Gambit #2: New Friends and Foes

Remy learns of Castro’s trouble with their farmland. He discovers Ro is in a coma, and Marissa and Gabriella Castro’s land disputes are connected. Solarz is a wealthy man who has run everyone out of town, looking to buy their land for big-money estates. Looking to profit off the hard-working farmers and homesteaders, he purchased their land, or accidents started to happen.

As a result, most of the town’s people have left. No one cares about the city and what happens to the people. Remy sees an opportunity to help and get even. The cars that ran him and Ro off the road are the same thugs that work for Solarz. And if Remy is good at anything, it’s leveling the playing field.

This book joins together a team combo I would never have put together. Storm’s and Gambit’s personalities couldn’t be further apart. The fact that Storm has been transformed back into a kid with no memory of her past is a twist that newer readers might not be familiar with from Claremont’s original run.  I understand what Claremont is trying to do by taking one of the most powerful mutants and leaders of the X-MEN and making her a thief. A teenage thief now has no account of her history or control over her powers. It was a fun twist 30+ (!) years ago and remains fun today as a revisit.

I appreciate the heroics in the book. It speaks to X-Men comics very well that Gambit and Storm both have their limits on theft. They try to do what’s right in their own Robin Hood style. These bad guys don’t have powers, so it seems unfair to battle it out with non-mutants. Wrapping my head around this plotline will take a bit more for me. The most exciting aspect of this adventure is The Shadow King. Will Ro outrun him, defeat him or suffer at his hands? These questions have readers on the edge of their seats. The Shadow King is a psychic soul eater that’s an X-Men-level villain. What will Ro choose?

The artwork is incredible, and I appreciate all the efforts to make this a Gambit comic that feels like a Gambit comic. Artist Sid Kotian can make the action fly off the page. I love the innocence that shines through Ro. Her big eyes show purity, longing to find her place, and the will to keep fighting. The drawings for Remy are the opposite. He is gruff, showing he has had some hard times in his life. Closed off and stressed, even with the carefree life he and Remy have developed for themselves, you can see there is more to Remy than that. Loss, pain, and heartache subtly resemble Remy’s face in all of his panels. Kotian does Claremont an excellent service with this series.

This series will surely give us more surprises, and I’m sure they will be worth the read!