Is Gambit Marvel’s Most Misunderstood Mutant or Is He Just Overrated?

Marvel has created some of the greatest characters in comics, and those characters often get very popular. In the 21st century, the biggest vehicle for that has been the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but once upon time it was the comics. Comics used to be sold everywhere; it was much easier for a kid to find them and talk their parents into buying them a $1.50 comic at the grocery store than it is now. The covers grabbed your attention and if you were lucky, you would get something that would blow your mind and make you a fan forever. In the ’90s, those were usually X-Men comics — they were everywhere because they sold so well, and there were two characters that every kid who picked up an X-Men comic fell in love with — Wolverine or Gambit. Wolverine was the established cool, and Gambit was the new hotness.

Gambit was created by the revolutionary X-Men writer Chris Claremont, and borrowed a bit of the Wolverine formula — the dangerous man of mystery. Gambit became massively popular thanks to starring in some of the best X-Men stories of the ’90s, and people who never read comics fell in love with him because of X-Men: The Animated Series. Gambit’s popularity has been up and down ever since, and the character has developed in many directions, but there are still people out there who dislike him. Some fans find him to be overrated, but is there more to it than that?

You Either Love Gambit or You Hate Him

Gambit is one of those characters who quickly became a focus of the X-Men books. Originally, Gambit was supposed to betray the X-Men from within as an agent of Mister Sinister — Claremont has often talked about his ideas for the X-Men books that he never got to write — and looking at early Gambit stories, it’s plain to see what Claremont was doing. Gambit was charming but with secrets, and there was always something unsavory about him. Gambit was one of those character who always won, who came at the nick of time to save the day, who caused trouble between characters. Gambit was part of the Blue Team of the ’90s, the more popular of the two X-Men teams, and like most Gambit haters, I never found his stories that interesting. It’s only as the years went on, as more was revealed about Gambit, that I started to like him, and I think understanding Gambit was the key to all of this. Gambit was a character with deep sorrows; a man constantly running from his own mistakes. The more you learn about Gambit, the more the character makes sense. I think that most of the people who don’t like Gambit just don’t understand him.

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It’s easy to write Gambit off if you don’t understand him. He was the new Wolverine-type character, and for those of us who were Wolverine fans, it was annoying to watch Gambit beat Wolvie. It often felt like he was manipulating everyone, especially Storm and Rogue. However, as time went on, and we learned about the Thieves Guild, his work with Sinister, and who he was under all the charm, it became easier to like Gambit. Gambit has reached a point where he’s become an elder statesmen of the X-Men, and is one of the most entertaining parts of the team. He’s funny, he’s still charming, and there’s a depth to him that really helps make it all make sense. Power scalers talk about how powerful he was supposed to be — Gambit learned that he could have become an Omega class mutant with complete control over molecular motion — but that’s the least interesting part of the character. Once you see past the powers and the smile, Gambit is wonderfully deep character, full of life and full of sorrow, always trying to be better. He’s cut from the same mold as Wolverine, but has been taken in his own directions. I get not liking Gambit, but there’s something about the way he’s grown over the years. I’m at the point where I honestly think that Gambit is kind of underrated; his popularity has flagged as his secrets have been revealed, but he’s actually better than ever.

It’s Always Been Easy to Misunderstand Gambit and That’s Made a Lot of Readers Not Like Him

Man of mystery characters are often thought of overrated after their secrets are being revealed. People don’t always like the way they’re taken, and the secrets were such a focus that once they’re revealed, it feels like all the energy has gone out off them. I’ve been the opposite with Gambit. I didn’t like Gambit at first — him defeating Wolverine a couple of times in the 270s of Uncanny made me dislike him. However, as I’ve learned more about him, as I watched him become a fully-realized character, he’s gotten so much better. Seriously, go read the newest run of Uncanny and see just how great a character he is. Secrets are still being revealed about him and his relationship with Rogue and the Outliers is amazing.

A lot of people think Gambit is overrated and to those people, I say read Uncanny X-Men #342-350. Read Uncanny #381-389. Read X-Men (Vol. 2) #166-188. Read the latest run of Uncanny, where we learn even more about him. Read Gambit stories. You’ll find a character that is fully realized in ways you never would have imagined. Gambit is definitely a misunderstood characters at times, and he’s grown into one of the X-Men’s best.

What do you think of Gambit? Sound off in the comments below.