Rogue&Gambit #4: Spoilers and Review

[Malachi]

So issue 4 is out and I find myself writing another review of it. I ask myself why since I find no joy or in general any positive feelings from reading the damn thing. Probably this is my way of dealing with this colossal middlefinger from the X-office to us Romy fans. Writing out the negative feelings more or less, trying to make sense of the mess in the process.

Lets start:

When the preview was released it featured a “Now” in the first narration box. So what did the pages before the preview give us? I wanted it to show us a more competent Gambit being left to figure out that Rogue was in trouble. The classic, or cliche if you prefer that, way of setting up the plot. Just to show us a Gambit that was competent, or fun, or charming, or anything other than the mess we have gotten so far. What we got instead was 5 pages of the Power Broker having a demonstration of Juggernaut fighting Absorbing man for his clients. In essence it was just to show us that the chip can force it’s wearers to stop fighting against their will even if the fight continues. Did we need it? Nah a big fat NO on that. There was nothing new and all we got where some potential buyers who are as stereotypical as you might think. Borderline racism on some of them I say. Oh and Brosseau is there, because apparently he is in this mini still.



Now after the demonstration we get a data page. It’s a text conversation between Gambit and Storm. How do we know it’s Gambit? Does he speak in his usual mannerism? Does he use his nickname Stormy? Or even a a Oro.. or a Ororo. Nah we know it because Storm mentions it. The conversation is about how Remy now has a drinking problem since he died in Otherworld. It has been guessed before and now here it is. It all happened in marvels only truly magical realm: Off-panel. A truly marvelous place where 95-100% of this damn mini’s plot has been built.
The conversation is badly written, crude and it doesn’t sound like neither Storm nor Remy talking. Of course it ends with a joke. A sad joke that hints at the complex problems that this mini introduces but only uses for comic effect.



Back to the preview pages. Rogue has killed the Vanisher, unwittingly because she removed his control chip. The power broker uses manifold to ambush her and she is first stunned with a device that shocks her and paralyzes her. I have never seen it before but boy it was handy of the power broker to have it. He then chips her and Gambit enters the scene with his “52 pickup” line and his barrage or cards. We get a full page of Remy jumping into the fray and while the art is good the face for Remy looks off. Too young?

The Power Broker gets hit by a card in one panel but is fine in the next. The inconsistencies with how Remy’s cards work are frustrating. Most of the time they just feel like special effects, bright and shiny and nothing more.

Remy removes the paralyzing disc from Rogues back but not the chip. Anna then starts punching Remy. She then generously stops punching to explain that the chip procedure wasn’t completed and she can still talk to him. The Power Broker gloats a bit and then orders her to fight with his remote.

We get a fight between them where Rogue and Gambit starts talking about their problems in a very toxic way. The oral fight is much nastier than the physical. For some reason Rogue isn’t straight out killing Gambit with her punches(she has Wondermans powers, 100 ton strength) even though it has been stated that she has no control over her physical actions.

She informs him that removing the chip will kill her(which sets up the interesting dictomy: why not?) Just resurrect her, it’s the Krakoan way. Yes Gambit got messed up emotionally but others haven’t. It was probably because he was brought back in a different manner if we are trying to make sense of that. Rachel and Betsy must feel like **** right now. If things mattered that is, Marvels seems to say No on that one.

Instead we get Rogue really laying it in to Remy about their problems. It’s nasty and it tries to end with the old “ I just want you to trust me” but it comes off as mean and generally not a way that Rogue would tackle this problem. If Mike Carey could read this…
She basically admits that she has figured out that Remy dying in Otherworld has affected him and made him get distanced and start drinking. Yet she isn’t there for him, nah it’s all about her. It’s toxic and it ain’t Rogue. She hits him with a clean uppercut and he still stands, for some reason a Wonderman punch who can crush houses only leaves him momentarily off balance. Rogue then starts being juiced up by the other subjects of the power broker, until this moment they have just stood still in the background waiting for orders.



She attacks Gambit with Electros powers now and he dodges them. She wants him to leave before she kills him and he wants to free her from this control. Finally she mentions the remote. They are so dumb. Even dumber when Gambit repsonds “You are the looks and the brains, mon amour”. So dumb!

We get a page with the Power broker escaping in a helicopter and the spinning blades being hit with one of Remy’s cards. It crashes and Gambit wants the remote from the Power Broker. Before that can happen we get a juiced up Rogue(she has electric eyes and for some reasons is holding Absorbing mans chain and ball) bursting out of the facility.

The end.



Man oh man lets start with the biggest problem: Gambits drinking. It comes from off-panel and hasn’t been hinted at before this mini. The reason why is possibly plausible, it’s just that we know nothing about the whole death scene because it happened in KoX and that mini had enough to deal with so we never got any insight into Gambits feelings or motivations there. That mini ended with Rogue flying in to rescue a recently revived Remy. A happy ending we all thought and why not, we had no reason to suspect otherwise.

The drinking is only used an excuse to create distance between them and it’s not tackled in any serious way. It’s there for some bad jokes and drama. Lets hope it never gets mentioned again. I don’t want Remy to be stuck with writers writing about his problem with alcohol in future stories. I disliked it with Carol and I dislike it in general.

Personally I don’t see Remy as one who copes by drinking, he has many vices but even through his dark history drinking has never been his thing. But it fits into that stereotypical narrow view one might have if they don’t know the character. Oh and it’s easy to use. The obvious answer that we must not ignore. It’s lazy and easy to use for marvel.

Poor Rogue she is just nasty here. Why anyone would like to be married to her is a mystery and Marvel tries to answer it with Carlos Gomes art. I mean that seems to be their only answer.

Why is the power broker escaping by helicopter when he has Manifold in his control? I thought one of the biggest benefits with having a teleporter is that said teleporter could teleport you. Well I guess with Manifold we wouldn’t get the 80’s action movie scene of Remy stopping the helicopter. Or why the power broker gave her the order to absorb his other subjects after he had fled the scene… seriously the power broker flees even though he has Remy outnumbered and outpowered. The more you think about it the worse it looks.

This mini has plot for about 50-60% of the issues. It’s decompressed and many pages are more or less useless. The whole starting 5 pages with the Power Broker should have been cut in the first draft. The issue has action enough as it is. Spend that pages on the titular characters instead. The ones who readers want to read about.

I am a Romy fan and this is not a comic for Romy fans. Romy here is presented as marvels most toxic relationship. I find no enjoyment in reading about it. If anything I just want to quit reading comics.

Let’s end with that. My score is:

I want to quit reading comics/10

[DarkMagnus]

I Think this mini is very bad written.

The art is nice. but the plot is kinda meh? with a litle what?

[Kingdom X]

Ummmm that text echange is horrible and certainly NOT how you confront some who you think is dealing with alcoholism. Also whole thing seems very victim blamey. Gambit goes through something traumatic, starts negatively coping, all while his wife is either ignoring him or treating him like a nuisance. WHY would he open up to her, when she hasn't been a good partner either? Also love can't fix alcoholism so it seems like a false equivalency anyways.

[Ilargi]

I would like to know who are these two characters with these problems cosplaying Rogue and Gambit.

My bet is that the terrible thing Rogue does in the next issue is either kill Remy or kill herself. The only good thing is that this is coming to an end.

I don't know who came up with the brilliant idea that problems that happened 100% off-panel were something the fans were going to support.

I haven't seen something this bad since Milligan.

it's not romantic, it's not tragic, it's not heartbreaking, it's just a way of trashing two characters. Remy has a "justification" however ridiculous it may be but what the writer is doing to Rogue is unforgivable. She is selfish and only thinks of herself. Gambit comes off as incompetent but Rogue as a bad person.

[Malachi]

Ummmm that text echange is horrible and certainly NOT how you confront some who you think is dealing with alcoholism. Also whole thing seems very victim blamey. Gambit goes through something traumatic, starts negatively coping, all while his wife is either ignoring him or treating him like a nuisance. WHY would he open up to her, when she hasn't been a good partner either? Also love can't fix alcoholism so it seems like a false equivalency anyways.

As someone who has a soft spot for both characters and their relationship I am actively blocking it out of my memory. Storm is the kind of person who would be there for her friends and really help them. With warmth and strength. Not this text exchange.

Rogue is just narcisstic in the whole issue. It's weird because it feels off, like it would require a certain type to be this narcisstic when going through something like this. Emma perhaps? But I am no expert on that character so I don't want to paint her in a negative light. But this certainly doesn't read like Rogue.

[Malachi]

I would like to know who are these two characters with these problems cosplaying Rogue and Gambit.

My bet is that the terrible thing Rogue does in the next issue is either kill Remy or kill herself. The only good thing is that this is coming to an end.

I don't know who came up with the brilliant idea that problems that happened 100% off-panel were something the fans were going to support.

I haven't seen something this bad since Milligan.

it's not romantic, it's not tragic, it's not heartbreaking, it's just a way of trashing two characters. Remy has a "justification" however ridiculous it may be but what the writer is doing to Rogue is unforgivable. She is selfish and only thinks of herself. Gambit comes off as incompetent but Rogue as a bad person.

Yeah Gambit does the horrible things that stick out but the question is if Rogue isn't the one who comes out looking the worst. Overall this mini just tries to make them insufferable.

[Zoks]

No comment on the character voices as it's already established the author doesn't have a good grasp on how any of these characters should sound like, so no point in beating a dead horse. I really don't have a problem with Remy having a problem with the whole dying thing, since there is a case that he probably did not come back right. I'm going to withhold my judgment on how Gambit is coping with this until the end since there is a possibility it isn't just PTSD, with him over in Dark X-Men after this. Maybe Deathbit is having a much bigger influence on him since his resurrection and he is drinking and hiding from everybody so nobody notices. But Rogue is already a lost cause. Why is she making it about herself when she knows he's struggling? I'm afraid they will solve it by having her die too so Gambit cannot complain since she died too.

By the way, this isn't an off-panel problem. It's just Remy isn't used much in the X-books and this is his first showing since he died (Captain Marvel isn't an X-book) so this is the first time we see him since his death and resurrection. It would have made a lot more sense if that exchange with Storm was in issue one and not issue four as a lot of the stupid things Gambit was doing would be much more tolerable.

[Malachi]

No comment on the character voices as it's already established the author doesn't have a good grasp on how any of these characters should sound like, so no point in beating a dead horse. I really don't have a problem with Remy having a problem with the whole dying thing, since there is a case that he probably did not come back right. I'm going to withhold my judgment on how Gambit is coping with this until the end since there is a possibility it isn't just PTSD, with him over in Dark X-Men after this. Maybe Deathbit is having a much bigger influence on him since his resurrection and he is drinking and hiding from everybody so nobody notices. But Rogue is already a lost cause. Why is she making it about herself when she knows he's struggling? I'm afraid they will solve it by having her die too so Gambit cannot complain since she died too.

By the way, this isn't an off-panel problem. It's just Remy isn't used much in the X-books and this is his first showing since he died (Captain Marvel isn't an X-book) so this is the first time we see him since his death and resurrection. It would have made a lot more sense if that exchange with Storm was in issue one and not issue four as a lot of the stupid things Gambit was doing would be much more tolerable.

If Rogue dies then it will probably be suicide since the solicts for issue 5 mentions that Rogue does something horrible.

[Ilargi]

Maybe Deathbit is having a much bigger influence on him since his resurrection and he is drinking and hiding from everybody so nobody notices.

This would make sense, and it would have been great if it was well written, the characters well characterized, and without that tone of humor (which is not funny) that doesn't fit if that's the story she is trying to tell.

But Rogue is inexcusable

[Zoks]

This would make sense, and it would have been great if it was well written, the characters well characterized, and without that tone of humor (which is not funny) that doesn't fit if that's the story she is trying to tell.

But Rogue is inexcusable

Yeah it's wishful thinking on my part because that'll require good writing, something we haven't seen for either of these two coming out the X-Office in a long time.

[Weather]

I actually thought this was the best issue of the 4 (not that this means much). The action was fun and this time at least the characters demonstrated they had a reason to be fighting all the time for stupid things. Gambit is traumatized because of his death... They should have explored this before this issue.

The confrontation might have been bad, but neither Storm or Rogue are psychologists, so it tracks to me. They both are not the most sane people, and I say this with love haha.

The plot itself is basic and done a million times (super villain trying to control the heroes). But at least it didn't offend me much. Next month it is over and I hope the next bunch of minisseries are better. The line feels weak these past months.

[ES113]

Gambit should leave this Rogue. She’s horrible.

[JB]

For what it's worth, Malachi, your review made me laugh at times. So there's that!

It's unfortunate that there was no on-the-page exploration into Gambit after his death in Otherworld so we could see how he got to this point. I think it's a sound idea but like you said it all happened off-panel so it's hard to invest in.

[NicoPony]

[/I]

Everyone knows the best place to stage an intervention for someone’s dangerous chemical dependency is via text.

Let’s end with that. My score is:

I want to quit reading comics/10

JB is right, This is priceless.

Siiiigh, another issue of All The Ways Gambit Sucks And Poor Rogue Has To Put Up With Him.

It’s weird how in the last three issues Rogue stands him up, admits to a magazine writer she doesn’t have time for him, complains to a raccoon that she’s avoiding communicating with Gambit, but then still dumps all the problems at Gambit’s doorstep. It’s like you have to have cognitive dissonance and forget previously established storylines from THE VERY LAST ISSUE YOU’VE READ.

[Ilargi]

Siiiigh, another issue of All The Ways Gambit Sucks And Poor Rogue Has To Put Up With Him.

I don't think the narrative wants to put Rogue in a good light. And if that's what the writer intended, it's a Bad Bad Job.

I can't see anybody reading this and thinking yeaah Rogue is right