Gambit Site-Thoughts

My Thoughts

    The first time I saw Gambit was the first time most people did. Uncanny X-Men #266. I was sitting in class in the 2nd grade, the kid next to me had a stack of X-Men comics and I asked if I could read one. I picked up the one with the man holding the little white haired girl. It was the first comic I ever read. I had no idea who the X-Men were or how much I would come to love them. Or Gambit. Years pass and the cartoon came out. I loved it and went to the comic store to get a comic. Back then Rogue was my favorite and I bought whatever comic that had her on the cover. I had no idea that the comic I read years eariler was an X-Men comic. So more years passed, the cartoon went off and I was still collecting. Off and on but I stuck with it. My favorite comic was X-Men #45. It still is, though for differant reasons now.
    One day I walked into goodwill and they had boxes and boxes full of comics. There I picked up Gambit's first limited series #1 for 12 cents. I took it home and read it and the next day I came back for the reast. From then on I was a rabid Gambit fan.
    Ironically, I said they should give him a regular series, 2 days later I walked into my comic store and found Gambit #2 laying there.
     So thats my story of how I came to love Gambit.

    My main thought about Gambit is simple. He's hot. A comic characer aside if he was indeed real he would be the type of man I would want. Most of us feel this way hmm? Those who dont dispise his guts to the core of our being. The point of this is for me to dive into what I belive he is, starting with something so simple and so complacaited at the same time:

         Gambits parentage: Ill come right out and say it, I think Sinister is Remys father. It would explain his interest in him, and why in his journel he said Remy was his greatest accomplishment and prehaps his greatest failure (I shall scan that and put it here sometime). Plus Sinister knows Remys parantage (IE. himself). As for his mother I do not know. He could have been born from a test tube or some poor womans womb (this could also go into the whole black womb thing but I wont even go there). I am not the only one who belives this, maybe we can all get togeather and start our own theorie haha.

      Gambits secrets: What else could he be hideing?! I mean geeze is there anything bigger (and less gay) then the morlock thing? He not that damned old to be running around doing all this crap.

     Gambits powers: We all know he's empathic, Marvel though never saying it directly has implyed it many times. I think they should just come out and say it, then delve more into it. Have him use it more. Its a cool power. Now his New Sun powers, those were cool. Chris C. never put them in the main book which pissed me off. Then they take them away! Come on they rocked! He could have seriously kicked Maggies ass.

     Rogue: Ok sence Joey I havent liked her much. She says she loves him but goes and pulls that crap? Im glad Gambit sleeps with sevrel women a night. Show her. He should just dump her and get someone else. Then I see them togeather when shes not being a brat and think no they're good for eachother. I can see why he's conflicted I really can. I don't know if they are truely soulmates. I disagree with people who say that. I belive we should think about why he loves her. I draw a blank. Boobs? I mean come on it surely isnt her innocents. She was a terrorist. If she was truely brainwashed by her momma remains to be truely proven. That brings me to another point. She expects Gambit to tell her everything and she wont even tell him her name? Yeah thats not a one sided relationship.

     X-Men: Gambit and the X-Men. This has been said so many times it's getting old. Most of the X-Men have killed someone, or a group of people at one time or another. I mean Archangel was Death! I won't even get started on Wolverine. So I ask, why do they have a stick up there ass about Gambit, Sinister and the Morlocks? He tried to help them. Thats better than what you can say for most of them. I mean Storm forgives him and she had the most to be hurt by. These people need to take a look in the mirror before they juge anyone.

Oh, yes, there's a GREAT need to drag this one another issue, even TEN more issues--we just can't glorify Storm ENOUGH. Why, EVERY SINGLE FRIGGIN' PANEL IN EVERY X-BOOK FOREVER SHOULD BE DEVOTED TO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT SINGING THE PRAISES OF LA STORMA. Why doesn't Claremont just write out all the male characters, except maybe Slippy Slide, whom he seems to like? It's not like he's ever going to give them a big fat story arc, or even more than a cursory panel or two per issue. [One notes that Triad story, supposedly about Gambit, focused mostly on Rogue.] I don't think Gambit will come back for awhile--just THINK of all that ANGST Claremont can put Rogue through. Or maybe not. She's sure not thinking about the love of her life this issue, is she? Nor is anybody else. After all, we're well accustomed to the X-Men abandoning Gambit to die, aren't we? Why should we expect anything different now? I'm all in favor of Gambit and Vargas spending the duration of Gambit's "Death" hanging out and drinking beer together, maybe they can festoon the statue of Psylocke with blinking lights, put a star on its head, and celebrate Christmas early--and if Gambit gets REAL lucky, maybe Vargas will let him hug the statue, too. What fun! Anything's better than what we're geting now. "We've got to rescue Storm because of all the damage she can do to this place!" Hello? A guy who can make a kill-power bomb out of anything he puts his hand on CAN'T do any damage? "We can't get him off the altar because there's GUARDS around!" Well, pierce my ears and call me drafty--the X-Men have NEVER fought their way through GUARDS before--and we certainly can't expect them to forego their virgin fight status on this one. Not for Gambit's sake, anyway, but BY JINGO WE CAN BATTLE OUR WAY THROUGH THE JAWS OF HELL FOR OUR BELOVED STORM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oops--and we forgot the fact that if we could just get him OFF the rock, then Khan's tower won't solidify, the invasion goes belly up and all that good crap--BUT WHO CARES ABOUT GAMBIT, THE FUTURE OF THE PLANET, AND ALL THAT TRIVIAL STUFF--THEY'VE GOT STORM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sure, people complain about stuff all the time, But I think I'd have a seizure and keel over dead if Claremont could cough up an original idea (something besides, "Hey, there's this bad guy and he wants to make Storm his queen because she's a goddess yada yada yada!"). I'm at the point where I wouldn't mind seeing a story arc centered on Dunderbird--ANYTHING besides shoving Storm's wonderfulness down my throat until I puke. Not to mention the progressive near-deification of Rogue, Rightguard, and Sage. "Hey, Rocky-- watch me pull a new superpower out of this bra!" I actually LIKE strong female characters, but not with the Kitty Pryde Syndrome (ie, little likable girl becomes smarter than Reed Richards, develops layer upon layer of new powers, saves the universe more often than Wesley Crusher, and becomes an immortal [implied by the Neo storyline]. Think of the possibilities for Gambit, for example. What if he comes out of this not able to convert potential to kinetic energy? What if he could also do the reverse? That means our babe could stand on the railroad track in front of a runaway train and STOP it with a touch. What if the Madripoor jewels actually became part of his body, or their use increased his powers exponentially (versus Claremont's usual thang of the female mutant's power increasing "geometrically")? Gambit could make Magneto's powers look, in comparison, as lame as the Toad's. The air is full of microscopic particulate matter: Even at his usual power levels, Gambit should be able to charge up the very atmosphere itself. Or, what if he became immune to his own power, like the Summers brothers? Imagine that kind of devastative power. What if he were allowed to convert other forms of energy (electrical, solar, magnetic, thermal, atomic, etc) to kinetic energy? He's a mutant, after all, anything SHOULD be able to happen.

But it won't. As long as Claremont wants to be the dog in the manger (that is, HE doesn't want to use Gambit, but he'll be damned if he lets anyone else [Chuck Austen, for example] explore and actually develop the character), Remy will remain in his current rut, mostly just part of the X-Treme Ink-and-Paint Club for Male Characters, or occasionally trotted out to develop ROGUE'S character further (whether the development of Rogue is for good or bad, the point is PANEL SPACE devoted to Rogue as a Claremont Favorite).

If I'm wrong, I'll happily eat every last word I've written. It's a great pity that Claremont doesn't want to deal with male characters and that they are only present as tokens of their sex with no focus upon them. But that's Claremont: He's ALWAYS been this way, and we've been lucky to squeeze the occasional Wolverine story out of him over the years. The person(s) I blame most is the editorial part of this equation, but I even wonder about that. The editor has (or should have) the power to say, "Chris, I want to see something different, something NEW. I want to see stories about the X-Treme group as a TEAM, with equal focus on each team member. I want to see some character development beyond just wallowing in manufactured angst. I want action scenes that make sense. I want to be dazzled by what you've written. Go home and think about it over the weekend, then on Monday come talk to me about what you've come up with." Or maybe editors at Marvel don't have that kind of power, to rein in the excesses of prima donna "writers". If that's the case, what a great job for somebody who just wants to show up and get paid. But the picture I seem to get with this is that the editor has no power to steer the writer, but is blamed if the writer fouls up and is then canned while the writer continues to behave as a highly-paid fanboy. I yearn for the good ol' days of writers and artist working for pennies 12 hours a day, crammed into smoke-filled studios, and Bob Kane taking credit for all their work. Comics were much better then, AND cheaper.

~Louise

**I got this off of the Gambit Gulid and I thought it was very funny and true. Its about X-Treme X-Men #14 Also keep in mind as you read the following that Chris C. has said he dislikes Gambit and made Gambit just to kill him off later. Rean on