An Aimless Gambit Hate Post

I'm sure by now it's not a shock to readers of my blog that I pretty much hate Gambit.

Truth is, it's kind of hard for me to pinpoint why. I mean, sure, he's done a lot of assholish things, but let's be honest here, my favorite X-Man is Cyclops. My favorite DC characters are Sandy Hawkins and Guy Gardner. Assholishness is not a deal breaker to me.

I could claim it has to do with his skeevy backstory and how I think he unfairly gets a pass for that whole Belladonna mess when Scott (unfairly, IMO) gets Maddie and Jean thrown into his face every chance he gets. But that's not really GAMBIT's fault. He didn't ask for that double standard, and to be fair, I don't really recall a whole lot of glaring hypocrisy on his part in the comics (though I may just be forgetting/haven't read something.)

I don't like his relationship with Rogue at all. I find it unhealthy and skeevy. But I don't think that's it either. Though I maintain that Rogue could totally do better.

Part of it is just his character design. He always looks like he needs a shower to me and I hated the magenta body-armor trenchcoat combination from the 90s. I have a high tolerance for awful costumes (I still love Cyclops's stupid condom-head suit) but that didn't work for me.

I suppose ultimately, my biggest problem is that, IMO, he's all style and no substance. All talk and no show. He's a cool concept (mutant thief in the bayou) that barring a miniseries or two never really went anywhere. His angst was never particularly notable to me, Mr. Sinister's presence aside (I do love me some demented Victorian geneticist) and always struck me as more a set of cool shit thrown together than a cohesive persona. Trenchcoat! Bo-staff! Cards! Black-on-red eyes!

That said, I was pretty amused by Claremont's The End, where he turned out to be a clone made from Scott and Sinister's DNA (presumably hyperaged since he's visibly older than Scott). Mostly because while the narrative kept insisting he's a brother, I'm pretty sure he counts as the closest thing to mpreg (male pregnancy fanfic) that the X-Men will hit in a long time. God willing. (Though I still vote that Scott's next kid from the future should be Wolverine's. Just for shits and giggles.)

I really don't understand the fangirl love for Gambit. I mean, he's got the accent. But let's be honest, the accent in the comics is about as far from actual cajun as you can get. His voice actor had panache in the awful 90s cartoon, but even then what I remember most about the 90s cartoon is where his incompetence almost got Cyclops killed in the Danger Room. And even then he was creepy in the way he kept pushing his attention onto Rogue. Back off a little, dickwad.

I don't get the appeal. I mean, sure he's got the dashing renegade thing. But Wolverine plays his "honorable renegade" thing much better, even if I think he's vastly overrated. He's rarely drawn particularly attractive, even making allowances for ...less aesthetically pleasing actors. And, while this is definitely a Your Mileage May Vary thing, I can't really think of any point in any story where I was like "I totally appreciate what value Gambit adds to this particular storyline."

Except maybe that one time in X-Men #1 where he hit on Jean and she turned out to be an exploding robot. And that's again, more to add to my internal "why I love Cyclops" thing because dude, he made an exploding robot of his girlfriend/fiancee/whatever they were at the time. That's just awesome.

Heck, I can't even think of any situations where I read a story and got immense satisfaction out of hating him/being horrified by him like I am with Professor X. I'd never want Professor X gone because he provides me with such great ranting material. Gambit doesn't even do that. When he's gone I do not feel his lack.

And Rogue still deserves better.