Thoughts

In my opinion the best Claremont issues manage to balance a number of distinct stories within the limited page count. They won’t just include action and excitement, but quiet, personal moments. As the reader we’ll learn something about the characters, maybe when one of them makes a decisive decision – and the characters themselves might learn something about each other. There’ll be a touch of romance, melodrama and a genuine sense of threat and death. For all these reasons, I think this is one of my favourite issues.

Also the best issues have Mystique and Destiny in it. Another plus for this one.

And finally the issue will dangle a brand new idea/concept that the title will go on to develop, and which is genuinely inventive and intriguing.

From the first page to the end, this is a great issue.

Fun Panel

Paul Smith’s creative visual use of “Bamf” as Nightcrawler attempt multiple teleports is subtle, yet striking.

Any Googling

This issue tells the story that Rogue has run away from Mystique and Destiny. As a member of their Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, she’s only featured in the comic before, when Carol Danvers and the X-men come across her on an espionage mission in the Pentagon.

This blog has also taken in her appearance in Avengers Annual 10, primarily because its such an important development for the character that is so important to who she is during the Claremont Run.

But, as the text boxes make clear, this is only a fraction of Rogue’s story up to now. In the Avengers Annual 10 blogpost I mentioned the planned issues of Ms Marvel that were to see Rogue attack Carol Danvers and steal her powers (we only seem the aftermath in comics published at the time). This time I went and researched the Dazzler issues pointed to in this issue.

It’s fascinating to explore this early Rogue history. Especially in issues not written by Claremont. It’s hard to see any indication of Rogue’s upcoming repentence here. She’s a hot tempered bad girl, in a comic that frequently feels incredibly dated in its visuals and dialogue. Dazzler is the fifties Good Girl, conventionally good looking and charming to everyone. Rogue the angry fifties beatnik who (gasps) doesn’t even seem to like men.

It’s slightly surprising that all these early Rogue appearances do not appear to have ever been collected into a single volume. Or even been a time periods that a subsequent writer has decided to do a flashback mini series about. They make for interesting reading, and probably do belong in a completists collection.

One aside from reading the Dazzler issues is that we learn that Rogue is only after Dazzler to get to the X-men. And that she is (briefly) placated by being told that the X-men (currently out on their Brood space adventures) are Dead. Alongside the origins of the New Mutants, the suggestion that the X-men are Dead seems to be important here. Which is curious because its something that you don’t get the impression that anyone thinks the X-men are really dead if you just read Uncanny X-men. They’re off on an adventure. I guess the dead angle was more useful for those other stories – and wasn’t really needed in the main one.

Anyway – here’s the last of Rogue from the Dazzler title. Finally defeated, apparently, by Alison – and dumped into a car and returned to Destiny and Mystique. The next thing she does is flee and get on a bus heading for Westchester…