Why Gambit?

Let's be honest, all of you save a few have just rolled your eyes, grunted in dismay, made a joke about gumbo or spoke in that *hilarious* mockery of an accent that has laboured this character has for most of his life in comics. And for that I tut at you and hit you on the nose with a newspaper. Because Gambit is a character with so much more to him, and that's what we're here to show.

Created by Jim Lee and Chris Claremont, Remy Etienne LeBeau is the smooth talking Cajun mutant without peer, capable of charging any inorganic matter with a distinctive purple-looking kinetic energy that more often than not makes the object explode in an extravagant manner.

Originally a thief on the streets of New Orleans, a series of tragic events resulted in him cast out from his guild and his city, leading him to wandering the world, becoming a master thief, albeit a master thief whose powers were wildly out of control, something that thrust him into the icy grip of Mister Sinister.

From there he was involved in the Mutant Massacre, joined the X-Men and various dramas followed, from his on-again-off-again relationship with Rogue, something made difficult by how uncontrollable her powers were back then, to being blinded or even TURNED INTO DEATH, ONE OF APOCALYPSE'S HORSEMEN. Which let me tell you, would be a pretty intense thing to endure.

In recent years he's continued to suffer for his willing conversion into death, which appears to have awoken a dark and evil thing inside of himself, one that in the recent Second Coming crossover almost eliminated a whole group of X-Men.

So... Yeah, tragedy kind of follows him everywhere. But over the years he has grown, matured, lost the more humiliating parts of his accent and become of the more riveting characters in the X-titles. Which certainly seems to be paying off, if you've noticed how he's one of the headlining characters in the new alternate dimension epic Age of X, out in 2011.

But still, that's just glossing over who he is. Now for the WHY part of the whole Why post. Gambit is a character that can have, and indeed has had, endless amounts of different stories surround him, simply due to how many changes he's been through over the years. And there's a certain spark and charm to the handsome git that makes people drawn to him, despite the few that speak of how much they loathe him.

If you don't get Gambit, or simply haven't read much with him in it, I implore you to check out John Layman's (of Chew fame) 2-volume series from earlier this decade, which painted a picture of a very different man than the racial stereotype of the Claremont era. It's probably one of my favourite ongoings of all time, and I'm sure that it could give you all the same love for the character that I have. And if that doesn't work read Becky Cloonan's short story starring Gambit in Nation X (issue 2), which will literally make you fall in LOVE with him (damn Cloonan and her sexy, sexy Gambit).

Gambit is a character who can give you 100 ideas off the bat, and hey, you only have to use ONE OF THEM here on the site. So dig in, have fun and learn some french!


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