Rogue Appreciation 2021

[Celgress]

My preference will always be...

Rogue & Remy

aw, so heartwarming

[killerbee]

As for Rogue powers (I'm still on this), I strongly believe she is in the same boat as Selene and Emplate. On base on how her powers work. I don't see Rogue as a mimic or someone who mimics powers. She IS the that power or that being. As she stated in Evolution, "Your power is my power and I can take more than one." comes to mind. Like Wonderman's powerset, She has his powers. Granted a fraction of it but it's still his powers that she siphoned from him. Chrono (or anyone else ) help me understand why is Rogue being categorized w/characters like Hope, Synch, and Calvin. Would someone like Weapon Omega be on that list as well?

Agreed. I think rogies absorption abilities were when written properly not power minicry but power Stealing and not only did she steal powers but a piece of there very souls. I think writers in subsequent years just thought of her as a simple power copier and thats why we had incidents like wonderman and that terrible distance power upgrade.

[ChronoRogue]

Hmm I don't think the distance has anything to do with being a mimic or not. Selene can absorb life-force from a distance as well and all she takes is life-energy. But I agree some writers seem to confuse simply being a mimic and being vampiric.

Ironically I think one of the guiltier ones of doing that was Carey, as Rogue was most flippant with her ability during his run due to her control. I think he should've been clearer on her limitations, I can buy that she can choose not to knock the person she absorbs unconscious but they should still have weakened in terms of powers. So she'd be essentially borrowing half of an ability instead of simply duplicating it like Synch, Hope or Calvin would.

Anyway happy holidays for those of ya'll celebrating Easter today. Some Rogue art

by Rodrigolo Renzo


by Drew Nando


by JMC30

[Devaishwarya]

Rogue doesn't absorb souls. Unless one considers the psyche...mind, memories personality traits the soul. She weakens their life energies to the point where they're rendered comatose but that still isn't the same as stealing their actual souls. If that were the case...her "victims" would never be able to recover once that power reverts. The effect may feel similar to what Selene does but it's definitely not the same thing or the same result.

[WallStreeter]

Hmm I don't think the distance has anything to do with being a mimic or not. Selene can absorb life-force from a distance as well and all she takes is life-energy. But I agree some writers seem to confuse simply being a mimic and being vampiric.

Ironically I think one of the guiltier ones of doing that was Carey, as Rogue was most flippant with her ability during his run due to her control. I think he should've been clearer on her limitations, I can buy that she can choose not to knock the person she absorbs unconscious but they should still have weakened in terms of powers. So she'd be essentially borrowing half of an ability instead of simply duplicating it like Synch, Hope or Calvin would.

Anyway happy holidays for those of ya'll celebrating Easter today. Some Rogue art

by Rodrigolo Renzo


by Drew Nando


by JMC30

Selene doesn’t take life energy. She gets their powers as well. It’s why she slaughtered the Externals and the why she absorbed the souls on Necrosha, to claim their powers.

But Rogue doesn’t have to kill someone to get their powers. Selene does.

[ChronoRogue]

Selene doesn’t take life energy. She gets their powers as well. It’s why she slaughtered the Externals and the why she absorbed the souls on Necrosha, to claim their powers.

But Rogue doesn’t have to kill someone to get their powers. Selene does.

I don't think Selene takes actual powers, she isn't like Rogue or Emplate. She's more like Bishop, a bit in his case it's energy, where she gets a boost to her physical abilities (strength, speed, regenerative powers, endurance) the more life energy she feeds on. She mostly uses it to retain her youthful appearance and to power her spells, as spell-casting drains her.



Eternals often kill each other because they are connected and get power distributed among themselves when they eat their peers hearts (Apocalypse has done the same for example). Necrosha was a general ritualistic sacrifice that meant to boost her powers but I don't think it was specifically giving her their mutant abilities like a mimic would.

That said, she's a bit like Monet in that she already has a ton of powers anyway. Her iconic Life Drain, Telepathy, Telekinesis, Pyrokinesis, Shadowforce, Super Strength, Speed, Healing Factor and Sorceress Spells (curses, demons, teleportation, divination, etc...).

[WallStreeter]

I don't think Selene takes actual powers, she isn't like Rogue or Emplate. She's more like Bishop, a bit in his case it's energy, where she gets a boost to her physical abilities (strength, speed, regenerative powers, endurance) the more life energy she feeds on. She mostly uses it to retain her youthful appearance and to power her spells, as spell-casting drains her.



Eternals often kill each other because they are connected and get power distributed among themselves when they eat their peers hearts (Apocalypse has done the same for example). Necrosha was a general ritualistic sacrifice that meant to boost her powers but I don't think it was specifically giving her their mutant abilities like a mimic would.

That said, she's a bit like Monet in that she already has a ton of powers anyway. Her iconic Life Drain, Telepathy, Telekinesis, Pyrokinesis, Shadowforce, Super Strength, Speed, Healing Factor and Sorceress Spells (curses, demons, teleportation, divination, etc...).

Yeah, Selene doesn´t need any new powers because she has such a wide variety of powers anyway. So large scale lifeforce taking just gives her a huge power boost (Necrosha, Externals, or what she was doing in Cap).

But beings who have powers have a lot more energy in their souls/lifeforce, so they empower her in ways a single human soul won´t. However, if she were to take human souls large scale it would provide a significant boost. She has said a mutant soul is in between a human soul and a god, and 1000 more juice than a human soul.

[ChronoRogue]

Yea, I agree on that. When the opportunity strikes Selene rather go after someone with power as that will probably last her longer but mutants tend to fight back unlike regular humans.

Speaking of which, this makes me sad we haven't seen her much at all during Krakoa. I want to the New Mutants interacting with her lol.

Bringing it back to Rogue, I wonder Rogue's own life-absorption powers could be used in the same way as Selene ie to retain youth and enhance her strength. Most of other vampiric types like Emplate, Trevor, and Selene use their abilities in such a way.

[Devaishwarya]

Rogue isn't a "vampiric" type mutant...she does not absorb a person's life-energies or soul. Her powers act specifically on the person's physical traits...ie their powers, their psyche. The effects of the absorbtion is only temporary so in essence she just "borrows" the abilities (as she herself has often said).

[Calintz]

If your taking life essences and draining your victims, then your a vampiric/leech type. It could be either temporary or permanent but the effects are still the same. Hell she drained two people to death. One human on accident and apocalypse on purpose (Ok she was manipulated on that one but he had that coming lol)

[Devaishwarya]

Going by the definition of what it means to be a vampire like Selene or Emplate...Rogue does not feed off of her "victims" in order to survive.
And again...she does not take life-essences. She takes your powers, physical traits and/or your psyche for a very limited time. The "victim" is rendered comatose usually due to the shock of the transference but they do recover fully. Only In extreme cases does death or prolongued coma result as with Cody (most likely because he was human) and Carol Danvers (because she was part alien).

I guess we're discussing semantics here as we all have our own personal understandings on the nature of her powers. So...

[ChronoRogue]

Rogue isn't a "vampiric" type mutant...she does not absorb a person's life-energies or soul. Her powers act specifically on the person's physical traits...ie their powers, their psyche. The effects of the absorbtion is only temporary so in essence she just "borrows" the abilities (as she herself has often said).

I don't know about souls, but I think she does absorb life-energy. I never interpreted her ability as a type of "shock" because you can see her victims visibly get weaker and corrode when she absorbs them in way that is similar to what Selene does. It's just usually she does it in very small doses and so whoever she "borrows" from easily recovers, but there are extreme cases that we've seen over the years. And when it does occur there very much a wither and decay theme there.



During Mr and Mrs X, Rogue keeps killing Gambit through her absorption power in simulations from Mojo. You can see exactly how it's a life-force absorption because Gambit visibly decays and turns into a corpse each time.


You can see Apocalypse suffer the same fate here, as his corpse loses pallor and he is visibly aged.

It's why her ability has the possibility to kill or stun others. You can tell it's separate from her ability to absorb powers because when she has full control, she doesn't hurt others when she "borrows" abilities ala Carey's run. If I was to guess, they work in conjunction; the life-drain stuns and weakens her opponent enough to absorb power.

There are also multiple AUs where Rogue retains her youth presumably because of her absorption powers. Actually I think it's rarer to find an AU where she explicitly gets older, the main reality I can recall that happening is X-Men: The End and there she only really looks middle-aged.

Earth 32098


This reality is distinct in that everyone here is visibly aged but Rogue retains her youth, with the implication of her absorption powers allowing her to stay young.

Though I agree she doesn't explicitly need to feed like a true vampires but neither does Selene or someone like Sauron. They do it more for power than survival, though I guess you could make the argument that Selene wouldn't have survived this long without feeding on others. Though I suspect Rogue could function the same way, by adding someone's life-force to her own or taking multiple small doses from other people to extend her lifespan. if she hasn't already, though Apocalypse's abilities did fade despite straight up killing him...

[Devaishwarya]

That seems to be an artistic choice or writer directive..."for effect" (Or probably that's just how her silly absorbtion from a distance powers worked...)
It's been shown countless number of times under Claremont that her "victims" just fall unconscious as when she absorbed Kurt, Colossus, Storm, Val Cooper and even Carol. Juggernaut just "deflated". Physical degradation is not the norm. The Cody incident, being the moment her powers activated would always be the sole outlier.

While it is a far distant future AU possibility that she could develop her powers to "feed" off others and extending her lifespan...knowing how she actually feels about how her powers affects others here in the 616...I don't see her going that route, at all.

[WallStreeter]

Going by the definition of what it means to be a vampire like Selene or Emplate...Rogue does not feed off of her "victims" in order to survive.
And again...she does not take life-essences. She takes your powers, physical traits and/or your psyche for a very limited time. The "victim" is rendered comatose usually due to the shock of the transference but they do recover fully. Only In extreme cases does death or prolongued coma result as with Cody (most likely because he was human) and Carol Danvers (because she was part alien).

I guess we're discussing semantics here as we all have our own personal understandings on the nature of her powers. So...

Rogue put Sunfire into a coma too. Her touching anyone too long could kill them. She does indeed take life essence, and some writers have even said that.

Oh, psyche actually means SOUL. Claremont just used a fancier word.

[Devaishwarya]

It also means MIND...as in how she's been able to adopt memories, feelings, characteristics like speech patterns from those she touches.

My question on her stealing souls is simply...how and why do those she touch become whole again once they revive? And what happens to the part she took, once she's depleted the power use?

Edit...we are discussing the same thing just from differing perspectives and understandings.