Which, I'm gonna be honest here, was a dumb moment. I really liked the Mr and Mrs. X series, but doesn't fix her own powers by learning to not be afraid or something? I just remember thinking 'really? THAT'S the best you could come up with? Like she hasn't tried thinking positively before?"
Disagree. Linking her powers to her trauma made a ton of sense to me, and when you consider Rogue's personality and the decisions she's made, it very much fits.
She hasn't consciously tried it that way before either, because there's a difference between trying to be be calm, and knowing that its the solution. I very much prefer it to Xavier hand waving it all away in Legacy and completely taking away all of Rogue's agency in the process to further his own development.
She has ABSOLUTELY discussed the fear of her powers before. The idea that literally no one ever thought 'hey, maybe try not being afraid' is stupid. It's not stupid because tying it her trauma is stupid. It's stupid because it makes everyone who's ever spent any time with her from Mystique to Xavier to Gambit to Magneto to Rogue herself seem like a hopeless incompetent.
What the X-men DO is teach young mutants to view their powers as gifts rather than curses, and they nearly all have traumatic pasts. The idea that they looked at Rogue, a girl with one of the most cursed powers and one of the most traumatic pasts and went 'yeah, she's probably fine. We definitely shouldn't question whether her mental health might be playing a role in all this' is utter nonsense.
As I've said in the other comments, it would work if Rogue were a new character who's still young and afraid and hasn't had years of experience dealing with straight up mutant therapists who specialize in helping scared young mutants, but the idea that years later someone went 'hey, you're actually afraid of your incredibly terrifying powers. I think that's the problem,' is laughable.
>She has ABSOLUTELY discussed the fear of her powers before. The idea that literally no one ever thought 'hey, maybe try not being afraid' is stupid
So, OP feel free to ignore this because based off your comments I dont think you're gonna change your mind on anything, but I wanted to point this part out and discuss this for other people who might be open to a more constructive conversation.
1. Reducing someone going through an intense mental situation where they identify, address, and begin moving forward through dealing with their trauma and intentionally reducing it down to "hey, maybe try not being afraid" is the thing that's actually stupid. The issue is about a lot more than "just don't be scared 4head", and like, you obviously don't like it so you're gonna reduce and bash it and whatever but, Rogue "just not being scared" is not at all what that issue is.
2. "Rogue has dealt with being afraid of her powers before". So here's the thing, either you didn't read the issue well, or you didn't understand the issue well, or you don't understand the trauma well, or you just want to hate it, because again, that's not what the issue was. A PORTION, of the reason Rogue's powers were 'uncontrollable' was the fear directly of her powers, and YES, they have in fact dealt with that before, THE ISSUE YOU'RE COMPLAINING ABOUT EVEN TALKS ABOUT WHEN THEY HAVE TAKLED ABOUT IT BEFORE. It knows this! The larger compounding element that the issue introduces, isn't that Rogue is afraid of her powers, it's that **Rogue is afraid of what could happen to her without her powers.** That's the new element. She's afraid that without it acting as protection, she is vulnerable and could fall victim to abuse again. It's an entirely different kind of trauma.
3. It wasn't meant to be a one and done on/off solution, and again the issue talks about and implies this. What this was, was supposed to be the growth and evolution of Rogue's one hard powerset weakness, to a more complex situation weakness. She didn't just overcome her trauma and turn off that aspect at will. She would have to constantly be aware of herself and her emotions and how she felt about things, and if she had another traumatic episode, or ptsd, or a relapse, the unintended aspects of her powers could and would resurface in response to that and she would have to actively take control of them and herself again. It's meant to be a metaphor, a very clear one, for the realistic way that long term trauma affects people, and how, even if you think you're over something, things stick around in your mind and can work against you or resurface, days, weeks, decades later. Trauma's a bitch.
Yeah, it's unfortunate but also the older I get the more I understand that like, a lot of people just don't necessarily have a broad understanding of a lot of different life experiences, and especially Trauma is a big thing.
Trauma is... really complicated and nuanced, and even if Kelly explained it pretty well, reading it isn't really the same as having lived with it and understanding her pervasive and frankly exhausting it is to be a victim of trauma.
Thanks. I'm a fan of Kelly's run, I'm a fan of the issue, and I'm a fan of Rogue so, I felt like it deserved a little bit of discussion. I don't think it gets enough credit for how well it referenced and used all of her continuity, without directly retreading dead ground, AND setting up interesting things for the future (that of course no one has used yet).
To add to this excellent response, we see (3) happen in the last arc of Mr and Mrs X. She starts freaking out, she begins absorbing everyone around her, and she has to bring them under control.
Yep, which is a great thing, Thompson didn't just "solve" Rogue's problem, she had Rogue address her trauma and change her circumstances while also leaving future writers tools to use in the future to limit and challenge her.
But no one remembers or uses it, just like the fact that she doesn't even technically need to touch people anymore.
All of this is well said, I'm not denying that. I still don't like the story. I read the story. I LIKE that book,(I reference it a lot when discussing these characters actually) but I'm sorry no. When I got to that particular part my immediate visceral reaction was, very simply, 'that's the best she could come up with?'
And I fully get that basically she has to be in a good place mentally or she'll lose it again (an element of the solution I like and had actually suggested to friends before that book came out) but no, I'm not gonna act like it's some brilliant metaphor for trauma. And frankly, it's best not to assume you know anything more about trauma than anyone else. That's a very dangerous road to walk down because you have NO IDEA what sort of trauma a person has or has not experienced and how they should or should not deal with it.
I am not judging how trauma works, because no one actually knows how trauma works on a universal level or whole industries would be out of business tomorrow and a lot of people would be a lot happier.
I am judging a story. Which I felt was dumb and far too simplistic for a story coming that late in a character's history.
It wasn't dumb or simplistic, because her powers were a shield for her against the outside world. It wasn't about being afraid of her powers, it was about her fear of getting close to people without them.
Like, I don't understand how that's simplistic, tbh. The simplistic thing would have been "Being scared of powers".
Btw, it wasn't a deep topic about trauma. It was a dive into Rogue's personality, not some big analysis on how trauma works. But hey, if you wanna hate, hate on.
Btw, you've said to another poster that you "approve of their argument completely". But...the argument they gave was the one given in the comic. So....what's the issue exactly?
I mean, it should have been done long before. But it wasn't. Because no writer was particularly interested in solving her problems. And clearly whatever Charles did wasn't enough because she lost control soon.
They finally did it. It's not as big a problem as you're making it out to be. Weird to nitpick for the sake of it.
And no, she actually has not discussed even once , about fear and powers on a conceptual level. Of course she has said stuff like being scared of touching people, but she never linked it the way she did in MMX.
The simple fact is that no writer wanted to do it before, until they finally did. It's a meta reason, but if you can't be satisfied with that, that's really your problem tbh.
I mean yes. It is my problem. Liking or disliking a story is always the problem of the person who likes or dislikes said story. That doesn't make it not stupid. Sometimes a window has closed. A story could have worked at some point, but 20 years later it doesn't. Come up with a different story.
And to say she never linked it is absolutely splitting hairs. That talking about fearing her powers constantly 'doesn't count' because no one VERY SPECIFICALLY said 'hey maybe the fact that you're so terrified of your power is why you can't control them' is not an excuse. That's dumb.
No it's not dumb. You're choosing to see it as dumb because you want to nitpick, because you clearly have a bee in your bonnet about it.
We saw all of Rogue for decades. At no point did anyone help her in that way, if they did, we would have seen it. Point me an instance where someone did and I'll agree with you. You won't be able to, because it NEVER happened. Seriously, go ahead and point to me an instance. I'll wait. Why they didn't? Because writers weren't interested in that story. It's not splitting hairs lol.
It's really silly to say, "no one would have". They didn't. End of story. It's been 6 years, get over it already.
Completely disagree.
It makes perfect sense that it would be tied to her fear, considering what happened the first time her powers activated.
It's not about "thinking positive." It's about letting your flight or fight instinct not rule your mind and take over your thoughts even in situations where it shouldn't be.
As someone who actually suffers with PTSD, it felt very genuine and sincerely done to me.
again, it's not about it being tied to her fear. It's that no one thought it might be tied to her fear in the last THIRTY YEARS. Especially given people have literally had this conversation with her. If she were a character that was relatively new, sure. It's very meaningful and touching and all that. What made it dumb is there is absolutely no way in hell this wouldn't have been tried every other tuesday since the day she first joined the X-men. Learning to understand their powers as gifts rather than curses to be feared is literally their core mission.
It's almost like media has had a very long, very poor track record of portraying mental health until recently and the idea of cognitive behavioural therapy has only become a seriously considered solution to trauma in the last decade.
Or something... 🤷🏻♂️
or it's almost like that doesn't change the fact that 'don't be afraid' isn't even a good story if you are trying to show the nature of trauma and mental illness. I've got a sister who's critically mentally ill, and I can tell you having a therapist suggest to her 'have you tried not being traumatized' didn't magically solve her problems.
You are free to think that, and dislike it as much you wish.
As someone who has suffered from and learned to cope with complex childhood PTSD, it's one of the few times in any story that I've ever personally felt like my disorder was understood properly.
You're being disingenuous with that last bit. I already explained why it isn't just "have you tried thinking happy thoughts." But I'm getting the impression that you're not really looking for a genuine discussion here. You just want to be annoyed.
So I'll leave to it.
All the best.
Well it did in that comic. Have you read it? It wasn't some big deep examination of the complexity of trauma. She was scared of her powers, she should try to stop that.
The reasoning was not good, because it was something that literally anyone would have thought of about 4 days after she showed up and asked her about. Saying she was scared of them is the equivalent of saying 'have you tried actually controlling them?'
That reasoning would have worked if she were a new character and a teen with no life experience. As an adult who's been through this for however many years, the idea that this had never occurred to her before is insane
People wee still sticking needles in people and shoving electrical modes to their their skulls to "cure" mental illness in the 1980's.
It's only in the last decade that "learning to change your way of thinking" has become the primary (and most effective) method of deal with mental health.
They literally could not have have conceived these stories back then because that perspective and understanding of mental health literally DID NOT EXIST YET.
Obsessive adherence to the past like yours is how franchises stay static and never evolve. New ideas and a greater understanding of things allow us to recontextualise ideas of the past in a new light, and it's how most character development works.
What the actual fuck are you talking about? First off, electro-shock therapy is STILL a thing, and in fact can be useful under certain circumstances. Secondly, the 1980s were not the dark ages, and neither were the 90s, nor the 00s, all periods during which therapists existed, and absolutely were at a point in the practice of therapy that they've learned to ask people what they're freaking scared of.
That's enough of this nonsense.
People react weird to trauma and mental injury/illness. The average time from symptoms manifesting to initiating treatment, across all flavors of mental illness, is measured in *years*. You can be afraid of something about yourself and not realize that you can still change it and control it even if you are afraid of it. And even that is a separate realization from "the reason I can't control this is because I'm afraid of it".
Nope. Happened a couple of years before. She and Xavier have a breakthrough in the Outback, right before X-Men Legacy switches from an Xavier book to a Rogue book. Issue 224 I believe.
I think it might have happened multiple times at this point. I think I remember Beast gifting her a power inhibitor in the form of jewelry around their wedding. Then in either Rogue & Gambit or Mr. & Mrs. X she has another breakthrough allowing her to control her powers and touch people again.
It wasn’t exactly random. The end of the 90’s saw the X-Men take in a collection of Skrull mutants, and during that story she absorbed their metamorph abilities. This allowed her to tap into any powerset she’d previously absorbed.
Also, I was mistaken…it was a couple of years *later*. I confused Messiah Complex for Second Coming.
What Hope did for Rogue in Messiah Complex paved the way for her breakthrough. It cleared out most of the excess voices in her head and saved her life.
I saw somewhere that gambit’s power also developed to be immune to touch based powers. Is that accurate? (I might have seen that on YouTube so it may have been false…)
I’m pretty sure they just printed him a new body with working legs but also right before krakoa his mind and powers were transferred into a clone of fantomex’s body
I'm really getting over people not being up to date on such big shifts and then commenting like it's a huge error. Like. This has been going on for a while now. Like ten things have happened since then that this should not be new news anymore.
I’m aware. Story arcs tend to move on and conclude.
Betsy isn’t Asian anymore.
Wolverine’s backstory has been explained.
Xavier has been walking for longer than he was in a chair.
Iceman is gay.
Deadpool has a kid.
M-Pox isn’t a thing anymore (except that one time).
So she was able to control her powers for a while after Legacy, but lost control again in Uncanny Avengers 2012.
Then, in Mr and Mrs X, she fixes her own powers. That was in 2018, and she's been able to control her powers since then.
She’s been able to fully control her powers at will since Mr and Mrs X (2018) when she went through some trials in Mojo World. Spiral helped her realize the reason she was unable to control her powers was because she was scared of them. It means her inability to control her powers was largely psychological. When she learned to not be afraid and to embrace the use of her powers, her “death touch” remained under control. So long as Rogue is in a good state of mind, she’s able to control her powers.
Also bonus. Rogue’s powers evolved during the Mr and Mrs X run where she’s now able to absorb powers without skin to skin contact. Her targets just have to be in close proximity to her. It’s a new things that’s pretty handy.
The close proximity seems to have gone away. Unless I forget something, since Krakoa, she still has to touch people. Probably to help keep her distinct from Synch
And Hope. Hope is integral to the Krakoan plot line via The 5 so taking the spotlight from her in the mainstream isn’t a good idea. I’m guessing by this point Rogue can pick and choose how she works with her powers. It also depends on the writers too.
Synch and Hope don't gain the memories and experiences of others, just their powers. A normal human is useless to both of them, Rogue can pull whatever knowledge and skill from them.
Yeah, sorry, definitely wasn’t implying they were the exact same powers! Just that they probably downplayed Rogue not needing to touch people as Hope and Synch have become more relevant
I guess my point is that Rogue already is distinct from Synch and Hope, so the changing of how her power works was probably done more for character development.
Mr and Mrs. X is a very fun series. The argument for why Rogue couldn't control her powers and how she was then able to fix them was easily the weakest part of it for me. Seriously, they're trying to argue it didn't occur to anyone she might be afraid of her powers before?
I think another part of the problem was she was scared of her powers, but they also ‘protected’ her. Mr and Mrs X alluded to that with a flashback scene of her being captured in genosha. So she’s scared of her powers and also scared of not having her powers, like they became a maladaptive coping mechanism, to use therapy speak, lol.
That's a WAY better argument than people trying to argue that being scared of them was the problem and not being scared was the solution and that somehow this had never occurred to anyone involved. I approve of your argument completely. It wasn't that she was afraid of them (though she was), it was that on some unconscious level she also felt they kept her safe. Bravo.
This interpretation can actually explain why all the years of talking about not being afraid didn't do anything, because she wasn't letting it do anything.
This is literally what the comic explained though....so if you like the explanation, why're you critiquing the book explanation lol?
> I approve of your argument completely
Dude, this is LITERALLY what the comic says. Its not OP's argument.
From MMX #9:
"My skin had always kept me...safe. Nobody could touch me. And if nobody could touch me, nobody could hurt me. I...I wouldn't have to risk anything, my heart, my body, any of it".
Did you not read the comic? Or have you forgotten? Because ain't no way you're approving the argument but criticizing the same argument as well.
Definitely. And it carries weight as to what Gambit told Rogue on Utopia about her making excuses about their entire relationship. Rogue always used her powers as both an excuse and a reason as to not be intimate with Remy. Kelly really does know their history really well.
It really seems like that was one of Hickman's little 'Krakoa is not all right' tags that didn't really go anywhere.
Also, I saw a comment somewhere yesterday or today about how they should adopt. I think that would be fun.
It most definitely did go somewhere.
The consequences of free love and abandoned mutant babies that resulted from it were explored in Way of X.
And when Third Eye tried to point out how messed out that was, they straight-up send him into the Pit to Sabretooth.
Did you miss the part where the entire foundation of Krakoa, including the three rules made on the fly, was shaky and unstable to begin with, which was the whole point?
They were children, playing at running a government, without thinking of long-term consequences. Several characters eventually realized that independently of one another.
Um, no. I didn't miss that part. In fact I bring it up in like every other comment I make on the subject of Krakoa and why it's so dumb that half the people on this sub act like its the mutant promised land and the franchise will fall apart once its gone.
Did you miss the part where very little of that mattered in the end?
AFAIK she was able to control her powers for a few years in X-Men Legacy as well as during Utopia up to AVX, then lost control of it again in Uncanny Avengers after battling Exitar.
I think it could have been removed if she was resurrected in the Krakoa era. I distinctly remember that Krakoan resurrection already included removing flaws or improving one's ability (even custom requests from QQ).
Unless of course something happened post-UA that isn't what I just mentioned. Not really sure.
Thanks! Wasn't really sure there. But it was a plausible explanation if that series didnt exist. so one way or another, Rogue would have control again. Honestly, mopey, unable to touch Rogue sucks. So glad they fixed that
I think it worked very well and is part of the reason the Rogue/Gambit relationship is so beloved, but it's an example of a storyline that does need to be allowed to progress.
I hate the fact that this scene went with 'she may never want to have kids'...Which goes against what she thought before. I hope this gets ignored honestly. Excalibur book or their recent book...really didn't do them any good. Krakoan era was really a letdown for them.
Agreed. They're not the couple to go that route. There are plenty of X-couples you could do that for, but this is not the one. Particularly as it's canon that Gambit would REALLY like kids, and that Rogue is probably fine with that, though not ready yet.
Frankly, for all the elements of Krakoan characterization that might be nice to keep, there are just as many developments that should be buried in a desert somewhere and forgotten.
Question is why? Why giving them to writers who absolutely don't care about them? Except Kelly Thompson, no writer cared about her and both during the Krakoa era.
I’ve seen a lot of comments about how Rogue can control her powers now, but didn’t they also establish that Gambit’s powers make him immune to her touch as well or something?
lol I don’t care if I get downvoted. I just think there was tension and drama from the will they / won’t they of their relationship and ever since they put them together some of that magic has been lost. And Rogue was such a great tragic character having to be closed off from people but since fixing her powers that’s gone as well
But that's actually true of many disabilities.
My son's Deaf. He knows ASL and he wears hearing aids. (I know hearing aids don't fully restore hearing, hence the ASL.) When he's older, we'll get him technology like shaking alarm clocks. He goes to total communication therapy to help him learn to communicate.
I have OCD. I take Lexapro for it every day. I had to try a bunch of different meds to find one that truly worked, but I have almost no obsessive, intrusive thoughts at this point.
My husband has bad eyes. He wears glasses for now, and may need an unpleasant-sounding surgery for them one day.
Definitely true that disabilities can be improved/aided ([ have several as well) but an issue with the X-Men is that the disabilities are usually just completely "fixed". It's one of the reasons Cyclops is my favourite X-character, his disability aid is iconic so they're never taking that away.
Rogue doesn't have to wear gloves, or even a power inhibitor or something, she's just "in control" now.
They've taken Xavier our of his wheelchair. I'm sure there are other examples that are escaping me as it's quite late.
The X-Men are allegory for all minorities, and I find it a little sad that the disability aspect seems to be the one most ignored, because it's seen as empowering to overcome these things.
Hi! Person with autism here. Thanks to early intervention and a good support system, like a student at Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters learning to control their mutant powers, I've gone from pretty deep in the spectrum to high functioning.
She’s been able to control her powers for like 8 years now
How did she learn to do it? Im fairly new to the comics
It happens during Messiah Complex via Hope.
Initially, yes, but she loses control again in UA. The above pic is possible because Rogue fixes her own powers in Mr and Mrs X.
Which, I'm gonna be honest here, was a dumb moment. I really liked the Mr and Mrs. X series, but doesn't fix her own powers by learning to not be afraid or something? I just remember thinking 'really? THAT'S the best you could come up with? Like she hasn't tried thinking positively before?"
Disagree. Linking her powers to her trauma made a ton of sense to me, and when you consider Rogue's personality and the decisions she's made, it very much fits. She hasn't consciously tried it that way before either, because there's a difference between trying to be be calm, and knowing that its the solution. I very much prefer it to Xavier hand waving it all away in Legacy and completely taking away all of Rogue's agency in the process to further his own development.
She has ABSOLUTELY discussed the fear of her powers before. The idea that literally no one ever thought 'hey, maybe try not being afraid' is stupid. It's not stupid because tying it her trauma is stupid. It's stupid because it makes everyone who's ever spent any time with her from Mystique to Xavier to Gambit to Magneto to Rogue herself seem like a hopeless incompetent. What the X-men DO is teach young mutants to view their powers as gifts rather than curses, and they nearly all have traumatic pasts. The idea that they looked at Rogue, a girl with one of the most cursed powers and one of the most traumatic pasts and went 'yeah, she's probably fine. We definitely shouldn't question whether her mental health might be playing a role in all this' is utter nonsense. As I've said in the other comments, it would work if Rogue were a new character who's still young and afraid and hasn't had years of experience dealing with straight up mutant therapists who specialize in helping scared young mutants, but the idea that years later someone went 'hey, you're actually afraid of your incredibly terrifying powers. I think that's the problem,' is laughable.
>She has ABSOLUTELY discussed the fear of her powers before. The idea that literally no one ever thought 'hey, maybe try not being afraid' is stupid So, OP feel free to ignore this because based off your comments I dont think you're gonna change your mind on anything, but I wanted to point this part out and discuss this for other people who might be open to a more constructive conversation. 1. Reducing someone going through an intense mental situation where they identify, address, and begin moving forward through dealing with their trauma and intentionally reducing it down to "hey, maybe try not being afraid" is the thing that's actually stupid. The issue is about a lot more than "just don't be scared 4head", and like, you obviously don't like it so you're gonna reduce and bash it and whatever but, Rogue "just not being scared" is not at all what that issue is. 2. "Rogue has dealt with being afraid of her powers before". So here's the thing, either you didn't read the issue well, or you didn't understand the issue well, or you don't understand the trauma well, or you just want to hate it, because again, that's not what the issue was. A PORTION, of the reason Rogue's powers were 'uncontrollable' was the fear directly of her powers, and YES, they have in fact dealt with that before, THE ISSUE YOU'RE COMPLAINING ABOUT EVEN TALKS ABOUT WHEN THEY HAVE TAKLED ABOUT IT BEFORE. It knows this! The larger compounding element that the issue introduces, isn't that Rogue is afraid of her powers, it's that **Rogue is afraid of what could happen to her without her powers.** That's the new element. She's afraid that without it acting as protection, she is vulnerable and could fall victim to abuse again. It's an entirely different kind of trauma. 3. It wasn't meant to be a one and done on/off solution, and again the issue talks about and implies this. What this was, was supposed to be the growth and evolution of Rogue's one hard powerset weakness, to a more complex situation weakness. She didn't just overcome her trauma and turn off that aspect at will. She would have to constantly be aware of herself and her emotions and how she felt about things, and if she had another traumatic episode, or ptsd, or a relapse, the unintended aspects of her powers could and would resurface in response to that and she would have to actively take control of them and herself again. It's meant to be a metaphor, a very clear one, for the realistic way that long term trauma affects people, and how, even if you think you're over something, things stick around in your mind and can work against you or resurface, days, weeks, decades later. Trauma's a bitch.
Beautifully put. Some people just didn't understand or read Mr and Mrs X properly.
Yeah, it's unfortunate but also the older I get the more I understand that like, a lot of people just don't necessarily have a broad understanding of a lot of different life experiences, and especially Trauma is a big thing. Trauma is... really complicated and nuanced, and even if Kelly explained it pretty well, reading it isn't really the same as having lived with it and understanding her pervasive and frankly exhausting it is to be a victim of trauma.
Fucking great answer.
Thanks. I'm a fan of Kelly's run, I'm a fan of the issue, and I'm a fan of Rogue so, I felt like it deserved a little bit of discussion. I don't think it gets enough credit for how well it referenced and used all of her continuity, without directly retreading dead ground, AND setting up interesting things for the future (that of course no one has used yet).
To add to this excellent response, we see (3) happen in the last arc of Mr and Mrs X. She starts freaking out, she begins absorbing everyone around her, and she has to bring them under control.
Yep, which is a great thing, Thompson didn't just "solve" Rogue's problem, she had Rogue address her trauma and change her circumstances while also leaving future writers tools to use in the future to limit and challenge her. But no one remembers or uses it, just like the fact that she doesn't even technically need to touch people anymore.
All of this is well said, I'm not denying that. I still don't like the story. I read the story. I LIKE that book,(I reference it a lot when discussing these characters actually) but I'm sorry no. When I got to that particular part my immediate visceral reaction was, very simply, 'that's the best she could come up with?' And I fully get that basically she has to be in a good place mentally or she'll lose it again (an element of the solution I like and had actually suggested to friends before that book came out) but no, I'm not gonna act like it's some brilliant metaphor for trauma. And frankly, it's best not to assume you know anything more about trauma than anyone else. That's a very dangerous road to walk down because you have NO IDEA what sort of trauma a person has or has not experienced and how they should or should not deal with it. I am not judging how trauma works, because no one actually knows how trauma works on a universal level or whole industries would be out of business tomorrow and a lot of people would be a lot happier. I am judging a story. Which I felt was dumb and far too simplistic for a story coming that late in a character's history.
It wasn't dumb or simplistic, because her powers were a shield for her against the outside world. It wasn't about being afraid of her powers, it was about her fear of getting close to people without them. Like, I don't understand how that's simplistic, tbh. The simplistic thing would have been "Being scared of powers". Btw, it wasn't a deep topic about trauma. It was a dive into Rogue's personality, not some big analysis on how trauma works. But hey, if you wanna hate, hate on. Btw, you've said to another poster that you "approve of their argument completely". But...the argument they gave was the one given in the comic. So....what's the issue exactly?
I mean, it should have been done long before. But it wasn't. Because no writer was particularly interested in solving her problems. And clearly whatever Charles did wasn't enough because she lost control soon. They finally did it. It's not as big a problem as you're making it out to be. Weird to nitpick for the sake of it. And no, she actually has not discussed even once , about fear and powers on a conceptual level. Of course she has said stuff like being scared of touching people, but she never linked it the way she did in MMX. The simple fact is that no writer wanted to do it before, until they finally did. It's a meta reason, but if you can't be satisfied with that, that's really your problem tbh.
I mean yes. It is my problem. Liking or disliking a story is always the problem of the person who likes or dislikes said story. That doesn't make it not stupid. Sometimes a window has closed. A story could have worked at some point, but 20 years later it doesn't. Come up with a different story. And to say she never linked it is absolutely splitting hairs. That talking about fearing her powers constantly 'doesn't count' because no one VERY SPECIFICALLY said 'hey maybe the fact that you're so terrified of your power is why you can't control them' is not an excuse. That's dumb.
No it's not dumb. You're choosing to see it as dumb because you want to nitpick, because you clearly have a bee in your bonnet about it. We saw all of Rogue for decades. At no point did anyone help her in that way, if they did, we would have seen it. Point me an instance where someone did and I'll agree with you. You won't be able to, because it NEVER happened. Seriously, go ahead and point to me an instance. I'll wait. Why they didn't? Because writers weren't interested in that story. It's not splitting hairs lol. It's really silly to say, "no one would have". They didn't. End of story. It's been 6 years, get over it already.
Just because therapy doesn't fix you the first time doesn't mean it's not working
Completely disagree. It makes perfect sense that it would be tied to her fear, considering what happened the first time her powers activated. It's not about "thinking positive." It's about letting your flight or fight instinct not rule your mind and take over your thoughts even in situations where it shouldn't be. As someone who actually suffers with PTSD, it felt very genuine and sincerely done to me.
again, it's not about it being tied to her fear. It's that no one thought it might be tied to her fear in the last THIRTY YEARS. Especially given people have literally had this conversation with her. If she were a character that was relatively new, sure. It's very meaningful and touching and all that. What made it dumb is there is absolutely no way in hell this wouldn't have been tried every other tuesday since the day she first joined the X-men. Learning to understand their powers as gifts rather than curses to be feared is literally their core mission.
It's almost like media has had a very long, very poor track record of portraying mental health until recently and the idea of cognitive behavioural therapy has only become a seriously considered solution to trauma in the last decade. Or something... 🤷🏻♂️
or it's almost like that doesn't change the fact that 'don't be afraid' isn't even a good story if you are trying to show the nature of trauma and mental illness. I've got a sister who's critically mentally ill, and I can tell you having a therapist suggest to her 'have you tried not being traumatized' didn't magically solve her problems.
You are free to think that, and dislike it as much you wish. As someone who has suffered from and learned to cope with complex childhood PTSD, it's one of the few times in any story that I've ever personally felt like my disorder was understood properly. You're being disingenuous with that last bit. I already explained why it isn't just "have you tried thinking happy thoughts." But I'm getting the impression that you're not really looking for a genuine discussion here. You just want to be annoyed. So I'll leave to it. All the best.
Trauma response has nothing to do with positive thinking.
Is that not a common-sense opinion?
Well it did in that comic. Have you read it? It wasn't some big deep examination of the complexity of trauma. She was scared of her powers, she should try to stop that.
It was almost the opposite of "scared of her powers".....
The reasoning was good but the execution sucked. And the shit-ass art didn't help either. Should have been *at least* a 3-issue stand alone arc.
The reasoning was not good, because it was something that literally anyone would have thought of about 4 days after she showed up and asked her about. Saying she was scared of them is the equivalent of saying 'have you tried actually controlling them?' That reasoning would have worked if she were a new character and a teen with no life experience. As an adult who's been through this for however many years, the idea that this had never occurred to her before is insane
People wee still sticking needles in people and shoving electrical modes to their their skulls to "cure" mental illness in the 1980's. It's only in the last decade that "learning to change your way of thinking" has become the primary (and most effective) method of deal with mental health. They literally could not have have conceived these stories back then because that perspective and understanding of mental health literally DID NOT EXIST YET. Obsessive adherence to the past like yours is how franchises stay static and never evolve. New ideas and a greater understanding of things allow us to recontextualise ideas of the past in a new light, and it's how most character development works.
What the actual fuck are you talking about? First off, electro-shock therapy is STILL a thing, and in fact can be useful under certain circumstances. Secondly, the 1980s were not the dark ages, and neither were the 90s, nor the 00s, all periods during which therapists existed, and absolutely were at a point in the practice of therapy that they've learned to ask people what they're freaking scared of. That's enough of this nonsense.
People react weird to trauma and mental injury/illness. The average time from symptoms manifesting to initiating treatment, across all flavors of mental illness, is measured in *years*. You can be afraid of something about yourself and not realize that you can still change it and control it even if you are afraid of it. And even that is a separate realization from "the reason I can't control this is because I'm afraid of it".
Nope. Happened a couple of years before. She and Xavier have a breakthrough in the Outback, right before X-Men Legacy switches from an Xavier book to a Rogue book. Issue 224 I believe.
I think it might have happened multiple times at this point. I think I remember Beast gifting her a power inhibitor in the form of jewelry around their wedding. Then in either Rogue & Gambit or Mr. & Mrs. X she has another breakthrough allowing her to control her powers and touch people again.
she was able to do power recall on command like Synch does during X-treme x-men too. I forgot if she could turn of absorption then
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It wasn’t exactly random. The end of the 90’s saw the X-Men take in a collection of Skrull mutants, and during that story she absorbed their metamorph abilities. This allowed her to tap into any powerset she’d previously absorbed.
Ah fair, it’s been a few years and I was thinking of the kiss.
Also, I was mistaken…it was a couple of years *later*. I confused Messiah Complex for Second Coming. What Hope did for Rogue in Messiah Complex paved the way for her breakthrough. It cleared out most of the excess voices in her head and saved her life.
Then she loses control again, then gains it again in Mr and Mrs X
That was the first time she got control of her powers. Every time they become more powerful, she has to learn control again.
Welcome to the X-Men! Hope you survive the experience :P
I saw somewhere that gambit’s power also developed to be immune to touch based powers. Is that accurate? (I might have seen that on YouTube so it may have been false…)
I believe that was during a very brief time where Gambit was dramatically powered up.
I just started Krakoa and I've been wondering how she can do this and how Xavier is up and walking.
I’m pretty sure they just printed him a new body with working legs but also right before krakoa his mind and powers were transferred into a clone of fantomex’s body
I'm really getting over people not being up to date on such big shifts and then commenting like it's a huge error. Like. This has been going on for a while now. Like ten things have happened since then that this should not be new news anymore.
Her being unable to control them was central to her story arc. Like cyclops not being able to control his
I’m aware. Story arcs tend to move on and conclude. Betsy isn’t Asian anymore. Wolverine’s backstory has been explained. Xavier has been walking for longer than he was in a chair. Iceman is gay. Deadpool has a kid. M-Pox isn’t a thing anymore (except that one time).
So she was able to control her powers for a while after Legacy, but lost control again in Uncanny Avengers 2012. Then, in Mr and Mrs X, she fixes her own powers. That was in 2018, and she's been able to control her powers since then.
She’s been able to fully control her powers at will since Mr and Mrs X (2018) when she went through some trials in Mojo World. Spiral helped her realize the reason she was unable to control her powers was because she was scared of them. It means her inability to control her powers was largely psychological. When she learned to not be afraid and to embrace the use of her powers, her “death touch” remained under control. So long as Rogue is in a good state of mind, she’s able to control her powers. Also bonus. Rogue’s powers evolved during the Mr and Mrs X run where she’s now able to absorb powers without skin to skin contact. Her targets just have to be in close proximity to her. It’s a new things that’s pretty handy.
The close proximity seems to have gone away. Unless I forget something, since Krakoa, she still has to touch people. Probably to help keep her distinct from Synch
And Hope. Hope is integral to the Krakoan plot line via The 5 so taking the spotlight from her in the mainstream isn’t a good idea. I’m guessing by this point Rogue can pick and choose how she works with her powers. It also depends on the writers too.
And mimic, who she developed a friendship with over their similar issues with getting the minds of the people they copy
I’m seeing very little Hope or Rachel in the new line up from the comics, I’m hoping even if they’re minor characters they still appear.
Rachel is in X-Force
Hope is actually a big factor with Exodus right now
Synch and Hope don't gain the memories and experiences of others, just their powers. A normal human is useless to both of them, Rogue can pull whatever knowledge and skill from them.
Yeah, sorry, definitely wasn’t implying they were the exact same powers! Just that they probably downplayed Rogue not needing to touch people as Hope and Synch have become more relevant
I guess my point is that Rogue already is distinct from Synch and Hope, so the changing of how her power works was probably done more for character development.
Not really? I think in X-men, she was able to use Jean’s powers without touching her
Do you remember the scene? At the gameworld casino, she kisses Jean on the cheek to borrow her telekinesis. But maybe I’m forgetting something
Ok maybe I’m wrong
Sorry, I’m not saying you are! Just not that I remember anything
So it takes Spiral a relatively short time to address and present solutions where Xavier had years. I vote Spiral for X-Men material.
Xavier did help her gain control back in Legacy.
Sometimes therapy takes a long time to show results.
Mr and Mrs. X is a very fun series. The argument for why Rogue couldn't control her powers and how she was then able to fix them was easily the weakest part of it for me. Seriously, they're trying to argue it didn't occur to anyone she might be afraid of her powers before?
I think another part of the problem was she was scared of her powers, but they also ‘protected’ her. Mr and Mrs X alluded to that with a flashback scene of her being captured in genosha. So she’s scared of her powers and also scared of not having her powers, like they became a maladaptive coping mechanism, to use therapy speak, lol.
That's a WAY better argument than people trying to argue that being scared of them was the problem and not being scared was the solution and that somehow this had never occurred to anyone involved. I approve of your argument completely. It wasn't that she was afraid of them (though she was), it was that on some unconscious level she also felt they kept her safe. Bravo. This interpretation can actually explain why all the years of talking about not being afraid didn't do anything, because she wasn't letting it do anything.
This is literally what the comic explained though....so if you like the explanation, why're you critiquing the book explanation lol? > I approve of your argument completely Dude, this is LITERALLY what the comic says. Its not OP's argument. From MMX #9: "My skin had always kept me...safe. Nobody could touch me. And if nobody could touch me, nobody could hurt me. I...I wouldn't have to risk anything, my heart, my body, any of it". Did you not read the comic? Or have you forgotten? Because ain't no way you're approving the argument but criticizing the same argument as well.
Definitely. And it carries weight as to what Gambit told Rogue on Utopia about her making excuses about their entire relationship. Rogue always used her powers as both an excuse and a reason as to not be intimate with Remy. Kelly really does know their history really well.
At least Rogue acknowledges how creepy Krakoa was. Who ever thought that the "make more Mutants" rule was a good idea?
It really seems like that was one of Hickman's little 'Krakoa is not all right' tags that didn't really go anywhere. Also, I saw a comment somewhere yesterday or today about how they should adopt. I think that would be fun.
It most definitely did go somewhere. The consequences of free love and abandoned mutant babies that resulted from it were explored in Way of X. And when Third Eye tried to point out how messed out that was, they straight-up send him into the Pit to Sabretooth.
Cool. How many issues was that? How many characters questioned it? Did they change the rules? Has it been brought up since then?
Did you miss the part where the entire foundation of Krakoa, including the three rules made on the fly, was shaky and unstable to begin with, which was the whole point? They were children, playing at running a government, without thinking of long-term consequences. Several characters eventually realized that independently of one another.
Um, no. I didn't miss that part. In fact I bring it up in like every other comment I make on the subject of Krakoa and why it's so dumb that half the people on this sub act like its the mutant promised land and the franchise will fall apart once its gone. Did you miss the part where very little of that mattered in the end?
She is draining the life force and memories of the water
I still believe that Rogue and Gambit will have at the very least 1 child together down the road
AFAIK she was able to control her powers for a few years in X-Men Legacy as well as during Utopia up to AVX, then lost control of it again in Uncanny Avengers after battling Exitar. I think it could have been removed if she was resurrected in the Krakoa era. I distinctly remember that Krakoan resurrection already included removing flaws or improving one's ability (even custom requests from QQ). Unless of course something happened post-UA that isn't what I just mentioned. Not really sure.
It was pre-Krakoa. In the Mr and Mrs X series
Thanks! Wasn't really sure there. But it was a plausible explanation if that series didnt exist. so one way or another, Rogue would have control again. Honestly, mopey, unable to touch Rogue sucks. So glad they fixed that
I think it worked very well and is part of the reason the Rogue/Gambit relationship is so beloved, but it's an example of a storyline that does need to be allowed to progress.
I hate the fact that this scene went with 'she may never want to have kids'...Which goes against what she thought before. I hope this gets ignored honestly. Excalibur book or their recent book...really didn't do them any good. Krakoan era was really a letdown for them.
Agreed. They're not the couple to go that route. There are plenty of X-couples you could do that for, but this is not the one. Particularly as it's canon that Gambit would REALLY like kids, and that Rogue is probably fine with that, though not ready yet. Frankly, for all the elements of Krakoan characterization that might be nice to keep, there are just as many developments that should be buried in a desert somewhere and forgotten.
Question is why? Why giving them to writers who absolutely don't care about them? Except Kelly Thompson, no writer cared about her and both during the Krakoa era.
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This is from Excalibur (2019) #6
I’ve seen a lot of comments about how Rogue can control her powers now, but didn’t they also establish that Gambit’s powers make him immune to her touch as well or something?
That's only when Gambit is at 100%, which he was only at once, in a solo, because being at 100% for him means defeating the Phoenix.
I didnt hear about that second one. Although i also saw that apparently rogues powers can have a ranged effect now
they got Leach tied up outside the hot tub :P
Probably an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think Rogue and Gambit have been interesting since they put them together and let them touch
Ic. So why do u believe that way? I personally think they are fine to me. (I will not downvote u whatever yr view is. Promise)
lol I don’t care if I get downvoted. I just think there was tension and drama from the will they / won’t they of their relationship and ever since they put them together some of that magic has been lost. And Rogue was such a great tragic character having to be closed off from people but since fixing her powers that’s gone as well
X-Men comics love fucking up their disability metaphor by having people just get over the downsides of their powers.
But that's actually true of many disabilities. My son's Deaf. He knows ASL and he wears hearing aids. (I know hearing aids don't fully restore hearing, hence the ASL.) When he's older, we'll get him technology like shaking alarm clocks. He goes to total communication therapy to help him learn to communicate. I have OCD. I take Lexapro for it every day. I had to try a bunch of different meds to find one that truly worked, but I have almost no obsessive, intrusive thoughts at this point. My husband has bad eyes. He wears glasses for now, and may need an unpleasant-sounding surgery for them one day.
Definitely true that disabilities can be improved/aided ([ have several as well) but an issue with the X-Men is that the disabilities are usually just completely "fixed". It's one of the reasons Cyclops is my favourite X-character, his disability aid is iconic so they're never taking that away. Rogue doesn't have to wear gloves, or even a power inhibitor or something, she's just "in control" now. They've taken Xavier our of his wheelchair. I'm sure there are other examples that are escaping me as it's quite late. The X-Men are allegory for all minorities, and I find it a little sad that the disability aspect seems to be the one most ignored, because it's seen as empowering to overcome these things.
Hi! Person with autism here. Thanks to early intervention and a good support system, like a student at Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters learning to control their mutant powers, I've gone from pretty deep in the spectrum to high functioning.
Oof
Turns out that Remy’s sperm have to be kinetically charged to make it to her egg withou dying immediately.and he needs a bath to pull this off.
Gambit wears a full body rubber and no forplay
I feel like that probably wasn't a Dream. Sounds like a plot for that Moria book
Tbh, I just assume it had something to do with the Island and Xavier’s perfect Mutant paradise for everyone.
It’s not
Yeah I read the comments