Rogue & Gambit: Power Play

Rogue & Gambit (Collected Editions) #4

by Stephanie Phillips, Carlos Gómez (Artist), David Curiel (Colorist)

Rogue & Gambit find themselves swept up on a date with Destiny which will change them bother forever and reveal startling secrets about the island of Krakoa!

Destiny strikes your favorite X-Men couple! Krakoa is on a precipice. Destiny alone can see what’s coming — but the precog cannot act. For that, she’ll need her adoptive daughter, Rogue. Husbands need not apply…but with mutant duties stealing Rogue away so much these days, Gambit is determined to make the most of the mission and put some Cajun spice back into their increasingly complicated love affair. He just has to make it out of the bar first… Powerhouse writer Stephanie Phillips (Harley Quinn, Wonder Woman, MILLIE THE SPY) joins fan-favorite artist Carlos Gómez (X-TERMINATORS, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN) for a thrill ride that will lay bare some of Krakoa’s biggest secrets!

COLLECTING: Rogue & Gambit (2022) 1-5

Genres: Comics, X Men, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 9, 2024

Reviews

[Khurram · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a bit disappointed in this book, if I am being honest. Partly, this might be my bias, as Gambit is my favourite X-MAN, Rogue and Gambit are my faverite X couple. For me, this book does neither of them justice and resolves nothing.

Rogue and Gambit are supposed to be on a well-earned vacation, among other things, to sort out their personal issues. However, Destiny (not Gambit's biggest fan) arrives with a mission for Rogue.

The book started wrong for me. In all the years I have been reading comics or X-MEN, I have never seen Gambit drunk. He is always in control of every situation. Gambit had gone through a lot, and it was mentioned, but nothing was done about it.

I am probably being unfair, saying absolutely nothing is resolved, because there is some trust at the end, though again I think the wrong person is being accused of being shifty. I was expecting a lot from this book, and I was expecting a lot more character development and got very little. The book finishes with a with a varient cover gallery and a recipe?

[Cameron H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well…I do kind of want to try that gumbo recipe now.

[Dakota · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes you wish Stephanie Phillips had an ongoing Rogue and Gambit book! She writes those two characters perfectly.

[Alex Sarll]

The last time Rogue and Gambit had their own series, it was a charming couple's caper (and come to think of it, I may still have the last volume unread on here somewhere). This, on the other hand...well, in a roundabout way it sets up a plot point for Fall Of The House Of X, a comic which is bad and should feel bad. That's accomplished mainly through having Rogue's stepmother Destiny turn up with a particularly opaque prophecy, which can sometimes be written well enough to be intriguing, but here feels more like an uninspired GM trying to get the session started. And the characters turn out to be fresh off Excalibur/Knights Of X, the one Krakoa series so bad I abandoned it, because it was a comic about magic and Britain with no apparent grasp of either. As witness another transfer character here, Reuben Brousseau, a British ambassador whose name demonstrates almost as deep an understanding of UK diplomats as his (admittedly pretty snazzy) cape. Not that it's just Britain being winged here; the Black Panther is presented as the sort of idiot who'll turn up and get into a needless hero on hero brawl to liven up a slow issue, while everyone seems to forget about the Krakoan resurrection option until an awkward aside in the final issue. All of which might just about be forgivable if the leads exhibited their usual appeal, but no, what we get instead is mostly unedifying bickering between a joyless nag and a useless drunk. And how do you fail to get a laugh out of a line about Vanisher having disappeared? Utterly wretched.

[Tyler Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was good. Marvel doesn’t use the character Manifold as much as they should and this points out how powerful and important he could be. So I really appreciate that. I’m interested to see see what Irene saw, and why she thinks he’s a key to mutant survival though. Only time will tell as the Fall of the House of X gets closer and closer.

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is the one comics couple that i truly believe could last forever look at themmm live action when

the texts from everyone were a nice touch

[Matthew Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I really enjoy seeing how relationships work among supers and mutants in comics and this relationship is one that I’ve always been interested in. Gambit was one of my favorite X-Men characters growing up and while I haven’t always enjoyed seeing him in some comics I’ve read, this was one that I did very much enjoy reading.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm happy to check in with this couple

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gems include Destiny hates on her son-in-law, Gambit v. Panther, Rogue goes to Rocket for relationship advice, Storm harasses Gambit, & Rogue betrays Manifold

[Jennifer Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good story. Gambit & Rogue are a personal favorite and always have been. The whole story of this made me happy, just to have this "check in" with them.

[Matthew McElroy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I am cranky after reading two surprisingly good collections. I would happily recommend Resurrection of Magneto and The Hellfire Gala. All three of these stories take place during the Krakoa Era, but Power Play has almost nothing to do with Krakoa at any level.

Destiny comes to Rogue and says she needs a favor, leading Rogue on a pretty standard "find the Maguffin" story. There's nothing wrong with that. The Blues Brothers, Pulp Fiction and Indiana Jones are all "find the Maguffin" stories. The difference is that they are good.

We have almost no character development for either character. Luckily after 40 years, we have seen Rogue go through some personal development. She's a villain, and an Avenger, and the hired muscle and a love interest, and eventually the leader of the X-Men. But Gambit? Was he ever anything other than a comedic Wolverine? A smart- talking loner, who happened to have a cool mutant power? He hasn't progressed in a meaningful way in 30 years, though it seems he has developed a drinking problem, which, if that is his new personality, is pretty lame.

The other characters in the book have almost no development at all. I didn't learn anything about Manifold or Destiny. The villain is a stock corporate baddie (you don't have to do much to convince me industrialists exploit people, but even this was pretty dull). Black Panther is in this in one of the most inexplicable cameos I have ever seen. The Avengers are trying to stop Rogue and Gambit, but once Black Panther interferes, he never comes back, and no other Avengers show up.

If you are a Rogue diehard, this might be worth the read, she comes across okay. Otherwise, save your time.

[Caroline Clutterbuck Kapulkin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was a letdown, especially after coming off Kelly Thompson's Mr. and Mrs. X, Vol. 2: Gambit and Rogue Forever and Rogue & Gambit: Ring of Fire. My gold standard of Rogue & Gambit characterization... Power Play was dull, a generic adventure story, with Rogue & Gambit fighting for what seemed like no reason. The text chats were cheesy and didn't feel in character. It was weird that Rogue and her mom Destiny had the exact same body type, lol. (ugh) Like Destiny has other designs, why is she dressed like that to ask her daughter and son in law for help. Anyway, it was mid and not what I enjoy about Rogue & Gambit's relationship. Why feature such a power couple, who have been through so much together, in their own issue run when you don't focus on their relationship? We've seen years of them bickering, I don't need more of that. I think writing a happy couple in drama is more difficult than ... an "increasingly complicated love affair." Bro they are MARRIED they are partners in everything, you think their relationship can't weather mutant duties and superheroing? Anyway, read the 2018-2019 R&G run.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Right before "Fall of X", we get another fun and quirky Volume from the X-Men's oddest couple. Destiny has seen the future and it involves protecting Manifest (a mutant teleporter) for what is to come (Orchis has been targeting teleporters lately) and sends Rogue and Gambit out to get him. Power Broker beats them to it, and Rogue and Gambit will have to face off against all the other captured mutants to get him back.
Overall, a fun short story before the dark chaos and drama of Fall of X. Definite check out.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A relentless (in a bad way) narrative featuring a prophecy from Destiny that has Rogue and Gambit working to keep Manifest (a teleporting mutant) safe. The book is all over the place and deeply forgettable in the way that it's very distantly related to the Fall of X. At the very least, there could have been some fun romantic interplay between Rogue and Gambit, but instead they're in a gloomy funk most of the time.

[Sara☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3.5 stars rounded up]

•beautiful artwork (my only issue is with the way Rogue’s chest was weirdly accentuated in every. single. panel. It was so unnecessary)
•gripping story
•adorable relationship
•ending was a bit anticlimactic

[Rosaria Battiloro · Rating 4 out of 5]

aww I loved it! I haven't read about Rogue & Gambit in a minute tbh, and I am happy to find them married with cats!!!
This was a nice and rather quick read, with a perfect balance between character's work and action sequences, imo, and the art was great too! <3

[Jamil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thin and useless

[Aisling · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeah I'm a sucker 🤷‍♀️

[Jess H · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favs ❤️

[Bertazzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This mini is much more connected to the main story... and fun than I've imagined.

[Valentina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 estrellas.

Me a gustado este comic.

[Alexandra Freire · Rating 3 out of 5]

La razón de las 3 estrellas es porque son Gambito y Rogue, peeroooo.... no me gustó y debo confesarlo, la traición final de Rogue a Gambito, a pesar de que no haya sido directa! Y eso me da un poco de escozor, porque a pesar de lo que se pueda decir de Gambito, que es un ladrón, un viejo mujeriego, y adicto a las peleas, siempre confía en Rogue a ciegas, y saber que Rogue ha roto esa confianza! ah, no sé que pensar
Me ha dejado emociones mezcladas este tomo, y una vez más me pregunto, ¿cuando le darán una ilustración decente a esta pareja? Los rostros siempre se ven desdibujados, y a medio terminar...
Todo ello me lleva a cuestionarme, cuál será el futuro de esta pareja, y si será feliz o no :(

P.D. Siento que Rogue culpaba a Gambito por cosas que él no podía controlar?, y en tantas páginas, seguí sintiendo que no hubo si quiera una pizca de que las inseguridades que tenían al principio del tomo, se hubieran esclarecido o siquiera discutido a plenitud?
No sé, y esa escena inicial de Gambito borracho... no son el Gambito ni Rogue que conozco

[Fahad Ahmed · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rogue and Gambit are one of my favorite superhero couples, but this miniseries doesn't really do them justice. It doesn't do much of anything, honestly, that couldn't have been done in some other title.

The key thing that X-Men true believers will need to know is that Destiny needs Manifold because of a vision she saw, and she's entrusting Rogue with getting him on board. Meanwhile, something happened to Gambit in the pages of Knights of X, and that's causing tension in their relationship. You've got about enough material here for a solid one shot, but in order to stretch this to a 5 issue miniseries, we have this whole story about Manifold and others heroes and villains being kidnapped, stuck with a mind control chip and sold to the highest bidder.

That story about Manifold being kidnapped is both irrelevant and boringly written, so that's a shame, but it's hard to even get invested in Rogue and Gambit's relationship drama. The thing that happened to Gambit in Knights of X is mentioned in passing, but X readers will understand that it's a big deal, and its implications are never addressed in this book. All you see here is the two of them having pretty normal and relatable problems stemming from Rogue's work with the X-Men. I suppose this is my punishment for not reading of Knights of X...

Also, the climax of the story has to do with the fact that Rogue can't remove her mind control chip without dying - but why exactly is that a problem? The existence of the resurrection protocols should push writers to come up with more interesting threats for mutants to face, but Steph missed the mark here.

It doesn't help that I didn't even enjoy the artwork. Some of Marvel's top artistic talents are working in the X-Office, and this felt below par to me. Overall, this one is a total skip, even for fans of this couple.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

How do you represent jiggle physics in a static art form? I don’t know how but they managed it.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75
At least it looselyconnects to the fall storyline. Otherwise...a pretty mediocre and forgettable story.

Issue #5 not on GR.

[Subham · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent read and it teams up Rogue and Gambit for a mission given to them by Destiny as they are on the search of kidnapped mutants and so they team-up with Manifold but he has his own problems when he gets kidnapped, so the couple have to find a way to find their friend and also deal with the threat of this new threat of POWER BROKER whose kidnapping powered people and putting them in mind control and selling them to the highest bidder.

The story is actually a pretty good idea and it leads to some really cool moments between the couple and like addresses the relationship gap after his death and well her being on the X-team, so one of those couple crises situation lol and that leads to the usual address the problem, a little love making while on the trip and well running into problems like her Black panther and still how they escaped it was funny lol, and then the battle. A dramatic twist at the end of #4 with Rogue in their control and the couple fighting. This volume was filled with story cliches but I love how its done and how it brings the couple more closer, recipes of a good storytelling.

But yeah fun battle and how it ends is funny but also shows the dark secrets of Krakoa like it says at the back of the book and I have yet to read the fall of Krakoa books but it does show how they are doing some rather not good things to preserve their homeland. Dark choices made by even good people but oh well.

Good ending overall, a steamy romance developing by the end and how the couple are more closer now. ALSO those text message pages were annoying. Ugh I hate whenever they do this and so you could skip them if you want. But the art and covers are GORGEOUS and actually uplift the book in my opinion.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

It wasn’t awful but it wasn’t great either. There were some things I really liked (the different format of adding text message chains, articles, recipes; Gambit & Rogue’s more romantic/loving moments) but things I didn’t like.

Most of the comic Gambit was made out to look really dumb or a nuisance. I know that’s part of the story, but it was annoying. Also overarching story was a bit hard to follow as a one-shot because it seems to tie into a lot of other things going on (that aren’t totally explained properly, imo). I also thought the fact that Gambit could just remove the chip from Rogue’s neck so easily at the end very odd given a panel earlier he wasn’t even willing to give Forge a shot at it!

It gets points for the art style making them both look great and for that one wonderful panel of them kissing in the desert.

This brings up another gripe though - why are they just kissing all over the place later on? Gambit very clearly kisses her forehead when he leaves her in New York but their powers are back by then and she doesn’t have her inhibitor bracelet on… later in their apartment they’re also kissing and I didn’t see the bracelet (at least that could have been hidden under her sweatshirt in that scene, though). The earlier forehead kiss seems like a big oversight - like it was supposed to be on her headband but was drawn wrong. Not that I want less Rogue & Gambit kissing 😅 but it’s just a little annoyance given all we know about Rogue!

Overall for the nice moments of seeing them together (though I was we got more nice before it devolved into them having issues already) it gets a 3.25/5.

[Sam Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is quite frankly THE WORST Rogue/Gambit book I’ve ever read and I’ve read Blood of Apocalypse. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that was better than this dogshit.

I don’t think there was a single character who wasn’t out of character in this book, from Remy to Rogue to even T’Challa. Not a SINGLE thing T’Challa said is something that I believe matches his characterization. I usually hate when Remy is just in the background of books, just there to look pretty, but I think I genuinely would have preferred that to this run where he’s just made to be incompetent and an idiot. There was an attempt to handle Remy’s trauma from dying in Knights of X and honestly, it was done piss poorly.

Juggernaut was also thrown into this story as a random kidnapped villain for absolutely no reason AND in a way that makes NO SENSE for him, being a hero and living on Krakoa currently. Like, you’re telling me no one cared that he was kidnapped for over three months? Not Kurt or David (from Legion of X) or BLACK TOM (his like. Literal life partner?), get the hell out of here with that nonsense.

And the ending with Rogue and Eden? I am so many different levels of disgusted about how gross that was and how nasty it felt. Jfc I hope Stephanie Phillips never touched these characters again. She especially needs to stay away from Black characters imo.

I’d give this 0 stars if I could. Genuinely. This might be the worst comic I have ever read. I know this is pretty harsh but. Wow. It was BAD.

[RubiGiráldez RubiGiráldez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Krakoa cambió muchas cosas en el panorama mutante. Pero la relación entre Pícara y Gambito se mantiene... igual de tormentosa pero pasional que desde su primer encuentro y enamoramiento. Pero desde luego que todo puede complicarse aún más con las misteriosas alertas y misiones de Destino. Mutante precognitiva y madre adoptiva de Pícara junto a Mística. A espaldas de los X-Men y el Consejo Silencioso, Pícara se pone en acción y Gambito la sigue de cerca... Aunque a veces con unas botellas de más o exceso de su sorna cajún. Ciertas fricciones compiladas recientemente entre la pareja explotan en los peores momentos en esta trama que Stephanie Phillips logra encarar bien desde lo interno de su dupla de protagonistas. Pero lo que viene siendo la intriga superheroíca, si bien intenta añadir elementos y personajes para engrandecerla, como pronto se descubre, no es nada más que ruido y desconcierto para lo que es uno de los planes de respaldo de Destino a su profetizada caída del sueño mutante.

Sí que es cierto que Stephanie tira de fugaz referencia visual de la historia romática de la pareja mutante más que añadirla orgánicamente a la trama. Y es el estilo energético de Carlos Gómez, dibujante también de la despendolada X-Terminators Krakoana, el que alegra suficientemente la miniserie.

Exceso de cabeceras... Pero sí que al menos esta te viene con receta de Gumbo.