X-Men Origins Gambit #1

I’m reading comics more often lately, and while I’ve been getting back to and catching up on the series I used to read (X-Men Legacy, New X-Men, Cable, Astonishing X-Men, and well… more X-Men), this week when I went to pick out my comics I saw this one-shot: X-Men Origins: Gambit. Gambit has always been one of my favourite X-Men characters, let alone comic characters period, so I was excited. Then I saw the the issue, and the cover art is totally classic Gambit. At this point I was *damn* excited. I didn’t realize this was a one-shot at first, and was really excited at the thought of a current Gambit series. Oh well, but anyway, on to the story.

***Beware, after this line there are spoilers***

This book takes all the little details of Gambit’s life that most people who know X-Men at all will know, and gives you glimpses of each story in a page or two. It’s a neat little book in that it takes all the stories that have always been very separated and puts them into a time line, but that said, you learned almost nothing new. I was excited to get into the grit of Gambit a bit more, but this book doesn’t really do that. The writer, Mike Carey, caught all the important stories though: his love with Bella Donna and the Assassin/Thieves feud, getting exiled, meeting Sinister, bringing the Marauders together, rescuing Morrow when the Morlocks get f*!@ed, and meeting Storm as a child. It’s a great little glimpse into the life of Gambit, but a glimpse is all you really get. I was a little surprised at the simplicity of this book though. Mike Carey has also been writing X-Men Legacy for the last 40something issues, and I really love that series (been reading since 208). I’m quite surprised this is the same writer, but that doesn’t mean to say it’s bad per se. At least I know Carey likes Gambit as much as me, given how much he’s been in Legacy as well. That bodes well for Gambit lovers.

The art in this book was a little weird for me. At first it reminded me a lot of Ariel Olivetti, who’s been doing the new Cable series. I’m not nuts about his art, but it doesn’t bug me as much as most seem to be bothered by it. Then the book slowly shifts into what I did like towards the end of the book. I don’t know if that was done intentionally or not, but it was… interesting. I’m not sure I liked it, but that could just be because I didn’t like the Ollivetti-like style at the beginning, and not because the concept of shifting art styles is a bad one. Hard to say. At the very least, I liked the art towards the end, and it fit Gambit, but I didn’t like the stuff at the beginning. Either way, the cover art was still classic.

Overall, it was an okay book, but I wasn’t crazy about it. I will read anything with Gambit in it, so I don’t regret grabbing this, but it’s not great. Just a glimpse into Gambits life in a nice time line that brings back the memories.