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By Marc Strom
The Ragin' Cajun takes a trip back to his roots this June in X-MEN ORIGINS: GAMBIT #1, a special one-shot from writer Mike Carey and artist David Yardin.
"This is really the story of how Gambit comes within the orbit of the X-Men, which in his case happens in a number of stages spread out across several years," Carey tells us of the special. "We start on his wedding day, and we finish on the day when he saves Storm's life in UNCANNY X-MEN #266.
"In between those two moments, we show his first encounter with Mister Sinister, his recruitment of the Marauders, his involvement in the Mutant Massacre and his saving of Marrow. Just listed like that, it might seem like the story ricochets around a lot, but actually there's a single theme throughout and everything ties together very tightly."
Carey, who also currently writes Gambit in X-MEN: LEGACY, says that the character has a very specific appeal for him.
"I like anti-heroes and villain heroes," Carey relates. "Gambit is a very cool character precisely because he draws his lines a long way away from where most other people in the X-verse would draw them. I also felt like I had some unfinished business with Gambit, because when I wrote
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him in 'Messiah CompleX' it was very much as a foil for Rogue, rather than as a character in his own right. I wanted to write a Remy story, [so] writing his origin, as I saw it, really fitted the bill perfectly."
At various times throughout his history, Gambit has fulfilled the role of both hero and villain. But Carey sees Remy LeBeau as having a fundamentally heroic nature.
"I think he always had the potential to be a hero," the writer specifies. "Obviously he's also a thief—and a thief for hire, at that—so his morality was never going to coincide exactly with that of most other X-Men [front liners]. But he always
had a moral sense, and there were lines he wasn't prepared to cross. If he came out of the Mutant Massacre hideously compromised, he also came out of it knowing and accepting what he'd done and wanting to atone for it. The title of the origin story—'Random Acts of Redemption'—sums that side of his nature up for me."
As for why Carey wanted to return to Gambit's origins at this point in time, the writer points towards his desire to bring the character out of the low profile he's kept in recent years.
"Well, he's been out of the spotlight for a while, arguably since the end of [writer] Peter Milligan's run on X-MEN," Carey looks back. "We brought him back in 'Messiah CompleX' as a reluctant Marauder with a secret agenda of his own, but when the story was over he didn't come back into the X-Men fold. There was a sense that he'd burned his bridges there, and that he still wouldn't be welcome.
"There are some striking echoes, in a way, when you look at Gambit's current situation and his situation post-UNCANNY X-MEN #350 when his involvement with Sinister came out for the first time. That was one of the spurs behind telling this story in this way."
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For fans of Carey's work on LEGACY, the writer reveals that this special will tie in to Gambit's story in that series as well.
"Yeah, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't [any connection]," Carey confesses. "We've looked in on Gambit a few times in the course of LEGACY, but they've been scattered and discontinuous glimpses because of what LEGACY is, because it's Professor X's story first and last, and we didn't want him to accrete a new team around him as he travels. Again, we're making connections between the present and the past as Xavier's odyssey ends and LEGACY re-invents itself as a different kind of book. Gambit is present for a lot of that, so it all ultimately ties together."
And readers can expect big things in Gambit's future in the pages of X-MEN: LEGACY, teases Carey:
"Well, let's just say that we haven't seen the last of the Ragin' Cajun yet. Even in a continuity book, some stories get to have a beginning, a middle and an end, and Gambit's story is [soon] going to be taken to a decisive moment..."
X-MEN ORIGINS: GAMBIT hits stores this June, following Remy LeBeau's big screen debut on May 1 in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"! For even more Gambit, check out Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited!
