X-MEN #81: Jack of Hearts, Queen of Death

Rogue and Gambit pick up where they left off

Originally Published November 1998

We begin in the Danger Room where all of the X-Men are participating in a healthy workout to home their team skills -- all except for one, of course, as Marrow refuses to take part. Seems she's still salty about her personal space being converted into a Weapon Gym. 

She also balks at the idea in general -- why would she need a room of danger when she's had a whole life of it?

All Storm can do is plea with her to don't hate, participate -- somewhat impotently for a supposed Goddess badass leader type.

Follow orders please?

On her way out, Marrow teases a rematch with Wolverine. This time, it's personal.

Meanwhile, Gambit, the onetime Sinister collaborator who was until ten minutes sgo persona non grata with the X-Men, has already taken up residence on the grounds, moving into Scott and Jean's old boathouse home. He is greeted by a most unexpected visitor.

The reunion is tense, but Rogue leans in close and says the words every man is longing to hear.

Now, were it me, and I had been handed the opportunity to script a tense reunion between two quarrelling sometime-lovers with life-and-death stakes, I might not go right to Daffy Duck mode, but Joe Kelly's different.

It's actually a good bit, but was now the time?

Rogue disappears, but on his way following her up to the house Remy passes by Wolverine, who warns him not to hurt Rogue or betray the X-Men or anything this time.

You only get one.

We shift now to Boston, Massachusetts, for  visit to the famous Mapparium in the Headquarters of the Christian Science Monitor. What is a Mapparium and why is it significant? You would have to Google it -- or more likely, Ask Jeeves about it, as Google was only recently invented and not yet the leading/only brand in internet searches. The narration boxes only explain that, whatever it was, it was built by German ex-pats in the 1930's. The comic art does not even depict the literal distinguishing feature of the thing (it's a large map of the world.)

Anyway, some mysterious hooded figure is sitting around mumbling to herself.

Wow, a room with a ... bench. So historical.

As it happens, Rogue and Gambit have flown to Boston of all places to have a little private time. Rogue claims she has a bit of attachment to the Massachusetts capital because she visited there as a teen and it reminds her of the south, which is something I don't think I've ever heard anyone say. 

What the Mississippi river rat was doing in Beantown as a teen is never discussed, unless it was actually something nefarious while she was working with Mystique. The other possibility, never discussed, is that she's actually mistaking her own backstory for Carol Danvers', given that Carol actually is from Boston.

Then again, maybe she just loves that dirty water down by the banks of the River Charles.

Their heart to heart, a conversation readers have been anticipating for almost a whole year, is inconveniently interrupted by our Mumbling Mary, who identifies herself as...

Wow, we almost went three months without a villain styling themselves after a non-Christian god. What would we have done??!

Kali is under orders to sacrifice "the lovers." For what, and by whom? Those are questions for later and/or never.

Rogue protests that she and Gambit are not lovers (currently), but, you know, that's semantics. They love, right? They have loved? They might someday love?

Next on the hit list: livers and laughers

Kali takes everything Rogue can throw at her but she's no match for the combined might of Rogue and Gambit, who waylays her so that he and Rogue can continue to clear the air about their fateful parting in Antarctica.

Kali rallies, but the heroes double-team her a while until she's reasonably thwarted.

And as they start to feel stirrings for one another again, the baddie leaves them with a devastating parting shot.

Noooo! Not the Historic... Thing I Never Heard Of Before Today...!

Later, Rogue and Gambit watch the first responders deal with the aftermath of this battle from a safe distance. Rogue wonders what the deal was with Kali, and Gambit is kind of like "Eh, who cares, it just be one o' dose t'ings."

They get back to talking about what really matters (themselves.)

They come thiiiis close to reconciling, but Remy can't quite cross the threshold.

Rogue flies away, leaving Remy stranded for the second time in as many months, but at least this time it's in a place with payphones and public transit.

But, when left on his own, a mysterious green gaseous lady swirls in to remind us that Remy is hers, adding some measure of intrigue.

I don't know, Remy... what have you done?

Further Thoughts:

Both Seagle and Kelly have done an ample job making this much-anticipated reunion into Just Comics. Gambit is back in the fold with a minimum of fuss or fanfare and he and Rogue are free to resume their will-they-or-wont-they dynamic that drove the comics so hard five years earlier, with the whole left-for-dead thing just another speedbump. 

And speaking of things that are Just a Bunch of Stuff That Happens, we never learn anything about Kali -- who she is, where she came from what she is doing, why she was targeting Gambit and Rogue, to what ends -- and we are not the least bit inspired to care. While it's certainly not impoasible this is all a big run-up to the Dark Kali Saga, it's more likely to turn out to all be just a backdrop for Big Feelings and Pretty Words between comics' foremost Moonlighters.

It's really, really not.

And speaking of painful throwback romances, some allusions are made to the problematic romantic history between Colossus and Kitty, who are now serving as members again and might potentially pick up where Claremont left them in the mid-80s.

At the very least, Kelly is sure to include some mildly flirtatious dialogue between the two of them that signifies that the spark is conceivably still there. And hey, she's almost caught up to him in age!

What's half your age plus seven in Marvel time?

Andy Kubert, who more or less defined the X-Men's macho and excessive look in the first half of the 90's following Jim Lee's departure, returns here, but his wild and rugged tendencies are toned down to where his work is barely recognizable as the same pencil. Despite some buoyant attempts to inject visual interest with panel-breaking action in the Kali fight, the proceedings feel as restrained and flat as an average interchangeable fill-in. Only the relative consistency page-to-page puts Kubert's work here ahead of most anyone else who has drawn the book in recent years.

In all, I'll take a bad Joe Kelly issue over a bad Steve Seagle one... but I think I'd prefer some good X-Men comics in the future.