Who Is Gambit? Remy LeBeau's Comic Book History Before Marvel Rivals

Marvel Rivals' next season is all about love, and two of the characters it's introducing are Rogue and Gambit, one of the long-standing couples in Marvel comics. What makes both of them particularly interesting is that they didn't start out as heroes. For the most part, they were actually villains, so here's who Remy LeBeau is and how he got here.

Gambit was introduced in X-Men Annual number 14 in May of 1990, but his first full appearance was in Uncanny X-Men in June of 1990.

Gambit was abandoned at birth and raised by the New Orleans Thieves Guild

Long before he was given the name Remy, he was one of the few mutants who actually had his mutant physical traits at birth. His eyes are red, then black on the outside, and because of them he was given up for adoption. That's why he was abandoned. He was then kidnapped from his hospital ward by members of the New Orleans Thieves Guild, who called the child the White Devil, which you might remember from Deadpool and Wolverine.

The Thieves Guild saw Remy as a solution. It had been prophesied that he would be the one to unite the warring guilds of New Orleans, so they took him in and taught him the ways of thievery. He lived on the streets for most of his life until, at about 10 years old, he decided to pickpocket the leader of the Thieves Guild, who took him off the streets and adopted him as his own son.

Remy discovered his card throwing move while escaping a slave trader

Remy's mutant nature manifested at puberty, though he kept it a secret. At age 15, he went with his cousin and best friend on the ritual initiation test of the Thieves Guild. They were captured by the immortal mutant Candra, who sold them to a mutant slave trader planning to sell them and others to Hydra to be trained as soldiers.

Remy escaped imprisonment and discovered his trademark move when he picked up a playing card, charged it with energy, and threw it at the slave trader. He fled the clifftop headquarters by diving into the sea. Remy was rescued, but his best friend drowned.

A marriage meant to unite the guilds ended with Remy banished from New Orleans

Now known as Remy LeBeau, he met Belladonna Boudreaux, the daughter of the head of the Assassins Guild, the enemy of the Thieves Guild. He fell in love with her at first sight. Remember, he's supposed to be the one who brings the two guilds together and makes peace between them, so as part of a peace pact, a marriage was arranged between Remy and Belladonna.

Belladonna's brother Julien Boudreaux objected to the marriage and challenged Gambit to a duel. Remy killed Julien Boudreaux in self defense, but he was excommunicated and banished from New Orleans in an attempt to keep the peace. He also ended his relationship with Belladonna, because he felt she wouldn't be happy being banished with him.

Gambit's time with Mr. Sinister led to the Marauders and the Morlocks massacre

Before all this, Remy worked for Mr. Sinister, or Nathaniel Essex, trying to get a diary from a Weapon X facility in Canada. Remy was appalled by the experiments he saw at the facility, so he burned the diary and said he'd never found it in the first place.

After his banishment, though, he found his way back to Mr. Sinister because his powers were starting to slip out of his control. That's when Sinister operated on Gambit's brain to help him control his powers, a lobotomy, if you will. Boo. This put Gambit in Sinister's debt, and Sinister got Gambit to assemble a team called the Marauders, who went on to massacre the Morlocks under Sinister's command. Remy tried to stop them, but Sabretooth injured him and left him for dead. He was saved by a young girl who would eventually become the X-Man Marrow.

Gambit can kinetically charge objects without making them explode

Gambit's power is the ability to kinetically charge any nonliving and inorganic material. So don't think too hard about how his cards come from trees. We just don't think about it.

He uses that power in a lot of different ways. He can get objects to pull themselves apart instead of exploding. He can give himself increased speed and reflexes, and he can even speed up his own healing. He can also charge items without having them explode, which he does to his bo staff a lot, and he can do it to his cards when he throws them, so they slice through things instead of blowing up.

Storm put in a good word for Remy to join the X-Men

Gambit actually met Storm when she had been transformed into an amnesiac girl who had to steal things to survive. Remy helped her escape the Shadow King, and when Storm was reverted back to her normal adult self, she put in a good word for Remy to join the X-Men. I almost said Avengers.

Once he joined the X-Men, Remy fell in love with Rogue almost instantly. I've covered their origin and how they fell in love in my piece on Rogue. They have an on again, off again relationship because she can't touch him, and while he's very much there for a good time, he does very much love her and doesn't really seem that bothered by it.

The Witness is one version of Gambit that could become a Marvel Rivals skin

Gambit has a couple of different versions of himself that could come into play as future Marvel Rivals skins. One is the Witness, a version of Remy who lives in the future timeline Bishop was sent from. He was possibly the last person to see the X-Men alive, hence the name. He's a temporal anomaly who exists at all points in time at once, so he can know everything before it happens.

The Witness first appeared in Uncanny X-Men 287 and was in the comics until his in universe death in June of 2007. In the future timeline, he was the head of Stark/Fujikawa, and Bishop worked for him. Bishop was unsure whether the man was good or evil, or even an X-Man in the first place. So when Bishop goes back in time and meets Gambit, who looks and sounds a lot like the Witness, he kind of thinks Gambit is going to betray the X-Men.

Gambit offered himself to Apocalypse as the Horseman Death

Another form of Gambit we could expect in Marvel Rivals, or in X-Men '97, is Apocalypse's Horseman Death. During this time, Apocalypse was trying to restore mutantkind, and Gambit actually sought him out. He kind of believed Apocalypse's new mission would be the savior of mutantkind, so he offered himself up as the Horseman of Death.

Gambit refused sedation for the process because he thought staying awake would keep his personality and memories intact. Good job, Gambit. He ended up mostly brainwashed anyway, but he did remember he was Gambit, calling himself both Death and Gambit, and he remembered his love for Rogue.

He eventually talks to Sunfire, who had been the Horseman Famine and had overcome the brainwashing with Emma Frost's help. Sunfire tells him he needs to stop being Death and abandon his past and the X-Men. He decides to do that by attacking the X-Men and trying to kill Rogue, because that's his way of doing that, I guess. He only found help escaping Apocalypse's program through Mr. Sinister, who restored Gambit to his old self.

The Death persona comes back when the plot needs it

Gambit mostly does a good job of keeping Death as a persona away, unless the plot needs it. It seems like he's mostly okay until the writers essentially say, remember that he has this thing he's dealing with, and then Death Gambit comes back.

He went to Limbo, and Death's persona took over him there. He tried to control Limbo just because he was in Limbo, but he was defeated by the X-Men, and then he was fine.

Recently, Gambit married Rogue and was briefly in the running for Sorcerer Supreme

In recent years in the comics, Gambit has done a lot. He married Rogue, which I also talk about in my piece on her. He fought and sort of died in the Excalibur run of the X-Men comics, and he was part of Madelyne Pryor's Dark X-Men.

For a very brief moment, he even had the Eye of Agamotto and was doing magic, which put him in the lineup to become the next Sorcerer Supreme. That role went to Wanda Maximoff anyway, but it was really cool that he was even considered, because he had only done magic that one time. It's really fun that our boy even had a chance in the running.

Gambit and Rogue now live at Haven House in New Orleans

Nowadays, he and Rogue live in the X-Men's new home base, Haven House, which has a very dark history. Gambit brought them there because he had a relationship with and knowledge of Haven House, but it's also a place where mutants have brought their dead for almost a decade. It's in New Orleans, if that helps at all.

It also sits on a doorway to a dark netherworld, meaning the X-Men have to deal with a portal mansion in their backyard. It's not the first time they've done that, but it's a recent one. Back in the 1900s, mutants found it was a place humans didn't like to go because it was so haunted, so they were able to take it as their own to bury their dead. At Haven House, Logan, Jubilee, Gambit and Rogue are all training a young group of mutants to use their powers, and that's what they've been doing most recently.

I've waited about a year for Gambit and Rogue in Marvel Rivals

I'm so excited for Gambit and Rogue to be in Marvel Rivals. It's something I've waited for for about a year now, since it kind of leaked that they were coming to the game. It's super exciting.

I'm also excited to see who else gets in on this little love theme. Maybe they'll bring Vision, since Wanda keeps talking about him, and that would be really cool.

Which version of Gambit would you most like to see as a Marvel Rivals skin?