All images and characters are property of Marvel Enterprises, Inc.
I found the vital stats from an earlier edition of Marvel Entertainment Comics character bios and edited and supplemented them with some of my own observations.
Gambit
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Real name: Remy LeBeau Legal status: Citizen of the United States with no criminal record Place of birth: New Orleans, Louisiana Group affiliation: X-Men, Thieves Guild of New Orleans First appearance: The Uncanny X-Men #266 Height: 6'1" Weight: 175 lbs. Eyes: Red on black Hair: Brown |
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Known powers: Remy LeBeau possesses the mutant ability to transform an object's potential energy into kinetic energy through physical contact. He can then use the kinetically charged object as an exploding projectile. [In his first appearances he had a charm power that let him talk people into things they'd never go with otherwise, though it never worked for long the times he used it. But writer Chris Claremont dropped this. Then again, in Gambit's first appearance his eyes were white on black, his kinetic energy showed up as green (which went great with the fuchsia and indigo parts of his costume), and he charged up fish hooks (!!!!) instead of playing cards.] |
History: Orphaned at birth, Remy LeBeau was adopted by the Thieves Guild of New Orleans. Wandering the world, Gambit plied his skills as a master thief. During this time, he was employed by the genetic engineer called Mr. Sinister. Unable to control his mutant abilities, Gambit submitted to an operation whereby Sinister reduced his power to a more controllable level. In return, Gambit helped Sinister assemble a team. He did not realize Sinister would employ the Marauders to annihilate the underground community of mutant outcasts known as the Morlocks.
Later, Gambit partnered with the X-Man Storm, amnesiac at the time. When Storm regained her memory and true age [Looooong story], she sponsored Gambit's admission into the X-Men. However, Gambit could not escape his past. When the full extent of role in the so-called "Mutant Massacre" was revealed, Rogue and the X-Men left him to fend for himself in the frozen wasteland of Antarctica. [They left him--without food, water, or even a shirt--to the elements of Antarctica to die. And didn't come back.
Many fans cried foul. Heroes don't do that. Besides, this was a team that sheltered a mass murderer like Sabretooth in their home because Professor X thought he could rehabilitate him. Almost every member of the X-Men has been used or duped by one of their enemies at some point, including Angel, who yelled the loudest for Gambit's blood. (Okay, Angel ended up having his first set of wings amputated after a Marauder attack on him. But then he became Apocalypse's fourth horseman, Death, for awhile to get a new set. So there's a certain pot and kettle thing at work here.) Wolverine kills people all the time. Rogue--who has more than a few secrets she keeps herself, including what her real name is--was once a terrorist who made a career out of trying to kill Dazzler and who nearly killed Carol Danvers, instead wiping out the woman's personality, which is pretty close to murder. Yet Gambit got a death sentence for recruiting the Marauders while not knowing that his employer intended them to massacre a group of people. Or did the X-Men decide to kill him mostly because he didn't tell them about it?
They didn't even have the decency to choose a quick death. Rogue pulled him out of a collapsing citadel, a fairly fast demise, to leave him to exposure to the elements. I guess letting the building crush him wouldn't have given her a chance to tell him what scum he was and let him know that she was leaving him to die.
Am I bitter? Especially since the X-writers still defend their choice, even if they ended up soft pedaling it a bit under the outcry? Especially since none of the characters responsible felt guilty enough over it, even after one issue revealed that he'd been reduced, starving, to gnawing the plastic casings off the citadel's wires to try to stay alive? Uh, let me get back to you.
In any case, this plot point inspired a wave of Gambit angst and hurt/comfort stories. Mine among them. <g> The green energy creature I mention in my stories helped him survive somehow, and the comic series resolved that plotline, freeing him of her. So I don't have to.] Eventually, he rejoined the team.
Trapped in the past during a solo adventure, Gambit turned to the era's Sinister to reactivate his full potential power in a successful bid to get back to the future. But to defeat the New Son -- a doppelganger of Remy LeBeau from an alternate reality who feared his counterpart would become so powerful as to inadvertently destroy the planet as he had his own -- Gambit pushed himself to the limit and "burnt out," returning his power to its normal level.
Following the disappearance of his adopted father, Jean Luc LeBeau, Gambit assumed leadership of the nearly decimated Thieves Guild.
More Gambit images from X-Men #8
Don't try this at home.... A lockpicking escape that has to hurt from Uncanny X-Men #272
A boy and his bike from X-Men #4
Gambit on the move in Gambit #2
X-Man
| Real Name: Nathan "Nate" Grey Place of Birth: The American Northeast in an alternate timeline. Group Affiliation: None First appearance: X-Man #1 Height: 5’9" Weight: 135 lbs. Eyes: Blue Hair: Brown with white streaks Known superhuman powers: Nate has so far shown telekinetic ability, creating destructive psionic spikes and lifting objects of at least 10 tons or more. Nate is also a telepath of the first order, able to create psionic illusions, read, probe and control the minds of others, and to pull a psionic entity out of the astral plane. It is possible that, with practice, Nate Grey could be the most powerful psionic on the planet. |
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 | History: Nate Grey was created in an alternate timeline in which Apocalypse had conquered North America. Nate was made by Mister Sinister from genetic material taken from Cyclops and the captive Jean Grey. Nate was born and grew up in Sinister’s slave pens, from which he was released years later by Cyclops, who had turned against Sinister. After his escape, Nate joined Forge, who led a traveling band of performers, who were secretly conducting guerrilla warfare on Apocalypse’s minions in the American Midwest. He then journeyed to Apocalypse’s Citadel, where Nate fought Holocaust by himself. Nate, in an attempt to breach Holocaust’s armor, stabbed him with a shard of the recently recovered M’Krann Crystal, and both Nate and Holocaust vanished. Through the powers of the M’Krann Crystal, Nate was transported to our Earth. |
[Nate’s even more of an outsider than most, since his reality was destroyed, leaving him one of the few survivors of it, and he doesn’t know how to behave around people who are, genetically, his parents, though they aren’t the actual donors, just this reality’s version of them. I’d be confused too. And it doesn’t help that his powers are slowly killing him, his body unable to handle the vast power he’s channeling.
Nate regained his telepathy sometime after I wrote "Jump or Fall."
The Revolution creative team shift did so many confusing things to Nate and his book's setting that I had no idea what was going on, though the series is over as of X-Man #75, in which Nate dies. I think. It was hard to figure out if that's what happened. It looks like he gave his life to save Earth from a race of aliens that wanted to harvest the planet, which I think would kill everything on it. I think. This series definitely went out with a whimper. Since I couldn't believe or figure out Nate's transformation into an emotionless "shaman" to begin with, I think I'll just pretend that none of it ever happened....]
