Gambit #2 (vol 1)

Gambit #2

Writing: Howard Mackie

Art: Lee Weeks

What Went Down:  Down in New Orleans, Gambit breaks into an Assassin’s Guild base and finds his wife Bella Donna unconscious, but alive.  He then attacks the assassins as they try to sneak up on him.  During the fight, Belle’s father Marius shows up, blaming Gambit for the loss of both his children.  They duel with swords, and Gambit spares Marius’ life after defeating him.  As the rest of the assassins move in to kill Remy, Rogue shows up to help him out.  They beat all the assassins and plan to take Belle with them.  Marius tells Gambit to use the Thieves’ Guild’s Elixir of Life to cure Belle. 

After the two X-Men leave, Julien shows up and kills the remaining assassins.  He confronts his father, blaming Marius for letting Gambit take his sister.  Marius denounces his son, and Julien attacks the old man, leaving his fate unresolved. 

Gambit takes Belle and Rogue to the Thieves’ headquarters and interrupts the tithing ceremony.  The Tithe Man disappears, saying he will return when they are not busy.  Gambit implores his father to use the elixir on Belle, and fights off one of the angrier thieves named Pierre.  Gambit and Rogue leave after Jean-Luc refuses to use the elixir on an outsider, and after they leave Pierre tells Jean-Luc that they need three vials for the elixir to be complete. 

Julien, Pierre, and an army of assassins attack the Tithe Man, trying to get the vials for the elixir.  Julien tells Pierre that he has to steal the vial that the thieves have to complete their deal.  In a house that Gambit owns, he thanks Rogue for staying with Bella Donna while he goes to Paris to retrieve part of the elixir.  Gambit mentions that the house is for when he settles down, knowing that he probably never will.  Gambit visits Marius for information to save Belle, while Gideon apologizes to Candra for having to leave.

How It Was: The opening with the super-melodramatic panel of Gambit screaming his wife’s name is not a good sign for the series.  Side note: why is Bella Donna naked…shouldn’t the Assassins caring for her put clothes on her since she is a patient.  Again, the fighting is very cool, but Gambit is challenged to his second duel by an assassin in a matter of pages.  So this is getting a bit repetitive, and the fight doesn’t actually progress the story.  In fact, the fight just stops and Gambit calmly takes Belle away. Marius as a character is pretty generic.  He does get a bit of an arc this series, but he doesn’t do anything particularly defining or memorable.  Also we get the first inference that Julien wants to be a little closer with his sister than is normal, which is a might bit over the top and uncomfortable, at least for this reader. 

The problem is I miss the fun, wise cracking Gambit.  There is yet another melodramatic ham fest when Gambit announces to his father “We will have words!” And Jean-Luc doesn’t turn out to be any more memorable than Marius, other than that Remy’s dad is calm and Belle’s dad is angry; Mr. Lebeau hardly even reacts upon learning that his real son Henri is dead.  None of these new characters, from the fathers to the Tithe Man, are really that interesting or compelling.  There’s also a serious problem with Candra’s scheme if her plot is to reward the guilds with enough power that they can eventually beat up her and Tithe Man and steal more power for themselves.  On top of that, Gideon gets one panel to reveal he’s not actually in this story, so what was the point in having him in the first two issues at all?

There are some nice bits toward the end as Gambit tells some of his origin to Rogue.  And learning that he has a piece of land set aside is a nice little character point for Gambit.  Although it is rather sexist that Rogue is being sidelined as a nurse; I like to think it’s more to do with being Gambit’s series than her being a girl, but we all know it’s a little bit of both. 

Hmm…what else?  The scenes of Julien carving up the assassins are well sequenced and have the right mood I guess.  Sorry, not much is coming to me.  None of these characters being introduced are that interesting and Rogue doesn’t have anything to do except ask Gambit questions that let him give exposition about his history; she helps fight, but it doesn’t feel needed or necessary.  Plus the fact that Gambit has to retrieve three elixirs is frustrating; it’s like a generic video game fetch quest delivered to our hero.  It’s just not very original.

Completists Only

Gambit #1 (vol 1)

The first Gambit mini-series takes place (by my estimate) between X-Men #23 and Uncanny X-Men Annual #17, since Wolverine hasn't left the team after Fatal Attractions yet.
 
Gambit #1

Writing: Howard Mackie

Art: Lee Weeks

What Went Down:  An enigmatic figure known as the Tithe Collector scares some hoods away from a woman they are robbing.  As the thieves run away, they are killed by the monster from Ghost Rider #26.  In Salem, Storm and Wolverine observe Gambit flirting with Rogue in the Danger Room.  Outside the mansion, a man in black slips through the security.

Rogue saves Gambit from an explosion, and Gambit suddenly announces that they have an intruder (somehow?).  The intruder is Gambit’s adopted brother Henri, and he has come to recruit Gambit for the tithing.  Henri is shot with an arrow and dies, but not before revealing that Bella Donna and her brother Julien are still alive.  Gambit pursues the men who shot his brother by himself.  In New Orleans, Remy’s adopted father Jean-Luc Lebeau requests permission to give his son an elixir.  In Paris we see the Externals Gideon and Candra talking cryptically about exciting plans.

Gambit pursues his brother’s killers, members of the Assassins Guild, to an abandoned warehouse and fights them.  At the same time, Rogue reveals to Wolverine that she loves Gambit, and Logan suggests that Rogue not wait to tell him.  Gambit then encounters the killer from the X-Men/Ghost Rider crossover, who turns out to be Julien, his ex-brother-in-law that he accidentally killed years ago.  The two sword fight, and Julien impales himself on Gambit’s sword.  Not dying, Julien and the assassins teleport through a portal.  Gambit returns to the mansion, tells the X-Men that he has to follow up on this alone, and Rogue announces that she is going with him. 

How It Was:  So it’s the 90’s and anti-heroes are super in.  Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor are getting demolished in the sales charts by the likes of Ghost Rider, Punisher, and Wolverine.  Due to the success of the new X-Men title as well as the Saturday morning cartoon show, Gambit was quite the popular character.  A mini-series seemed like a sure bet (and it was), but of course the problem is taking Gambit from member of the team (one piece in a greater story) and making him the focus—giving him supporting characters and motivations outside of the X-Men. 

To Howard Mackie’s credit, he does start out with some serious stakes.  We’re introduced to Gambit’s brother, who is almost instantly killed.  A little cheap?  Maybe, but it is enough so you buy that Gambit is willing to up and leave the X-Men for a little bit; this part would be more effective if Gambit’s brother was mentioned at all during the rest of the series.  Gambit doesn’t even do anything with his brother’s body…he just leaves. 

The fight with the Assassins members is laid out rather nicely.  Weeks changes it up enough when depicting Gambit’s powers that it never gets old to see him pitching cards.  In fact Lee Weeks does a nice job with all the characters and poses.  The only weak spot is the Danger Room sequence—it’s a room that can literally create anything, so I don’t know why so many artists decide to fill it with empty white space.  We see some arms, pistons, and rockets coming at Gambit and Rogue, but most of it is off panel and just barely in view.  There are some robots, but they’re drawn too close up to get any sense of how they are attacking or what they might do as a threat.  I get that the scene is supposed to be easy for Gambit and Rogue so they can banter, but it would be more impressive if we could see the full threat in a couple of panels, not just have it creeping in off panel. 

And of course the real problem is the plot points that Mackie is stuck with.  We’re exploring the two guilds, which makes one think of ancient orders dedicated to a craft.  Mackie knows he needs a conflict for them to fight over, and the best he can come up with is this generic macguffin of the elixir of life.  Plus we meet Jean-Luc Lebeau, Gambit’s father, who is pretty much a generic swashbuckler/Robin Hood type.  Things get even more disappointing when we learn just how Candra is tied into all this.

The rest of the issue is serviceable, although there is one inconsistency that always bothered me.  I understand that all this is embroiled in Gambit’s past and family, and he wants to solve his own problems, but surely the same was true in the X-Men/Ghost Rider crossover that sets this series up.  If the X-Men didn’t let Gambit go off alone then, why now? 

It’s an intriguing start, and to its credit, Gambit #1 delivers everything a Gambit comic needs: Gambit + Rogue, an arch enemy for Gambit to fight, and the unraveling of Gambit’s history.  We get one really good and one okay/decent action sequence, and some scenes of Wolverine telling Rogue common sense.  Tonally it’s struggling a bit; Gambit is a light hearted rogue, but he’s confronted with a lot of serious tragedy that force him to be a little too serious.  Still, it catches your attention well enough.

For X-Men Fans