By Howard Mackie & Mike Wieringo (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0171-0
The mutant mystery woman known as Rogue began life as a super-villain and member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants: a disturbed young girl cursed with a power that stole traits, abilities and memories from anybody who touched her skin.
It was an ability she could not control or even turn off and any overlong skin-to-skin contact resulted in the victim falling into a coma with their entire history and essence drained into her. Rogue then became a reluctant jailer with stolen powers and personalities locked in her head forever.
After doing just such to Ms. Marvel whilst a member of the Brotherhood, Rogue joined the X-Men in sheer desperation and slowly became a trusted team-player, but she still had her secrets…
Played as a “bad-girl†and mystery woman for years, Rogue grew to become one of the most popular characters in the excessively large cast, and in 1995 won her own beautifully illustrated 4-issue miniseries which at last revealed a few more tantalising secrets, whilst dragging her through a very personal crisis that struck right to the heart of the burgeoning and increasingly convoluted X-franchise continuity…
Written by Howard Mackie, beautifully drawn by the late and much-missed Mike Wieringo and inked by X-Men veteran Terry Austin, the tale opens with ‘An Affair to Remember’ as the mighty, mysterious mutant is called to Mississippi and the bedside of a comatose boy named Cody.
Meanwhile in New Orleans the deadly External Candra attends a funeral for the recently deceased ruler of the Assassins’ Guild. The all-powerful mutant goddess bears the X-Men a grudge and wants to use leader-elect Bella Donna to exact her vengeance…
Donna’s ex-husband is Remy Lebeau and the Assassin-mistress has her own scores to settle with the man now known as Gambit and his new paramour…
Suffering from a love that cannot be realised, Gambit and Rogue have grown close. Now she reveals how, as kids, Cody was the first boy to kiss her and how her burgeoning power stole his entire vitality in that first tender moment, plunging him into an irreversible slumber and locking his memories within her…
Now Cody’s body is failing, but as Rogue visits him super-powered assassins attack and steal his inert body. Bella Donna, herself a victim of Rogue’s memory-stealing curse, appears as the assassins flee and warns the heartbroken mutant that everything she cares for will be taken from her…
In ‘Choices’ Rogue gets a much-needed heads-up from creole witch-woman Tante Mattie – currently the only thing keeping Cody from lingering death – and a warning to rush to Gambit’s side, whilst in New Orleans the Mistress of Death begins to realise the folly of her relationship with the autocratic External…
When Gambit is ambushed by Bella Donna’s agents, Rogue spectacularly saves his bacon but cannot bring herself to accept his help in finding Cody.
Flying alone to “The Big Easy†she plunges straight into an army of Bella Donna’s most lethal guildsmen, all powerfully augmented by Candra’s unlimited mutant might…
‘The Gauntlet’ finds Rogue battling hard and hopelessly, with Gambit frantically rushing to her aid, despite an injunction over his head. When he married Bella, Lebeau was an heir of the Thieves Guild and their union was intended to end a centuries-old rivalry, but his wilful nature scotched those plans and now he is forbidden from entering New Orleans on pain of death.
Despite one last warning from an old comrade, Gambit plunges heedlessly into the fray and is quickly overcome, but against all odds Rogue has battled her way through and is looking for a final confrontation…
One the double-dealing Candra is eager to facilitate, as she transports the exhausted Rogue to Bella Donna’s lair, before neutralising the frenzied foes’ amazing abilities and forcing them to battle with nothing more than fists and nails and mortal muscles…
The end comes brutally in ‘Back to Life!’ as, on the edge of victory, the Mistress of Assassins is again betrayed by the ruthlessly manipulative External, whose true interest all along has been Gambit…
Meanwhile the severely-wounded Rogue has finally overcome Bella Donna and still found determination enough to face and thwart Candra…
…And in the still and silent aftermath the battered but unbowed Southern Siren is granted one final moving moment with Cody…
Furiously fast-paced and action-stuffed, this gloriously illustrated, mile-a-minute mutant mayhem – with a crazed cod-Cajun flavour to it – is a fearsomely full-on Fights ‘n’ Tights thriller that will astound and delight all fans of the genre.
© 1995 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.