A second decent issue
The story so far as shown in Gambit #1. In the last issue we saw Gambit still a seemingly innocent-looking, yet worthwhile device of some sort, from a man named Borya Cich who earns part of his livelihood by funding supervillains. The Ragin’ Cajun attended a rather swanky gala at Cich’s immaculate mansion. In typical fashion, he chatted up an attractive, quick-witted woman who caught his eye while simultaneously eyeing up Cich’s security and covertly gathering all the information he would need to perform his first theft, and a rather high tech one at that, in a long time. Going back a little farther, he had been occupied both as a teacher of the current X-Men and as a mentor to X-23. He deftly made his way past security and made his way into Cich’s technologically well-defended safe house of spoils. His infiltration was very much Bond-like, but, as expected, something went amiss, and an alarm was inevitably set off. However, because he is Gambit, he was able to, partly due to the help of the intriguing woman he met earlier, escape without incident. Her motives are unknown and that makes her even more interesting and we hope to learn more about her. After getting back to his pad, as calling it a home for gambit seems a bit of a stretch, he examines the strange device, only to have it bury itself inside of his torso in a typically strange, comic book development.
All of that brings us to the current situation, namely Gambit trying to get the strange device out of his torso. Unfortunately, given how he acquired said device, he doesn’t see talking to the likes of Mr. Fantastic or the like for help. To make matters more complicated, he comes to find out that any further information on the invasive device and others like it, is housed in a museum. Yes, he has to break into a museum to get further clues as how best to deal with the creepy doohickey. Classy, I know. To be fair, he’s not happy about it either.
We see him get past some more typically fancy security, complete with stereotypical laser grid. While I never understand how people actually manage to get by such complex devices the art really shines through on these pages in terms of attention to detail such as Gambit’s stubble, the way the veins bulge in his neck, and the way his hair falls as he performs his trademark acrobatics. The colors and shading really stand out here too as you can see in the following scans. While all of the art is pretty good in the series so far, Rachelle Rosenberg’s colors really stand out to me. There’s also a nice bit of self-reflection/mockery that fans of the 90s show will appreciate.
To avoid spoiling what happens as it is plot relevant, let’s just say that he does get what he came for, but only after some very suitable Gambit-like drama ensues. It’s never a simple thing with this one. While this issue is pretty solid there is some clunky/typical comic dialogue that goes on that induces some eye-rolling but both the art and Gambit’s characterization shine through. We do get a poignant yet seldom sense of the turmoil that the return to his thieving ways causes him. Unfortunately, we don’t get to know the woman from the first issue very well, nor do we really gain more insight into her motivations, but it’s only the second issue on so this is reasonable. I do hope that both she and the character that helps Gambit in the very beginning of the issue get fleshed out. Overall, this issue was decent, but not quite good for me so I’d give it a 3-3.5/5.