Gambit #3
Writing: Howard
Mackie
Art: Lee Weeks
What Went Down: Gambit enters an exclusive Paris club without
paying mind to the dress code. After
making a scene with a woman, the security guards escort him to a parking
garage. When the guards, who are working
for Candra, go to kill him, Gambit subdues them all. After changing into his uniform, Gambit is
knocked out by the Tithe Collector.
Back in New Orleans, Rogue and Gambit’s Tante Mattie, a
voodoo practitioner and healer, are watching over Bella Donna. When Mattie leaves, Rogue debates using her
powers to absorb Belle’s memories of Gambit.
In Paris, Gambit wakes up in a nicely furnished room. He fights the Tithe Collector again and blows
a hole in the room. Candra breaks up the
fight, announcing that she has need of Gambit and revealing their romantic past
together. Over in the Big Easy, Rogue
stops herself from touching Belle, but Belle’s hand reaches out to grab the
mutant anyway. This forces Rogue to
relive the entire Gambit/Belle romance.
Candra reveals her elixir and offers to give it to Gambit
if he will kill his father. She explains
that she created the guilds centuries ago to keep each other in check and do
her bidding. Now she wants to create a
new organization. The Assassins and
Julien burst into the room to steal the elixir for themselves. Julien is powerful enough now to take Candra,
one of the Externals, but Gambit distracts him.
In the middle of the fight, Jean-Luc Lebeau takes one of Julien’s claw
swipes to save his son. Enraged, Gambit
subdues everyone while Candra knocks Julien out the window with a psionic
bolt. Gambit kisses Candra good-bye, but
uses the opportunity to steal the elixir from her cleavage. We end on Candra telling the Tithe Collector
to order both guilds to hunt down Gambit, Rogue, and Belle.
How It Was: Now this is more like it. Gambit with a leather jacket, torn jeans, and
a cigarette, tearing into a high society club, flirting with ladies and beating
the crap out of jerks. This is the stuff
I want to see, even if it slumps a little once we get to…sigh, Candra.
So the entire plot still centers on this elixir, the plot
device that the guilds exist to compete for.
We learn that Candra created them for some vague purposes—something
about reaping benefits. But it’s hard to
see what she needs them for because we don’t really know anything about Candra,
other than she sleeps with Gideon and had a fling with Gambit. I have no idea why a super powerful mutant
would need an army of thieves and assassins, and how giving them powers to
rival her own or having them kill each other is remotely a good idea. It’s story logic that makes no sense
whatsoever. And the problem is, all
these issues are what drive the primary sources of Gambit’s origin.
The tension and mystique of the Tithe Man have been
completely shattered now that he has been beaten twice. And there is this plot convenience of Julien
being able to almost kill these uber-powerful beings, but Gambit can smack him
in the head and hold his ground against him.
Gambit might be a little too powerful in this series, which harms the
story when we don’t think there’s any chance Gambit could fail.
Well we’ve got Gambit back in character, but now Rogue is
acting out of sorts. I don’t know why
Rogue would want to absorb Belle’s memories since they could only hurt her
emotionally.
Still, it’s Lee Weeks’ art that continues to carry this
book. His layouts here are especially
memorable. There’s a nice sequence where
Gambit drops a card at the top of the page and it lands by a panel of Belle
grabbing Rogue. Or the composition of
Belle’s memory montage which looks great.
Even the explosion panel where Julien and his men enter the hotel is
fantastic.
So we’ve got some great scenes for Gambit mixed with some
dreadful Candra gibberish. While I feel
this issue does some harm to Gambit’s back story, the stuff in the present is
rather fun. I just wish Gambit had
something better to do than assemble a magic elixir from some fantasy novel
that somehow got stuck here.
X-Fans Only
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