On Gambit/Rogue and Why I Hate it.
What exactly, if I may be so bold as to ask, is the freaking deal with Gambit and Rogue’s relationship? Are they together? Are they not together? Are they sort of, kind of pretending, trying, wanting, hoping to be together but kind of, sort of not really?
These two characters are magically, horribly annoying and yet, they appear many times over in the Marvel Universe. Granted, it’s not as bad of a consistency issue as Wolverine (an X-Man, an Astonishing X-Man, An Avenger, in his solo monthly title, two solo monthly titles and he still has time for cameos!) but honestly, it’s getting ridiculous. Between secondary mutations, going blind, having your adoptive mother impersonate you to get some nookie time with the supposed boyfriend, to Magneto clones hopping into the mix, not to mention your girlfriend abandoning you in ANTARCTICA to die, most normal people would have mutually decided to call it quits a long, long time ago.
But no. Marvel has decided that there’s life in the old girl still. And I have to admit, the wallets belonging to the folks at Marvel are slightly fatter than mine currently is. So perhaps there’s more sense to Gambit making love to his hand while whispering sweet nothings to a woman who wouldn’t even tell him her name than I want to see.
Back when I first picked up X-Men and Uncanny X-Men, it was love at first sight between dopey fangirl and a certain Raging Cajun. He wore a magenta spandex shirt and still managed to look badass, he spoke French poorly and in the animated series, he was lacking an upper lip. It wasn’t a perfect love, but true love never is.
And Rogue, who couldn’t love Rogue? She could fly, she could beat your ass, she had a white streak in her hair, but no one cared because she had the charm and appeal of a young Blanche Devereaux. And let’s face it; who watched “The Golden Girls” for Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak? (My inbox will now be flooded with hatemail from Bea Arthur fans.)
So what could be more perfect than the troubled bad boy with a shady past to pursue a former villain with a heart of gold? They were in love and I was in love with it all.
I was also ten.
It occurs to me that reading comic books is not necessarily considered the cool thing to do. The majority of young readers tend to drop off somewhere around middle or high school in exchange for other pastimes (drug use, premarital sex, homicide... okay, not really, well, maybe the premarital sex...) So, since they’re constantly losing a huge chunk of their readership to age, they need super, awesome sparkly things to appeal to their brand new readers. And it certainly doesn’t hurt if these new kids have absolutely no clue about previous canon.
That’s why every few comics or so, there’s the obligatory introduction of, “Gee, Wolverine, I’m so glad every single bone in your body is laced with adamantium, the strongest metal known to man! Why, if you didn’t have those super sharp claws (three on each hand!) I’d be toast!” Otherwise, there’d be readers who think that Emma Frost’s just a telepath and then when she turns into diamond, there’d be a delightful moment of “Buh?”
This is why Jean Grey is also dead. Again. But she’ll come back, folks, don’t worry, she always does.
It’s just comics. Wolverine’s not the only one with stunted aging in the 616 universe. In his 1963 introduction, Cyclops was 17 or 18 (the only stated ages were the youngest, Bobby, at 16 and the oldest, Hank, 19,) and it took until maybe the late nineties to reach the age 26. If Kitty’s ever able to legally drink in the USA, I just may pee myself. (Kurt actually de-aged; he had a 21st birthday in 1984, only to have Chuck Austen make him 20 and completely assrape his character for The Draco storyline... but I’m getting off topic.)
So it makes perfect sense for Gambit and Rogue’s relationship to be on a permanent loop. It’s part of the sparkly that sucks in new readers and it’s one of the only fan services in the comic book industry reserved specifically for the ladies.
Well, I shouldn’t say ladies. Ladies have more refined tastes in men, like Hank McCoy or even Jamie Madrox. (Okay, so Madrox isn’t exactly a refined taste, so much as a blatant sexual fantasy about a man that multiplies. Just think about it. I’ll shut up.) But Gambit/Rogue is the vehicle to snag a ten year old girl’s attention and hold it. At least until she turns thirteen or fourteen, anyway.
Gambit will always have that bad boy appeal. It also doesn’t hurt that he speaks with a thick Cajun accent that will continue to be altered and butchered by every comic book writer that attempts to spell it out phonetically until the end of time. He is sex in a leather trench coat and cares more about the trinkets around the woman’s neck than the actual woman herself. He’s dangerous enough to lead the Marauders down the sewers to slaughter the Morlocks, but loyal enough to nearly dive headfirst off a building to save his brother (while the token T&A falls to her death, but, you know, it wasn’t Rogue, so she didn’t count.) Untamable. That is, until a certain Southern Belle crosses his path.
Oh, la la.
Rogue brings into the mix an element of safety. Whereas a Blanche Devereaux (of any age) would put out, Rogue can’t. Well, I suppose she could, but she’d be with a corpse of a man before finishing any, well, you know. Rogue is a female brassy enough to speak her mind, strong enough to kick the crap out of Ms. Marvel, but is prevented from engaging in any sort of adult extra curricular activity because of her mutant ability. What better individual for a young girl to live vicariously through? Any relationship this woman could be in would consist of longing, puppy dog gazes, indepth discussions about feelings and a couple stolen kisses here and there that are long enough to make her fingertips tingle with kinetic energy without ripping his personality out of his body permanently.
Leave all the leather dominance sex from hell to Scott and Emma; Remy and Anna will just talk about it.
You grow up, you learn, I guess. Gambit’s facade inevitably started to crumble. His pickup lines were downright cheesy, he was still wearing that completely impractical magenta spandex shirt, he had a code name related to chess when he tossed around cards and more importantly, he was macking it with the ladies when he had a wife back in New Orleans. Granted, they were separated at the time, but don’t you think it would seem just a tad less shifty if he had thought to mention it before she sent people to kill him?
Then there’s Rogue with her emo whine of doom (now with thick Mississippi accent!) Honestly, every mutant has the capability to control their mutant ability (except for Cyclops, but he’s got brain damage, so the visor stays put.) I understand that if she can control her power, then all her angst goes away and then no one cares about the character anymore. But there are other kinds of angst besides, “zomg, I can’t touch you! I will now huddle in the corner like a frightened little child.” Think about working long hours to try to figure out what triggers the ability and what she could to not set it off automatically... only to come up empty handed. That would be a total bitch. It could be a change that would keep things interesting for the next five or ten years.
I mean really, the only reason she got a name is because her creator got pissed that a movie scriptwriter thought he could dub her Marie. Come on, change, grow, evolve. Just a little bit. It could be a way to keep the previous readership instead of relying on younger replacements.
I'm also whiny because Rachel's been cut from the Uncanny lineup to be a superhero... in space. Let Alex and Lorna be space cadets, but the only reason I stayed with Uncanny was to see the interactions between Rachel and Kurt.
These two characters are magically, horribly annoying and yet, they appear many times over in the Marvel Universe. Granted, it’s not as bad of a consistency issue as Wolverine (an X-Man, an Astonishing X-Man, An Avenger, in his solo monthly title, two solo monthly titles and he still has time for cameos!) but honestly, it’s getting ridiculous. Between secondary mutations, going blind, having your adoptive mother impersonate you to get some nookie time with the supposed boyfriend, to Magneto clones hopping into the mix, not to mention your girlfriend abandoning you in ANTARCTICA to die, most normal people would have mutually decided to call it quits a long, long time ago.
But no. Marvel has decided that there’s life in the old girl still. And I have to admit, the wallets belonging to the folks at Marvel are slightly fatter than mine currently is. So perhaps there’s more sense to Gambit making love to his hand while whispering sweet nothings to a woman who wouldn’t even tell him her name than I want to see.
Back when I first picked up X-Men and Uncanny X-Men, it was love at first sight between dopey fangirl and a certain Raging Cajun. He wore a magenta spandex shirt and still managed to look badass, he spoke French poorly and in the animated series, he was lacking an upper lip. It wasn’t a perfect love, but true love never is.
And Rogue, who couldn’t love Rogue? She could fly, she could beat your ass, she had a white streak in her hair, but no one cared because she had the charm and appeal of a young Blanche Devereaux. And let’s face it; who watched “The Golden Girls” for Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak? (My inbox will now be flooded with hatemail from Bea Arthur fans.)
So what could be more perfect than the troubled bad boy with a shady past to pursue a former villain with a heart of gold? They were in love and I was in love with it all.
I was also ten.
It occurs to me that reading comic books is not necessarily considered the cool thing to do. The majority of young readers tend to drop off somewhere around middle or high school in exchange for other pastimes (drug use, premarital sex, homicide... okay, not really, well, maybe the premarital sex...) So, since they’re constantly losing a huge chunk of their readership to age, they need super, awesome sparkly things to appeal to their brand new readers. And it certainly doesn’t hurt if these new kids have absolutely no clue about previous canon.
That’s why every few comics or so, there’s the obligatory introduction of, “Gee, Wolverine, I’m so glad every single bone in your body is laced with adamantium, the strongest metal known to man! Why, if you didn’t have those super sharp claws (three on each hand!) I’d be toast!” Otherwise, there’d be readers who think that Emma Frost’s just a telepath and then when she turns into diamond, there’d be a delightful moment of “Buh?”
This is why Jean Grey is also dead. Again. But she’ll come back, folks, don’t worry, she always does.
It’s just comics. Wolverine’s not the only one with stunted aging in the 616 universe. In his 1963 introduction, Cyclops was 17 or 18 (the only stated ages were the youngest, Bobby, at 16 and the oldest, Hank, 19,) and it took until maybe the late nineties to reach the age 26. If Kitty’s ever able to legally drink in the USA, I just may pee myself. (Kurt actually de-aged; he had a 21st birthday in 1984, only to have Chuck Austen make him 20 and completely assrape his character for The Draco storyline... but I’m getting off topic.)
So it makes perfect sense for Gambit and Rogue’s relationship to be on a permanent loop. It’s part of the sparkly that sucks in new readers and it’s one of the only fan services in the comic book industry reserved specifically for the ladies.
Well, I shouldn’t say ladies. Ladies have more refined tastes in men, like Hank McCoy or even Jamie Madrox. (Okay, so Madrox isn’t exactly a refined taste, so much as a blatant sexual fantasy about a man that multiplies. Just think about it. I’ll shut up.) But Gambit/Rogue is the vehicle to snag a ten year old girl’s attention and hold it. At least until she turns thirteen or fourteen, anyway.
Gambit will always have that bad boy appeal. It also doesn’t hurt that he speaks with a thick Cajun accent that will continue to be altered and butchered by every comic book writer that attempts to spell it out phonetically until the end of time. He is sex in a leather trench coat and cares more about the trinkets around the woman’s neck than the actual woman herself. He’s dangerous enough to lead the Marauders down the sewers to slaughter the Morlocks, but loyal enough to nearly dive headfirst off a building to save his brother (while the token T&A falls to her death, but, you know, it wasn’t Rogue, so she didn’t count.) Untamable. That is, until a certain Southern Belle crosses his path.
Oh, la la.
Rogue brings into the mix an element of safety. Whereas a Blanche Devereaux (of any age) would put out, Rogue can’t. Well, I suppose she could, but she’d be with a corpse of a man before finishing any, well, you know. Rogue is a female brassy enough to speak her mind, strong enough to kick the crap out of Ms. Marvel, but is prevented from engaging in any sort of adult extra curricular activity because of her mutant ability. What better individual for a young girl to live vicariously through? Any relationship this woman could be in would consist of longing, puppy dog gazes, indepth discussions about feelings and a couple stolen kisses here and there that are long enough to make her fingertips tingle with kinetic energy without ripping his personality out of his body permanently.
Leave all the leather dominance sex from hell to Scott and Emma; Remy and Anna will just talk about it.
You grow up, you learn, I guess. Gambit’s facade inevitably started to crumble. His pickup lines were downright cheesy, he was still wearing that completely impractical magenta spandex shirt, he had a code name related to chess when he tossed around cards and more importantly, he was macking it with the ladies when he had a wife back in New Orleans. Granted, they were separated at the time, but don’t you think it would seem just a tad less shifty if he had thought to mention it before she sent people to kill him?
Then there’s Rogue with her emo whine of doom (now with thick Mississippi accent!) Honestly, every mutant has the capability to control their mutant ability (except for Cyclops, but he’s got brain damage, so the visor stays put.) I understand that if she can control her power, then all her angst goes away and then no one cares about the character anymore. But there are other kinds of angst besides, “zomg, I can’t touch you! I will now huddle in the corner like a frightened little child.” Think about working long hours to try to figure out what triggers the ability and what she could to not set it off automatically... only to come up empty handed. That would be a total bitch. It could be a change that would keep things interesting for the next five or ten years.
I mean really, the only reason she got a name is because her creator got pissed that a movie scriptwriter thought he could dub her Marie. Come on, change, grow, evolve. Just a little bit. It could be a way to keep the previous readership instead of relying on younger replacements.
I'm also whiny because Rachel's been cut from the Uncanny lineup to be a superhero... in space. Let Alex and Lorna be space cadets, but the only reason I stayed with Uncanny was to see the interactions between Rachel and Kurt.