Rogue & Gambit: Ring of Fire

For those whose “X-Men” fandom can be traced back to following the comics in the 90’s (or watching the animated series from the same era) Rogue and Gambit’s relationship was arguably the defining romance of the time.  She was the strong-willed southern belle whose powers prevented anyone from touching her skin and he was the charming cajun rogue with a dark and mysterious past who was determined to win her over. That star-crossed relationship provided a lot of entertaining drama for a good many years before it started feeling played out and the two characters wound up interacting less and less in recent years.  I expected that Marvel’s latest effort to reignite their iconic pairing at this point would come off like another nostalgic cash-grab, but it’s honestly shocking to see how well writer Kelly Thompson and artist Ramon Perez manage to pull it off here.

After a session in the Danger Room serves to highlight the currently strained relationship between the two characters, Rogue is called in to meet with Kitty Pryde.  Turns out that there’s this therapy retreat on the island of Ciudad Paraiso that’s been offering to “free mutants of their trauma.” It gets even more suspicious when Cerebra scans reveal that mutants have been disappearing from the area as well.  Kitty wants Rogue to go check it out but, in order to not arouse any suspicion, she wants her to go with Gambit under the cover of couples’ therapy. Which is perfect since having the two work out decades of relationship drama is going to be a much-needed fringe benefit while they find out what’s happening to these mutants.

“Ring of Fire” feels like it’s more for people like me who were once interested in this couple (back in the 90’s) and have since stopped caring about them once it was clear that there was never going to be any resolution to their ongoing drama.  Yet it’s possible that readers with no interest in the pair may come away impressed by the level of craft on display here. Even the X-Men’s daunting continuity is utilized with an aim towards enhancing the story as Thompson runs through a lot of Rogue and Gambit’s history together and tries to make it all work.

It starts with their dueling recollections of their first encounter together, which happened during the Muir Island Saga and showed how their attraction could cut through and was complicated by the Shadow King’s psychic powers.  Later we find out how things finally started to fray for them during Gambit’s trial in the Antarctic where he was ultimately abandoned by Rogue. Other scenes, such as what happened when Gambit caught the garter at the wedding of Cyclops and Phoenix, and a brief tie-in to the “Avengers vs. X-Men” business in Gambit’s 2011-2012 solo series, are touched upon in clever ways.

This makes “Ring of Fire” a pretty deep dive into the morass that is “X-Men” continuity.  Yet Thompson is smart enough to try and put everything into context and fashion an overarching narrative for the couple when the original writers of these stories weren’t working with such long-term plans.  Considering what she has to work with, the results come off amazingly well. It results in an affecting story that doesn’t require the reader to have had a long-term history with “X-Men” to understand all of the issues going on between the two characters.  If you have, though, then you’ll get a kick out of all the references to Rogue and Gambit’s tried, turbulent, and tormented history together. For me, the high point was when Thompson revisited the above-mentioned wedding and “Gambit” solo series, the twist being that while each memory is specific to Rogue and Gambit respectively they’re experiencing it from the other person’s perspective.  Their moments of understanding are beautifully realized even if they’re coming in the middle of a giant fight scene facilitated by a contrivance of the plot.

Speaking of which, the only thing that’s really going against this series is the whole “mutants in trouble” plot that gets everything going.  Thompson’s focus is on digging into Rogue and Gambit’s messy history and she’s created a villain which furthers that aim to the point that it feels like she was specifically created to do that.  It does smack of convenience that this villain was just what the two needed to get their relationship back on track, but she at least provides the characters a decent vehicle with which to do so.

The villain’s powers also lead to some fun visuals towards the end of the volume as Rogue and Gambit wind up having to fight off versions of themselves from various points in their history.  It’s a big fun fight of easter eggs and Perez pulls it off quite well. The series itself looks fantastic from beginning to end as Perez is clearly right at home depicting the characters’ complicated feelings towards each other via their body language.  There’s a particularly impressive two-page spread in the second issue which sums up the state of Rogue and Gambit’s relationship as they’re shown to be shouting at each other, but all of the word balloons contain images full of drama from their long history together.  That level of inventiveness is frequently on display for this miniseries, making it a genuine visual treat to take in.

I don’t think it’s giving much away to say that “Ring of Fire” ends with Rogue and Gambit’s relationship fully rekindled.  That might’ve seemed like an impossible task given where this miniseries was starting from, but Thompson and Perez’s efforts really feel like this result was earned in the end.  I’m honestly not surprised that the Thompson-written “Mr. & Mrs. X” ongoing was greenlit after how well this turned out or that the writer is now a member of the “Uncanny” writing team for its weekly relaunch later this year.  This is one of the best “X-Men” miniseries I’ve read in recent memory and a must-read for current and lapsed fans of Rogue and Gambit. (Along with anyone who is planning on reading “X-Men: Gold vol. 6.” *hint hint*)