn't that bad, since it's likely something we can pretend never actually happened unless they really do get divorced. Unless we get into fights with Rogue fans later, we can keep this in our back pockets as evidence of her being a bad wife.

Lol, I love the way you think. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present to you Exhibit A, followed by B through Z.

[Ilargi]

Let's suppose that the plan is to separate them during Fall of X, because that whole event is planned as a moment of chaos and division among mutants. Ok. They have chosen the worst writer for the job and the editors have not edited anything at all. Not only is the story horrible, but also the language errors, use of powers and nonsense. They haven't missed a spelling mistake by a miracle.

Foxxe in his interview says that Dark is going to place Remy in something he should have since he joined the X-men (something along those lines).
So either he comes out stronger as a hero or they definitely turn him into a traitor and a villain.
And seeing how little he's loved in the X-office I'm leaning towards the latter.

I hope not, but I don't trust JDW and Marvel at all.

[remydat]

That’s just it, in the original interviews I was talking about he never mentions kitty in relation to gambit, at all. He never said gambit was going after kitty because she was the next generation leader, etc… he said the stuff about sinister and gambit being constructs of Nathan, the very slow aging child. He mentioned Nathan’s obsession with cyclops and while spying on cyclops, notices rogue, and knows that she’ll never talk to him in his real form, and also spy on the X-men to possibly betray them from within. never anything about a triangle with kitty (or kitty in any way again,lol)

Yeah I know he doesn't mention her in the early on interviews. That is why I said he left before the Kitty plans ever really got off the ground. He bounced after 3 issues so at that point nothing with Kitty was ever really established as that whole triangle was intended to be more towards the end of Gambit's run because he was suppose to ultimately refuse to betray the X-men and die sacrificing himself for them. So in effect the seduction backfired as the Gambit persona would end up wanting to be a hero rather than betray the X-men.

[remydat]

I don't particularly mind the result of the Milligan run (I like Deathbit) but the whole process was awful as a character. This mini actually isn't that bad, since it's likely something we can pretend never actually happened unless they really do get divorced. Unless we get into fights with Rogue fans later, we can keep this in our back pockets as evidence of her being a bad wife.

Ha this is exactly what I am gearing up for as someone that always knew this was inevitable. Romy just doesn't work anymore given the incompetence of today's writers. Add this to Rogneto as further proof that Rogue just has no respect for Remy. Gambit is the friend that every dude knows whose wife is just unbearable and they keep asking their friend, why he is still with her.