Gambit Gone #1 Doesn’t Have the Best Start but It Nails the Landing (Review)

2025 was the 30th anniversary of the X-Men classic “Age of Apocalypse” and Marvel tried to pay homage to the classic story with two different comics. One was the crossover event “Age of Revelation”, a story that ran through the mainline X-books and most consider a low point of the last few years of mutant books, and X-Men of Apocalypse, a book that crossed over AoA characters with the 616 X-Men. It wasn’t as bad as “Age of Revelation”, but it still wasn’t the massive success that Marvel wanted it to be. The story, though, had an interesting twist at the end, with the Gambit of Earth-616 switching places with his Age of Apocalypse counterpart. While there are some rather large problems with this idea, it is one with legs.

Gambit Gone is the continuation of this plot line, concentrating on the two Gamibits on their different Earths. The series is written by Scarlet Witch writer Steve Orlando, with art by Edoardo Audino and Gerardo Sandoval, each artist taking a different Gambit – Audino the AoA Gambit and Sandoval the 616 one. Honestly, the beginning of this issue is really, really rough, but it ends up nailing the landing.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Pros	Cons
Orlando’s story doesn’t start out well, but he’s able to take care of most of the problems with the two Gambit ideas and give readers a cool series	The beginning of the issue is kind of weird and it starts the book on a bad foot
Audino and Sandoval each doing a different section of the book is a cool little detail	The AoA plotline is the superior of the two, with the 616 story being a little too basic at this point
More of the Vig is better than less of the Vig

Orlando Is Able to Overcome a Rough Beginning

Orlando has been having the best time of his career since his first Scarlet Witch series, with Marvel rewarding his success with Wanda with more books. He’s been over on the X-Men side of things several times lately and Gambit Gone is his latest X-book. Orlando kicks off this first issue in the weirdest possible way. A new kind of Sentinel attacks Haven, which is cool, but Orlando does something strange with the captions. He describes the scenes happening in the art, which is mostly an old school ’60s/’70s way of writing comics and really isn’t done much anymore. In fact, only one of the captions is actually necessary in the action scene. It felt really weird for him to start the book like this; this isn’t old school book or anything like that and it made me nervous about the rest of the issue.

I was honestly going to write the book off, but Orlando is able to salvage the story immediately. One of the main complaints about switching Gambits is that Rogue would definitely be able to notice her husband wasn’t the man with the X-Men, and Orlando apparently agrees, because he has Rogue reveal that she knows right after their fight. From there, the book gets much better. The 616 story is looking to be a standard heist story, while the AoA one sees Gambit learn that he saved the Morlocks during “Mutant Massacre” on this other Earth and decides to find them. This is easily the cooler of the two stories. The AoA version of the Vig shows up, giving readers a cool little fight and complicating matters for Remy-616. Gambit is one of the most popular X-Men out there, but in recent years, he’s not had the attention that he once did. Gambit Gone is a step in the right direction for the character.

Audino and Sandoval Both Give Readers Some Excellent Art

One of the problems with X-Men of Apocalypse were the art delays. Simone Di Meo isn’t a fast artist and delays hurt the book. Putting two separate artists on Gambit Gone means that more than likely we won’t have that problem. Audino is one of many new Marvel hires who fits the company’s house style. I will say that Audino’s rendition of the Larraz/Immonen style does some interesting things, with some cartoonish charm. The detail is great, the character acting works, and the opening action scene looks very good, an exciting, well-laid out battle. It’s kind of disappointing to go back to the house style after Di Meo’s unique art, but Audino is at least good at what he does.

Sandoval’s art has always been inspired by Joe Madureira, the ’90s X-artist who helped design the characters of “Age of Apocalypse”, so putting him on this book definitely fits. His art matches latter day Madureira’s to a tee and he’s able to capture the flavor of the “Age of Apocalypse”. I’ve always had slight problems with Sandoval’s work and those problems are still there – the weird proportions and the pinched faces chief among them – but his art in this issue is the best I’ve seen from him. The fight scene against the Vig has a nice kinetic feel that comes through in every image and his over the top anime style fits wonderfully. I really loved Sandoval’s art in this issue and I’m excited to see where he takes the story (he draws Krakoa in his monster form and it’s awesome, so I want to see what other cool things he can render).

Gambit Gone #1 is a book that spins out of an idea that has its pros and cons and I almost wrote it off completely in the first few pages. However, Orlando shows that Marvel’s faith in him is well-deserved. While the two plotlines of the book aren’t equal in quality (at this point, at least; the 616 story could go in some awesome directions), they’re both entertaining. Audino and Sandoval do a great job with the art; I like Sandoval’s more but there’s nothing wrong with Audino’s, so you might like it more. All in all, this is a pretty good comic that has the potential to become a great one if the creative team plays its cards right.

Gambit Gone #1 is on sale now.

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