STOPTHIS said: Well, first off of course there's a middle ground. They just don't say anything.But as a leader of the local chapter of Gambit Haters, I hate Gambit because he's largely a nothing character and an attempt to recreate Wolverine's cool guy with a mysterious past, but more contrived. One of things that made Wolverine work was that he could play off Cyclops' boy scout personality. It gave them both an interesting dynamic. Gambit was just there to try and be cool or as you said, "yeah man exploding cards and a cool accent, this guy is super duper rad" and little else. And before someone says it, I do know a number of people liked his and Rogue's romantic plots, but those always rang overly simple and redundant after a while. I can only take so much "i love you but can't be with you" nonsense. I also think his classic costume is awful. Also, one time Gambit became Death for Apocalypse and had deadly farting powers, because he stinks.
Jarvind said: I assume the pro-Gambit folks are mostly 90's kids like me that grew up on the animated series (theme song plays aggressively) and were just like "yeah man exploding cards and a cool accent, this guy is super duper rad" and now it's just nostalgia factor.
Kishida said: To me, he's basically the Poochie of the X-Men.
mega ghost said: I loved Gambit when I was a child. As I got older I grew to dislike him quite a bit. He is such an obnoxious, dated product of the times — "Ok, he's gotta be cool. Let's give him some headgear, that's in right now. A trench coat... with a popped collar! And a bo staff! BRO, let's make him a charming thief with a mysterious past! OH! And he plays cards, and he can do cool card tricks, and they EXPLODE. And of course he's great with the ladies. Of course, bro. Bro, oh my God. Bro, and give him an accent. Bro oh my bro, a CAJUN accent. MON AMI, BRO!!!"
Kishida said: I think everybody else has mostly covered it, but... awkward 90s-style contrived "cool guy," skeezy as all hell, cartoonish accent as shorthand for character development (one of Claremont's worst, laziest tendencies), ridiculous costume, goofy powers (seriously, playing cards?!?). To me, he's basically the Poochie of the X-Men. Granted, there were worse characters to follow, but for some inexplicable reason, Gambit got kind of grandfathered in to iconic status.
carrion pigeons said: If you mean cool as in, "that guy's awesomely cool," I'm not sure you can really a design a character to have that and it ever be a bad thing. If you mean cool as in "that guy's aloof, and doesn't have a temper to speak of" then I don't think you're talking about Wolverine at all, since the dude is literally defined by his temper. It might be true that Gambit was written to be cool (in the second sense), but if so, that has little to do with playing off Wolverine's success.
carrion pigeons said: yellow with blue stripes for you?
D4Ni13 said: Not trying to prove anything. It's your right to hate Gambit, and as a declared leader, you did a pretty good job But I think you're wrong about Wolverine & all. Gambit was a thief & an orphan. And his relationship with Rogue was even so more beloved, because they we're similar, had the same type. Rogue was a villain before joining the X-Men (of course, this was not stated in the cartoons we all know), so their relationship had a lot of potential, and everyone was interested to see how they would overcome the inability to touch each other. Gambit has nothing to do with Logan. They're miles apart. Gambit was flashy, had charm, while Logan was snapy and didn't like being around people too much. Gambit was a lady man, while Logan didn't let anyone aproach him (except Jean). He was more aggresive towards Cyclops because of Jean, but even if it weren't for her, he would still reject most of the X-Men. Gambit has the skills of a thief (he is silent, precise, doesn't attract attention when it is not needed, but love to be in the center of all things - because those are the traits of a thief). Wolverine is a berserker - a warrior - he has nothing to do with silence and caution. He goes all in and shreddes everything in it's path. He doesn't care if the enemy knows he is coming, he just goes with the flow. Completely different types of personas. So all this being said, Gambit was introduced because the team needed one persona of his type. Because diversity is a requirement for any tv show, and Marvel knew that. Now if you hate this kind of personas in general, then it's normal to despise Gambit too, but that only shows that he is a well made character, and not a lousy copycat.
When Gambit first showed up, it was kind of obvious that X-men writer Chris Claremont had found his new favourite. First it had been Cyclops, then Wolverine, then Storm and now it was Gambit. The problem was though that Gambit was sort of much more annoying than those other characters with the “too cool for school” vibe and he was nearly invincible in some of those early appearances. He couldn’t be hit and he used a pack of charged cards to take down Gladiator, who is basically Superman! It didn’t help that they used Wolverine who at the time had failing powers and health as Gambit’s whipping boy and that Gambit said things like “Bang you dead!”. He just seemed ridiculous, to the point where in X-Men issue 3 when he finally gets nailed in a fight with Iceman had me cheering!
However, I have to admit that he kind of grew on me. The cartoon helped and they fleshed him out a bit so that he wasn’t completely shallow and he was even maybe a lot more flawed and haunted by his past. These days he seems to have been relegated to B level status, probably because he has only had one cameo on screen in what was a terrible movie.
White_Deth said: Kishida said: I think everybody else has mostly covered it, but... awkward 90s-style contrived "cool guy," skeezy as all hell, cartoonish accent as shorthand for character development (one of Claremont's worst, laziest tendencies), ridiculous costume, goofy powers (seriously, playing cards?!?). To me, he's basically the Poochie of the X-Men. Granted, there were worse characters to follow, but for some inexplicable reason, Gambit got kind of grandfathered in to iconic status. His power is the ability to charge anything with energy. He peraonally uses playing cards as his go to because, well he likes gambling. He can even charge himself making him able to sustain large impacts and charge his staff. He doea it to much he does need to rest. I mean id love the fact i could prwtty much make a deadly exploaive decice out of a piece of paper lol
Kishida said: White_Deth said: Kishida said: I think everybody else has mostly covered it, but... awkward 90s-style contrived "cool guy," skeezy as all hell, cartoonish accent as shorthand for character development (one of Claremont's worst, laziest tendencies), ridiculous costume, goofy powers (seriously, playing cards?!?). To me, he's basically the Poochie of the X-Men. Granted, there were worse characters to follow, but for some inexplicable reason, Gambit got kind of grandfathered in to iconic status. His power is the ability to charge anything with energy. He peraonally uses playing cards as his go to because, well he likes gambling. He can even charge himself making him able to sustain large impacts and charge his staff. He doea it to much he does need to rest. I mean id love the fact i could prwtty much make a deadly exploaive decice out of a piece of paper lol I understand that he can charge anything with energy. The fact that out of all potential options, they went with playing cards, that's what strikes me as goofy. Talking about the Distinguished Competition here, but that always felt like the huge failing of Green Lantern: dude can create anything he can think of, and it turns out he's not much of a thinker.
csista said: I definitely think a large part of the animosity is resentment towards his fans. When someone says Gambit is their favorite character, you get the feeling they haven't read a single comic in the last 20 years while you stuck around and they're kind of posing as a fan. Like if you asked them how they felt when Gambit was a horseman of Apocalypse, they would say, "No way! He was a horseman of Apocalypse? Cool!" Kind of makes you want to ignore any opinion they have about the character.