X-Men Unlimited #3

X-Men Unlimited #3

Writing: Fabian Nicieza

Art: Mike McKone

This issue takes place between Uncanny #308 and X-Men #28

What Went Down:  Maverick breaks into a church to discover the grisly murder of a priest.  He is tracking Sabretooth, and discovers the mutant holding another dead priest.  Sabretooth is on a killing spree because his assistant Birdy, a telepath, died and is no longer around to give him the “glow” which calms him down.  The two fight, and Sabretooth manages to stab Maverick with his claws before fleeing.  Maverick decides he needs Wolverine’s help.  In Germany, we see an old man named Mr. Geinstach attempting to hire a mercenary named Bashur to kill Sabretooth because of his killing spree.  It turns out all the victims were members of a government operation, even the priest.  Bashur refuses the job since the potential for failure is so high, but recommends Maverick and Wolverine.  He also deduces that Sabretooth’s next target will be in Japan due to the conspiracy.

In Westchester, Gambit is freaking out as Rogue drives like a maniac on the road; Maverick is tracking them.  When the X-Men return to the mansion, Bishop greets them with his guns drawn.  He was worried because they entered without activating the perimeter override, but apparently it can just read biosignatures, so it doesn’t matter.  While all the X-Men argue, Maverick attacks them with anesthetic gas and tranquilizer darts.  After taking down the three X-Men, Beast and Professor X show up and calmly ask Maverick what he’s doing.  He’s here to recruit Wolverine, and decided it was somehow easier to attack the X-Men first.  Beast explains that Wolverine left the team after losing his adamantium, but offers the X-Men’s help.

Sabretooth meets with the merc Bashur, asking where he can find a telepath.  Bashur tells him that there is one on the Yahsida estate, and that Maverick is already on his way.  On the Blackbird, Bashur contacts Maverick and tells him what he told Sabretooth.  Maverick and the X-Men debate whether they should kill Sabretooth, and the team decides to split up.  Rogue, Gambit, and Bishop go to Germany to protect Geintach, while Beast and Maverick go to Japan.

In Germany the X-Men find everyone dead, and Sabretooth ambushes them.  Rogue accidentally absorbs Creed’s memories, and Bishop is forced to let Creed go for Rogue’s life.  In Japan, the remaining two protagonists meet with the Silver Samurai and agree to help him fight Sabretooth, despite having been adversaries as recently as X-Men #22. 

Sabretooth fights through the ninja guards and discovers that the telepath in question is an old man whose mind shut down after the bombing at Nagasaki.  The man wakes up long enough to link everyone’s minds.  Creed thinks back to his Team X days when he was assigned to kill a man and his family.  Creed had to chase the young boy, who only wanted to say goodbye to his pet rabbit. Sabretooth has been killing everyone connected to this operation.  When Beast wakes up, the old man has been killed by Sabretooth, with messages of help written in blood on the walls. 

Sabretooth decides to go to the X-Mansion.  Professor X calmly greets him and holds him off with his mental powers. The X-Men show up and Bishop shoots Creed in the head.  Using this opportunity, Xavier enters Creed’s mind to view a memory of a young Creed locked in a basement and forced to kill a rabbit to survive.  Having learned harshly that killing is the only way to survive, Xavier feels sympathy for Sabretooth and offers to help him.   He tells the X-Men that Sabretooth will be staying.  We end on Creed and Xavier standing in the Danger Room simulating the outdoors.  Xavier explains that he is a prisoner, and that Charles is man enough to stop him.

How It Was:  This is a slight improvement over last issue and does significantly impact the main titles for years to come.  Also it works a lot better because the focus of the story, Sabretooth, has a lot more to do and say this time, as opposed to dozens of people just talking about him.  Sabretooth actually feels dangerous here as he’s finally allowed to kill people, and while the bunny rabbit thing is corny, I like what it says about the character.  The idea that he was conditioned as a young child to think that killing is a means to survival, that attachment is a weakness, well that’s as good a take on what motivates Sabretooth as any.  It’s better than, “I just like killing people because I’m evil.”

The X-Men don’t come out too well this issue.  They get taken down once by Maverick and again by Sabretooth in a matter of a few panels.  What’s worse is how repetitive the action is.  Sabretooth holds a character by the neck and threatens to kill them no less than three times this issue.  Although I will admit that the repetition does pay off in the climax when Bishop once again has Sabretooth at gunpoint and just shoots him in the head.  Maverick doesn’t get a lot to do once he shows up to explain the plot to the X-Men, and the Silver Samurai is similarly wasted.  Sure we get to see him eventually in his armor carrying his cool glowing sword, but he doesn’t ever actually use it.  His only role is to be the caretaker of the plot device old man.

You know who does come out great in this issue?  Xavier.  Man he’s tough, not even blinking when confronted by Maverick or Sabretooth.  The surety of his position is fantastic as he makes his decisions without giving a crap about his students’ positions because he knows that morally he’s right.  Who are they to judge Sabretooth when he hasn’t had any of the benefits that the other X-Men have had?

Mike McKone’s art is disappointing.  When characters are standing around and talking, they look fantastic, but any time they fight on the same panel it looks awkward and stiff.  Thus the emotional stuff works a great deal better, and the action is dialed back quite a bit.  There’s one bizarre sequence where the X-Men are between Sabretooth and the telepath, so he dives through a door or window and ends up next to the telepath.  Also Gambit’s eyes should be red in the opening, but that’s not McKone’s fault.

Ultimately this is a much more satisfying villain-centric story.  It’s still padded out quite a bit (the killing debate could be a little shorter), but there’s enough here to make you think the writers have bright plans for the future of Sabretooth and the X-Men.  Xavier gets some awesome moments, and although Sabretooth’s flashbacks are a little sappy, they work as a way of taking him beyond the two dimensional maniac he’s always been, especially now that Wolverine isn’t around anymore.

For X-Fans

X-Men Unlimited #2

X-Men Unlimited #2

Writing: Fabian Nicieza

Art: Jan Duursema

Note: This story takes place between Uncanny#306 and X-Men #25

What Went Down:  Our giant-sized story starts on a flashback of Magneto fighting the East German army as the military tries to overtake Wundagore Mountain.  A soldier named Adrian Eiskalt and his brother Ute flee the battle, but Ute stumbles into and knocks over the tombstone of Magneto’s wife Magda.  Enraged, Magneto kills Ute and leaves Adrian…who swears revenge.

This flashback was actually a story Adrian was telling his psychiatrist.  The doctor tells Adrian he has to let go, even as he fantasizes about killing Magneto.  At Empire State University, Gabrielle Haller gives a lecture on the history of Magneto, and whether he should be labeled a dictator or a crusader.  On a plane to Manhattan, Adrian reads the book Fatal Attractions—a study on mutants and Magneto.  Adrian mistakes a passenger for Magneto and almost kills him with a poison needle disguised as a pen.

Once in Manhattan, Adrian watches an ABC News special where Ted Koppel interviews J.B. Chambers, the author of the Fatal Attractions book, and Graydon Creed.  The author offers that humans can live with mutants, and that there is merit to Magneto’s positions.  The next day Adrian has breakfast with Gabrielle Haller, asking for her help in apprehending Magneto, even though he means to kill the Master of Magnetism.  Gabrielle can sense Adrian’s personal stake, and tells him he will doom himself.

On a boat in the Atlantic, Exodus appears to the New Brotherhood of Mutants, but only tries to recruit Phantazia.  She refuses, and the other members are offended that they weren’t selected.  Later Adrian interviews the Toad about working with Magneto and listens to the tape.  We next see Gabrielle Haller talking to Moira MacTaggert about their previous relationships with Charles Xavier.  Gabrielle asks Moira about her studies of Magneto when he was regressed to a child, and also asks for her help neutralizing him.  Moira still blames herself for Magneto not turning out right, so she agrees. 

At a Genetech Bio lab, scientists show Adrian and Gabrielle the new armor that will hide Adrian from the magnetic spectrum (these are the suits that Storm stole the plans for in Uncanny #305).  He is also shown a plastic taser to be used to capture Magneto, but Adrian knows he can modify it to kill. 

In Washington, Peter Gyrich, Val Cooper, and Alexi Vazhin meet with Gabrielle and Adrian.  The first half of the Fatal Attractions crossover has occurred, so it is confirmed that Magneto is definitely alive.  The government agents debate the merits of attacking Magneto, while Adrian thinks he knows where the mutant will go.

At Wundagore Mountain, Magneto is once again visiting the grave of Magda.  Adrian sneaks up on him and has him targeted.  Suddenly Adrian returns to the flashback and reveals that Ute—his brother, pulled a gun on Magneto, and it was the ricochet off Magneto’s forcefield that killed him.  Adrian drops his gun, and the two men look at each other with understanding.  Adrian attempts to shoot himself in the head, but realizes he’s lost nothing except for the hatred he’s been carrying.

How It Was: Hard to believe that once upon a time you could get a sixty page comic in the nineties for the price of a twenty page comic today.  Then again, if this was the standard for content today, would you want to pay that at all?  This issue is a loose tie-in to the Fatal Attractions crossover.  It’s not part of the crossover, but it deals with its events and focuses on its main antagonist Magneto. Much as Magneto’s crusade against humanity is a response to the death of his family, we are given a new protagonist inspired by a dead brother to gain our new perspective on Magneto.

Although Adrian is very one note, there is something fascinating about the way he ignores his surroundings as he focuses on Magneto’s death.  This story works best when it does juxtapose Adrian’s quest with Magneto’s, and whether Magneto is motivated by compassion or vengeance or ego or guilt.  We see all these outsiders weigh in on Magneto, and the only hints we get from the actual man are when he visits his wife’s grave, which could lean toward any or all of the motivations.  The art is very nice looking as far as the characters go; in the first couple of pages, Magneto looks awe inspiring.  Unfortunately the backgrounds let down the image somewhat, as some of the tanks and soldiers don’t look like they’re drawn properly in the background, giving the impression that Magneto is just attacking tiny men.  Also, it seems unnecessary in the latter pages to draw Adrian exactly like Gambit from the neck up.  There’s also a tiny error with a word balloon that is pointing to Graydon Creed when it should be pointing off panel as the response from his opponent. 

The real problem with this issue is that there is far too much exposition.  Yes his history during the Holocaust is very important to our understanding of him here, but it just never ends.  Gabrielle’s history of him lasts for four pages!  Toad talks about resenting him as a member of the Brotherhood for another six!  With sixty pages to fill, it’s obvious that Nicieza is padding out this story as much as possible, but the story suffers because of this; we get away from Adrian and his perspective as all these other characters ramble on. 

And it’s not just Magneto exposition here.  There’s the TV debate that is three pages of summarizing the themes of the X-Men, and nine pages with a scientist explaining Adrian’s tech.  He repeats how it will make him invisible to Magneto like three times.  This writing just isn’t succinct or gripping and it really waters down the main conflict.

Worst of all, the end tries to create a twist, but really it isn’t a twist, it’s just that information has been withheld until the end.  Ute pulled a gun on Magneto, which Adrian decides makes his whole rationalization moot.  The problem is that this fact really weakens Adrian’s position throughout the book.  Adrian himself is a soldier, so he should understand the principles behind self-defense.  Also it cheapens the conflict within Magneto; I much prefer the idea of Magneto overreacting over a personal trespass directly after fighting a huge battle.  One of the great metaphors of Magneto, which is used this issue, is that in trying to prevent another Hitler he becomes more like the man.  It might be nice to see Magneto have to confront this aspect of his worldview and personality.  Also, it seems odd that Adrian would collect all this info on Magneto when he was just going to sneak up and shoot him in the back. 

This might’ve made an okay forty page story in an annual, or even a decent ten or twenty page story.  But there’s too much here that distracts from the main ideas this story is trying to get across.  I will admit as a comic fan it is neat to see all these nods to continuity, from the Silver Age to the Claremont/Jim Lee stuff, but ultimately it detracts from the story.  There is a lot of attention to detail, but most of it isn’t in service to the story.  Plus after going through all of that, it’s disappointing to see Adrian drop his gun without even a word exchanged by the two men.

Completists Only

Gambit #4 (vol 1)

Once you're done, feel free to go back to Uncanny X-Men Annual #17 if you're reading these in chronological order.
 
Gambit #4

Writing: Howard Mackie

Art: Lee Weeks

What Went Down:  Gambit returns to New Orleans to the aptly named Church of Lost Thieves.  He finds Julien there, and steals the final elixir component from the villain.  Gambit explains that he intercepted Julien’s agent trying to steal the other elixirs, and then unmasks Julien, revealing a haggard and drained man.  Gambit takes Julien to his father to confront him about the elixir.  It turns out that in some people the Elixir of Life has horrible addictive side effects that cause pain unless the person regularly ingests it.  Jean-Luc explains that he’s seen it before, but it’s rare and a small risk for a long life. 

Just then the Tithe Collector bursts in with an army of Thieves and Assassins.  After saving his father from a hail of gunfire, Gambit blows up a statue and takes off.  Elsewhere, Bella Donna is convulsing, but Rogue isn’t responding to Tante Mattie’s pleas for help. 

Gambit fights off more soldiers, lamenting that some of them are his old friends.  Gambit makes it back to his house, but the Tithe Collector is already there with Belle and Rogue held hostage.  As the bad guy goes to kill the women, Gambit leaps forward and charges the Collector’s jacket.  After kicking the Collector out a window, Gambit gets to mixing the elixir.  Rogue tries to tell him what she’s done, but Gambit is too focused on making sure the elixir turns out right. 

Julien bursts in, stabbing Gambit in the hand and shattering the vial of Elixir.  Marius kills Julien by filling him full of arrows and thanks Gambit for trying to save his daughter.  Candra shows up to see the execution of Gambit, but Gambit gives a speech about how she has been using and manipulating the guilds for her own selfish means.  Both guilds refuse to kill Remy, with Marius blaming Candra for the deaths of both his children.  Candra disappears, and Jean-Luc tells Remy that he will always be seen as the death of the old ways and exiles him from the city and the guild. 

Gambit tears off a sheet with some of the elixir soaked in it and drips it into Belle’s mouth.  Belle wakes up, but has none of her memories.  Gambit leaves her to her father and tries to console himself by taking Rogue out.  However Rogue knows he still loves her, and disturbed by the memories she’s absorbed, flies off. 

How It Was:  Julien gets turned from an unstoppable force to a weakling for plot expediency, and that’s just the first three pages of this book.  And I feel like I keep saying the same things, but that’s because they’re true.  The art is great, especially the fights.  Seeing Remy fight the combined guilds is pretty exciting, even if all the thieves look like homeless people and all the assassins look like every other Image Comics villain.  The writing refers to all the blood spilled, so it’s vague if Remy actually kills them or not. 

The real problem with the story is that Gambit defeats Candra basically by explaining how awful and stupid her plot is to everyone else in the book and then the guilds realize how stupid it is.  She gives a life elixir by tricking you into killing each other.  And with the Tithe Man killed, this plot is settled forever; I can’t understand why Jean-Luc is unhappy for Gambit setting them free.  It just reads weird that he would exile Gambit just for pointing out how futile their whole existence has been. 

I do like that Belle wakes up with no memories, leaving the reader to wonder if it was Rogue or the elixir that did this to her.  But overall this series has been a series of unmemorable new characters peppered with some nice action scenes.  All the villains are weak, and at no time do we think any of them are going to beat Gambit.  There is some tension with the fate of Bella Donna, but if you didn’t read the Brood crossover, then all you know about her is she’s some unconscious girl waiting for Gambit to rescue her.  It’s a commendable attempt to create a mythology around Gambit and his origins as a thief, but in some respects it just would’ve been easier to say he was a thief who eventually turned good and leave it at that.  Worth a look for the art though.

Completists Only

Gambit #3 (vol 1)

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

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

Getting Back in the Saddle

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!  As the year comes to a close, I've been reflecting a lot on my accomplishments...thinking of all the the things I have to be thankful for (people in my life, steady job) as well as the things I want to work on.  When I started this blog, the hope was to increase posts, or at the very least replace these posts with other writing of some sort of substance.  Obviously by my post count this year, that didn't happen, and I'd like to apologize to anyone who was looking forward to new posts. 

However, people have still been reading the site, and I still love X-Men comics, so I'm determined to pick up where I left off.  Well not exactly--first I've got some retro reviews lined up to fill in some gaps in the story.  I'll be doing some issues of Gambit, The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, some issues of X-Men Unlimited, and maybe a few surprises before getting back to my spot in X-Continuity with The Magneto War, the Kelly-Seagle swan song.  Again, I'm sorry for any readers expecting more regular posts, but the bright side is that I've set the bar so low I think I can finally top my post total from the previous year in 2014.  New posts should be up in about two weeks.  Until then, have a wonderful New Year, and keep enjoying comics.