UNCANNY X-MEN #269: Rogue Redux

It's Rogue vs. Carol, for all the Marvels!

Originally Published October 1990

So, hey, remember Rogue? You know -- brassy, southern, can't touch you without absorbing your powers an' mem'ries?

She was a little meatier the last time I remember seeing her

As you may recall, some time back she took a tumble through the Siege Perilous, which as we all know, is a portal that wipes a person's slate clean and sends them on their way to a new life. In the time since Rogue was pulled through courtesy of the Super Megatron Nimrod Master Mold, several of the X-Men deliberately marched through it. We've seen Colossus and Dazzler emerge as amnesiacs, and Psylocke hijacked and reskinned as a sexy Asian Ninja Warrior. But nobody really thought to bring up the question of what happened to Rogue. Surely she would have turned up by now, right? And in some crazy, drastically altered scenario?

And yes, ideally naked.

Yes, Rogue is back in one piece after having been torn, all out of faith, cold and ashamed, lying naked on the floor.

Rogue is a little fussed to find herself back at the X-Men's Outback Hideout, without even the courtesy of her promised cosmic refresh. And she's getting a real "someone's sleeping in my bed / someone's using my loofah" feeling, but before she can identify who is currently occupying the base, she sees a familiar face on the news...

That's right, in a tragic display of poor timing, Rogue has returned to the Earthly plane just a few days too late to save her foster mothers Destiny and Mystique from their deaths at the hands of the Reavers and the Shadow King (by way of Val Cooper), respectively.

Rogue calls for her fellow X-Men to join her as she prepares to take flight and dive headlong back into action, but-- 

It seems the marvel-ous secondary powers that she had stolen from Carol Danvers (flight, invulnerability, strength, and when it can be remembered, ESP) have failed her. Rogue falls ass-over-teakettle, landing at the feet of none other than...

Oh come on, take a guess.

Who do you think is currently living at the X-Men's former HQ?

  

That's right friends, everyone's favourite dysfunctional cyborg found family of murderers is back on the scene. And do you know why? Because obviously...

As Bonebreaker pages Donald Pierce to say they have an X-Man in their midst, the mutant-hating head honcho of the Reavers actually can hardly be fussed. He's busy working on his latest project, converting Cylla Markham -- the poor unfortunate pilot whose plane was crashed by the Fenris twins moments after takeoff -- into the new Skull-Buster.

Donald gives the order to dispose of Rogue, right then and there -- no pomp and circumstance necessary -- but she's saved at the last moment by an unlikely source:

 Now that's an illusion that changed into something real!

This is surprising for a couple of reasons. See, the physical body of Carol Danvers (the former Ms. Marvel, now known as Binary -- or maybe Warbird) has spent most of the last few years in space, preferring to team up with the Starjammers than to share a planet with Rogue, the person who robbed her of her identity and (original) powers.

But speaking of said Carol Danvers identity, she mostly just exists as a figure inside of Rogue's psyche, which has no physical being of her own, only the ability to take control of Rogue's body during times of extreme stress.

There's also a third Carol Danvers, a hallucination that lives in Wolverine's head as an expression of his detached psyche, which (along with a version of Nick Fury) has been acting as a sort of imaginary friend for Logan, as a reflection of their shared military service from many years ago. But that has nothing to do with what's going on here.

Because Siege Perilous, the Carol from inside of Rogue's head now has a physical form. And she is not super jazzed to be seeing Rogue, looking to extract some revenge of her own. But before she can take a strip off of Rogue's hide, the Southern Bell makes her way up to Gateway's sitting place.

Gateway won't do anything, but Rogue plants him a smooch and absorbs his powers, and his unfathomably deep indigenous knowledge (and also his skintone?! Is that allowed?!) to make a getaway.

Out in Deep Space, a mysterious figure with an ominous purple cloak that screams "I am the bad guy" sends his minions after mutant rock star-comma-teleporter (and occasional planet-thief) Lila Cheney. Cheney, however, is able to get away.

Back on Earth, Rogue's teleportation has taken her to the Savage Land, the perfect place to befriend dinosaurs, dive off waterfalls, and wear tattered rags to pose with a deeply arched back while water drips off of your anatomically-impossible idealized female form.

Megan Thee Stallion, eat your heart out.

Carol, however, has been sent to a somewhat less auspicious place, somehow being brought to Muir Island, where, as we know, some weird shit is currently going on, which now extends well beyond Horny Moira.

As it turns out, Legion -- Charles Xavier's supermutant son with dissociative identities -- was just trying to toy with the people on the island (mostly by using his psychic powers to make them so frisky.) Unfortunately, when they had him use Cerebro, it alerted the Shadow King (who also enjoys messing with peoples' heads to make them frisky) to his and their existence, leading the King to come take over the island and its residents.

Rogue, meanwhile, gets busy getting busy with a Cast Away style montage of Savage Land living, eking out her survival despite lacking her customary powerset.

So like, if she touches a T-Rex, does she get scales a nasty teeth? What are the limits on her powers? Has anyone ever asked?

But the good times are not going to last forever. She comes across the ruins of Nereel's United Tribes, where they left their stupid X-logo sometime ago. As she takes a moment to mourn for the things she missed out on while she was in the netherworld, she gets a visit from...

Shadow Carol!

That's right, this monstrofied version of Carol wants what's hers -- namely life force. It seems that now that they are two separate entities, there isn't enough life force between the two of them to sustain both: while one prospers the other rots. Ipso facto, if Carol kills Rogue, she will become the sole possessor of said life force: her skin will clear up and she'll live a long and happy life, seemingly as a minion of the Shadow King (hope she likes thongs -- wait, I'm being told that she does. Thanks, superhero costume designers.)

But just before Carol can land the killing blow, Rogue is saved, yet again, by yet another unlikely rescuer.

This mysterious, un-identifiable benefactor takes Rogue back to his Savage Lab to restore her.

And after an almost comically long stalling period, we reach the last page, and of course, if it's the last page of an X-Men comic you know who it is...

Yes, we all read X-MEN (VOL 1) #62 from 1969, obviously

Further Thoughts:

At long last, after about a year's worth of comics, Rogue has been returned to the fold -- just in time for the X-Men to still not quite be together, so she can do her own thing in the Savage Land with Magneto. This story actually makes for a surprisingly satisfying resolution -- if indeed it is that -- to the long-running saga of Rogue's co-existence with the Carol persona, which has plagued her since her first appearance. The Siege Perilous, which Rogue only entered as a sacrifice to save her friends, separated the two of them. Carol became conveniently corrupted, leading Rogue to literally fight her and end the combat between them once and for all. As to the meaning and symbolism of Magneto being the one who deals the final blow... that does kind of cheapen the moment. It's good for comics, not so much for literary study, but other than that the final restoration of Rogue's psyche depicted here (which conveniently seems to let her have Carol's powers permanently thereafter) works as well as anything.

I've talked before about the slight clash of flavours between big-idea Chris Claremont comics and big-action Jim Lee comics. I enjoy them both and yet I definitely see the seams between each of their contributions more than in previous artistic regimes. The meaning of the action -- explanations, character motives, implications -- is hurriedly handled and shortchanged in favor of presenting everything as big and fast as possible, as exemplified when Carol randomly arrives at Muir Island, and there's a rush to say "Things are weird here, right? Well that's me, the Shadow King, nya ha ha! You're mine now -- aren't you? Yes you are!" And then he has her go do his bidding between panels.

Whatever. It's comics, sometimes it moves fast and you just go with it. While the artist and writers of this work may not be sympatico collaborators creating a rich, deep piece of work like some issues of X-Men (which also had the occasional turkey in the past, let's be fair) it's brisk, enjoyable, and sufficiently meaningful.