Rogue: Alone... With Herself!
Originally Published June 1984
We begin with things somewhat up in the air...
When we last saw Rogue, she had been sent from Japan, where the X-Men landed after making it back home from the Secret Wars, to fly as fast as she could back to New York to see if maybe Kitty had any problems with that evil cabal she was freely walking into at the Massachusetts Academy. Being that Rogue has permanently absorbed the powers of Ms. Marvel, she flies across the Pacific Ocean in roughly the amount of time it takes me to bop down to the coffee place these days.
And just because matters are urgent, there's no reason Rogue can't feel her oats a little...
However, once she quits this "skylarking" (her word, and fitting given she is literally larking around in the sky) she makes it back to Xavier's in record time to check on Kitty and the New Mutants. She finds a not-at-all-suspiciously empty house and makes nothing of it, absorbed in thoughts of how great her powers are and how unexpected it was to find herself willingly calling this place home and the X-Men her friends - being that she had previously been aligned with her surrogate mother Mystique on a mission to actively murder the X-Men.
Checking Xavier's voicemail, she finds one from Madelyne Pryor, who is alarmed by the sudden disappearance of her husband Scott, who was zapped right out of her arms. Rogue smirkingly dismisses this message given that she knows Cyclops was merely whisked away to the Secret Wars where he was made to participate in a grandiose battle of life and death against dangerous villains of all sorts purely for the amusement of the comic entity known as the Beyonder. No big whoop, he's probably home now having a good laugh about it and showing her his Polaroids.
The next message, however, really catches Rogue's ear, as it is spoken by a voice from her past, one Col. Michael Rossi.
Rogue flies off to his rescue in such a hurry that she misses the third message, from Illyana Rasputin, who has gone with the New Mutants to rescue Kitty (and, I suppose, her friend Doug) from the Massachusetts Academy, where she has been kidnapped by the very much alive and mobile Emma Frost. I guess Rogue was right - the curves life throws you sometimes are funny.
On the Detention Deck of the SHIELD Hellicarrier, Michael Rossi is currently getting the snot kicked out of him by some Agents of SHIELD.
While Agent Price continues to give Rossi a one-man beatdown, his partner Garland sneaks off to have a quick Zoom check-in with his real boss... Sebastian Shaw of the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle!
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| And Tessa! |
It seems Rossi was captured trying to obtain information about the Hellfire Club. Why an Air Force Colonel would need to infiltrate a top espionage outfit in order to find data about a Club for Rich Weirdoes, I'm not entirely sure, but it's funny the curves life throws you sometimes.
Shaw decides he does not like the cut of Rossi's jib, and authorizes Garland to eliminate him - to death, possibly.
However, just as Garland is about to execute this command - after first executing his partner Price just for yuks - he meets an unexpected obstacle.
Disarming and dispatching Garland with relative ease, Rogue whisks Rossi away, outmaneuvering some interceptor jets in the process. The two end up at, of all places, a farm in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Say, who do we know who's from there? (Don't say Emma Frost.)
Rogue comes close to realizing What Is Wrong With This Picture before losing her train of thought to go fix Rossie a nice bowl of soup (possible clam chowder? Must investigate further) for when he awakens.
Rossi is impressed - not because the meal is so good, but because only one person in the world is supposed to be able to fix it that way.
Rossi is confused, because he has never met this Rogue person before. And Rogue is confused about Rossi being confused because they're old friends, and in fact Rossi was her first true love. They go way, way back, at least as far as eight years ago when the then ten-year-old Rogue served in the Air Force alongside him, receiving a scar that she has on her hand to this day...
You know, I'm starting to notice some inconsistencies in Rogue's story here.
Yes, she is disassociating somewhat, as the Carol Danvers persona asserts itself inside of her, causing her to think and act as though she is the woman whose life she stole and whose memories she possesses. It's funny, the curves life throws you.
Rossi responds to this revelation by grabbing her by the shoulders, shaking her violently and screaming in her face that she is a liar and a fake and bad and wrong. You know, standard procedure for a person undergoing severe psychological trauma.
Rogue responds to this treatment by running (I would), and finds herself down at the beach, where she sees ghostly visions of Carol's youth, of the life she stole.
Rossi catches up with her and she warns him to keep his distance, explaining tearfully that because of her uncontrollable power, she effectively killed Carol, robbing her of her past, her memories and even her heart. Normally this secondary persona is in check, but seeing Michael caused her to be overwhelmed.
She pleads innocence - or at least for clemency as she did not know the full extent of her powers, that such a thing was possible, and explains for Michael's benefit and ours the strange ambiguity between herself and Carol inside, how she knew she was Rogue and yet could act and feel as Carol.
Shocked that the woman he loved is effectively dead, and not at all comforted by Rogue's assertion that she is Carol, in "all the ways that count," Rossi strikes her across the face in rage. Notwithstanding Rogue's invulnerability (she was shot several times in this very issue and seems fine) that's an action I find so objectionable I can't even bring myself to make a pithy comment about it.
In the end, both Rossi and Rogue wish that she could truly be punished for what she has done. But with no way to restore Carol her original identity, or physically reprimand Rogue in any meaningful way, we are left unfinished and unsettled.
Back at the Helicarrier, Fury questions (double-)agent Garland who claims that Rogue not only broke into the Shield Flying HQ and took Rossi, but also grabbed his gun and murdered Price despite having the means to do so with her bare hands. Fury wants her brought in... by any means necessary!
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| It's funny, the curves life throws at you. |
Further Thoughts:
One thing I feel we will know more and more about Chris Claremont as his tenure as X-Men writer reaches its midway point and second half, is that he really likes playing with a new toy. When he discovers, develops or adopts some new angle into his writing here, he will give it his full devotion until something finally breaks his attention. When Jean became Phoenix, it was all about her state of mind, and then when she died, everyone was constantly thinking about that. When Kitty joined, she pulled focus, and since Storm went punk, there has been endless speculation from characters about the implications of that. Rogue, as the latest recruit, has driven a few stories since joining as a regular, with explorations of her inner psyche and ability to mix it up with her powers. She isn't old news yet, and the writer is clearly still interested in putting her front and center, as she is the only X-Person who appears in this issue.
For a while after the incident between Rogue and Carol, we spent a lot of energy tacking the emotional and psychological toll it had taken on the former Ms. Marvel as she spent time with the X-Men while Xavier provided this nebulous treatment. We had a lot of opportunities to see what a void was left inside of her and we were invited to consider what it would be like to have memories, but not the emotional bonds and sense of self that is tied to that memory. Later, thanks to the experiments of the Brood, Carol became the space-powered blasty hero Binary. While this is something of a consolation prize compared to actually getting your memories and personal identity back, it definitely provided Carol an opportunity to begin anew, especially once the X-Men accepted Rogue's membership into the team.
I quite liked this issue for how it approached this, beginning with Rogue's "control" such as it is, slipping when she has already physically taxed her powers, and following through to Rogue not even being aware she's thinking with Carol's mind. Because comics tend to deal in extreme emotions we can be forgiving of the melodramatic closing panels of Rogue wishing she could be killed, because they really do feel fitting.
Is this an accurate, or at least sensitive, portrayal of a real-life dissociative identity disorder? Perhaps not, but it does seem like a fulsome examination of whatever psychological issue Rogue would be suffering with her fictional powers.
Good read!
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