Gambit Appreciation 2021

[Laemar]

I was gonna ask the same thing. Hope it was accidental and can be saved.

[Gripstir]

I was gonna ask the same thing. Hope it was accidental and can be saved.

Yeah it took a lot of work. I mean I think we would all be willing to do it again because the journey was one of the more fun times. I wouldn’t mind seeing it continue

[K7P5V]

Yeah it took a lot of work. I mean I think we would all be willing to do it again because the journey was one of the more fun times. I wouldn’t mind seeing it continue

Truly sad for your loss. I know how you feel, since I posted a nice image from Joe Mad in that thread (XD)

[BobbysWorld]

Really wish instead of Excalibur, we had Gambit in a book that addressed the fact that the External Candra was known as the goddess of thieves because for literal centuries she built up the Thieves Guild as her personal power base with a large number of mutants in it each generation.

Meaning there should be a **** ton of mutant thieves running around Krakoa. And as post ToM resurrections continue, the Thieves Guild members should be more and more in abundance and at some point you'd think like hey, maybe someone should acknowledge that they're gonna make up a sizable portion of Krakoa's population and as the King of Thieves and the most prominent mutant connected to the Guild save for Candra herself (with her now being out of the picture), like.....this should logically be something Remy has some thoughts on.

Its kinda like how Apocalypse had his millennia old power base with Clan Akkaba....who number in the hundreds of thousands at one point, before most were depowered by Decimation and the rest wiped out by the Apocalypse Twins. But all those mutants are eventually gonna be coming back, and their lord and master Apocalypse is gone and seemingly has no further use for them.

Part of why I always hated Remender's work on stuff like Uncanny Avengers is because he tried to act like the idea of there being a mutant culture was laughable and mutants had nothing but a shared gene connecting them....because mutants have actually had MANY cultures over the centuries, and a lot of the oldest and largest of these cultures had the longevity and the numbers that they did because they were specifically shepherded throughout the ages by immortal mutants.....some of the most pivotal of which are now out of the picture.....which leaves huge power vacuums among the only Krakoan demographics that already HAVE existing cultures and commonalities predating the modern Krakoan society.

And being that these pre-established mutant cultures, once brought back and given room to flourish on Krakoa.....are by default going to have a huge headstart over the rest of Krakoa when it comes to forging bonds and shared goals and subcultures....they have the potential to hugely shift and outright define the balance of power going forward in Krakoan society, even moreso than the current Quiet Council. It really just comes down to who recognizes the potential societal power these already built power bases can hold....and steps up to fill the vacuums left behind by Candra and Apocalypse, for example.

Idk, I just would really love someone to play with that and like, have Remy see this coming due to his personal awareness of how many mutants have been Thieves and Assassin Guild members at some point and how much potential they hold to be a very large voice in Krakoan society....and struggle with 'ugh, I don't want to be the guy who steps up and into this role before someone worse does so instead, buuuuuuut'....

[NicoPony]

Totally see Remy in the role of reluctant leader. I’d imagine the Thieves as a faction unwilling to go to Krakoa. They already have their own sweet island setup. Gambit could be someone to broker a relationship between Thieves and Krakoa. At the end of the Asmus solo, it was handled in a rush, but Gambit was the one to step in and broker a peace between NYC criminals and the aliens with no bloodshed. Even his initial response to Jaspers is: ‘oh, sorry for horning in on your turf, I’ll cut you in on my dealings, I know how these things work.’ Mutually beneficial and sketchy dealings should be his whole thing.

Is anyone willing to listen to this: https://krakoanexports.libsyn.com/kr...15-tini-howard

I was hoping for a transcript bc I don’t want to listen to anything else about the amazing Betsy Braddock and her boring family.

AIPTs XMEn Monday, AIPT: At the same time, new series like Knights of X, Legion of X and X-Men Red are evolutions of Excalibur, Way of X and S.W.O.R.D., but I’m curious, are these new titles designed to be new-reader-friendly and fresh starts?

Jordan: We definitely want them to be new-reader-friendly. Absolutely. That’s the point of shaking things up like that because we could just put out another issue of the old series, but the point of doing a refresh on the series is to go, “Hey, come check it out, this is different now. This is new and exciting and awesome.”

I hope this is true, that it isn’t a continuation of more of the same. Let the Captain Britain saga be over all ready. There is a newer editor and the more recent issues have been “an improvement”. So, maybe it’ll really be different? I feel like it’s going to be more bait-and-switch, and even if Gambit gets a story, is it one I’m going to want to read? He’s been unbearably annoying with the cat thing.

We’ve got two queer pairings (potentially) in the book and then the two married couples are split. Will Gambit be giving Bei the suss side-eye since she’s one of Apocalypse’s people? There were weird hints from Apocalypse that Gambit had some kind of untapped power potential. I feel like A will come back by the time this arc is over.

[Sandmans_Raven]

Yeah it took a lot of work. I mean I think we would all be willing to do it again because the journey was one of the more fun times. I wouldn’t mind seeing it continue

It did get deleted, unfortunately. I messaged one of the mods about it and it sounds like it was an accidental deletion, which is too bad since AppleJ had just posted 101 for the top Romy Moments.

[AppleJ]

It did get deleted, unfortunately. I messaged one of the mods about it and it sounds like it was an accidental deletion, which is too bad since AppleJ had just posted 101 for the top Romy Moments.

Yeah pretty frustrated with this! Thanks for getting a hold of them Sandman's Raven! They never responded to me.

I will give a re-cap when we re-start the thread after the 1st since apparently they're just going to lock all the appreciation threads anyway before then.

[Malachi]

Is anyone willing to listen to this: https://krakoanexports.libsyn.com/kr...15-tini-howard

I will take this bullet. Hopefully it's honest and not to much self promotional.

[AppleJ]

I will take this bullet. Hopefully it's honest and not to much self promotional.

You may have earned a sainthood. LOL Very curious to hear what you think!

[AppleJ]

Really wish instead of Excalibur, we had Gambit in a book that addressed the fact that the External Candra was known as the goddess of thieves because for literal centuries she built up the Thieves Guild as her personal power base with a large number of mutants in it each generation.

Meaning there should be a **** ton of mutant thieves running around Krakoa. And as post ToM resurrections continue, the Thieves Guild members should be more and more in abundance and at some point you'd think like hey, maybe someone should acknowledge that they're gonna make up a sizable portion of Krakoa's population and as the King of Thieves and the most prominent mutant connected to the Guild save for Candra herself (with her now being out of the picture), like.....this should logically be something Remy has some thoughts on.

Its kinda like how Apocalypse had his millennia old power base with Clan Akkaba....who number in the hundreds of thousands at one point, before most were depowered by Decimation and the rest wiped out by the Apocalypse Twins. But all those mutants are eventually gonna be coming back, and their lord and master Apocalypse is gone and seemingly has no further use for them.

Part of why I always hated Remender's work on stuff like Uncanny Avengers is because he tried to act like the idea of there being a mutant culture was laughable and mutants had nothing but a shared gene connecting them....because mutants have actually had MANY cultures over the centuries, and a lot of the oldest and largest of these cultures had the longevity and the numbers that they did because they were specifically shepherded throughout the ages by immortal mutants.....some of the most pivotal of which are now out of the picture.....which leaves huge power vacuums among the only Krakoan demographics that already HAVE existing cultures and commonalities predating the modern Krakoan society.

And being that these pre-established mutant cultures, once brought back and given room to flourish on Krakoa.....are by default going to have a huge headstart over the rest of Krakoa when it comes to forging bonds and shared goals and subcultures....they have the potential to hugely shift and outright define the balance of power going forward in Krakoan society, even moreso than the current Quiet Council. It really just comes down to who recognizes the potential societal power these already built power bases can hold....and steps up to fill the vacuums left behind by Candra and Apocalypse, for example.

Idk, I just would really love someone to play with that and like, have Remy see this coming due to his personal awareness of how many mutants have been Thieves and Assassin Guild members at some point and how much potential they hold to be a very large voice in Krakoan society....and struggle with 'ugh, I don't want to be the guy who steps up and into this role before someone worse does so instead, buuuuuuut'....

Ooohhh a VERY salient point! Can we put you in charge of writing instead?

Like seriously, I want to see more of mutant culture and more about the history of the Thieves Guild. There's a huge potential for world-building right there and every society has it's own version of organized crime. I mean, Krakoa doesn't *technically* have any rules around theft or any offical enforcement of any of their own laws. I keep thinking surely there is a black market for things going both out of and into Krakoa. And I don't see why the Hellfire Club would be the main or only group involved.

[Malachi]

So the podcast with Tini Howard didn’t talk much about either Gambit or Rogue. Unless I missed something near the end.

The interviewer, who is a friend of Tini and Tini herself is a former co-host, let us know that Tini liked the animated series and there was a connection to that and Jubilee, Gambit and Rogue where in the cast. Tini said that during the group session writers had cards with the characters names on and sometimes switched/traded them around.
Both Gambit and Rogue where selected because they are energy channelers and Tini thought she could do something with that relating to her mutant magic theme.

Overall most of the Excalibur talk was about Apocalypse. That it started with her wanting to explore him. Betsy got added because she was one of those subjects that needed to be dealt with and Jordan then said that fantasy+magic=it’s Excalibur. So she says the story evolved organically with help from the other writers.

It was not a fun experience to listen to. Both of them seem like nice people but they are disconnected from anything that isn’t self congratulate and admiration. They talked about how X of swords was great. I think that Tini has doubts and she can be critical but we aren’t hearing anything about that. It’s all sunshine and high-fives.

[thjan]

It did get deleted, unfortunately. I messaged one of the mods about it and it sounds like it was an accidental deletion, which is too bad since AppleJ had just posted 101 for the top Romy Moments.

That is a super bummer!

Yeah pretty frustrated with this! Thanks for getting a hold of them Sandman's Raven! They never responded to me.

I will give a re-cap when we re-start the thread after the 1st since apparently they're just going to lock all the appreciation threads anyway before then.

Yeah, I did not get a response about the missing thread either. I hope you repost the 101st moment with your thoughts. I was looking forward to it and I didn't get to see your post before the thread was deleted.

[thjan]

It was not a fun experience to listen to. Both of them seem like nice people but they are disconnected from anything that isn’t self congratulate and admiration. They talked about how X of swords was great. I think that Tini has doubts and she can be critical but we aren’t hearing anything about that. It’s all sunshine and high-fives.

Yeah, this is the impression I have been getting all along where the X-Office is concerned. Everything is sunshine and rainbows or nothing said at all over there it seems like. Excalibur has pretty much just stayed the same throughout its run with absolutely no attempt to address any of the criticisms or trying to research and better understand the characters. I don't think Tini Howard hears any of the criticisms about her run. I think she was told to ignore the "haters" by the editors and fellow writers at Marvel, and is shielded from bad press and tough interview questions by friends and interviewers that want to keep getting interviews from Marvel.

[Malachi]

Yeah, this is the impression I have been getting all along where the X-Office is concerned. Everything is sunshine and rainbows or nothing said at all over there it seems like. Excalibur has pretty much just stayed the same throughout its run with absolutely no attempt to address any of the criticisms or trying to research and better understand the characters. I don't think Tini Howard hears any of the criticisms about her run. I think she was told to ignore the "haters" by the editors and fellow writers at Marvel, and is shielded from bad press and tough interview questions by friends and interviewers that want to keep getting interviews from Marvel.

Yeah that’s my impression too. Comics seems to be a very small world and everyone is scratching each other backs hoping to advance or just stay in the business. Editorial seems to be in a very serious need of a overhaul. Yet Disney keeps it going probably with the cold cynicism that comics is a dying industry and all they need from it is material to repurpose to other media.

I remember reading Jim Shooters blog about his tenure as EiC. I’m certain some of his reputation is built upon bad social skills or ego but much of it just came off as people wanting stuff to stay the same so they could keep doing it the way the wanted. A small world.

[NicoPony]

Thanks for the intel, Mal. No wonder Gambit is a caricature, if XTAS is the source material. That explains the falling down, butt of every joke, third-person speak crap. Liu is a big XTAS fan too, but she took the time to know Gambit and grow him into a big brother/good friend with emotional maturity. I remember fans panning Liu’s writing then, saying it was fanficy self-insertion. Especially if Gambit looked at anyone who wasn’t Rogue. Now where are we? “Self indulgent” is the description I can come up with about the last two years of Excalibur.