Rogue

From X-Men Wiki, the X-Men encyclopedia

This article is for the character Rogue in the mainline X-Men continuity. For the character as she appeared in the feature film trilogy, see Rogue (X-men Movies)

Contents 1 Early life 2 Later History 3 With the X-Men 4 Powers and abilities 5 Creative Origins 6 Film 7 In other media 8 Footnotes

[edit] Early life

Rogue's history begins in Caldecott County, Mississippi. Her parents, Owen and Priscilla, married early in their relationship and lived in a back-to-nature hippie commune. Although the marriage seems to have been an unsteady one, both Priscilla and her younger sister Carrie doted on Priscilla's infant daughter Anna Marie.

The members of the commune became interested in Native American mysticism, and convinced a shaman to try to help them gain access to a mystical place called the "Far Banks" where they believed dreams would come true. However, the ritual they attempted resulted in Priscilla's disappearance, and Owen brought Anna Marie to Carrie to raise.

Carrie, in her grief at the loss of her sister, was a strict and authoritarian guardian. Anna Marie was a rebellious child and having an equally poor relationship with her father, prompted her to run away from home as a young teenager and to begin using the name "Rogue." Not long after, she was approached by Mystique, who sought her out on the advice of her precognitive partner Destiny and took her in as a daughter. At some point, Rogue grew close to a boy named Cody Robbins. During their flirtation, she impulsively kissed Cody, at which point her latent mutant power to absorb the life energy and psyche of others with skin-to-skin contact emerged. Rogue was traumatized by the experience, and Cody was left in a coma from which he would not awaken. She began to wear clothing that limited the possibility of accidental skin contact. She prefers to wear only haltered tops with shorts or swimsuits under acceptable circumstances or when completely alone, wishing she did "not have to cover up so much around folks, to protect them from me." she was a half sister to nightcrlawer because of mystique

[edit] Later History

As she grew older Mystique entrusted Rogue with more information about Mystique's true nature, including grooming her for an eventual spot in the reconstituted Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. At the same time, Mystique tried to protect Rogue as best she could from harm, and so carefully picked and chose the missions she allowed Rogue to accompany the team on. However, she could not completely protect Rogue. Mystique sent Rogue to effect the release of Blob, Pyro and Avalanche from prison, their incarceration coming after the unsuccessful attempt on the life of Senator Robert Kelly. During the mission, Rogue entered into an emnity with Ms. Marvel, one of the Avengers. Deciding to settle scores with her, Rogue, having stolen super strength, ambushed Ms. Marvel at her San Francisco apartment. The fight continued to the Golden Gate Bridge, where by accident, Rogue's bare skin contacted Ms. Marvel's. The contact went haywire, comletely transferring Ms. Marvel's psyche into Rogue's mind, where it would remain resident. She at this time also permanently acquired Ms. Marvel's powers of flight and super-strength (though, with the exception of very brief periods when Carol Danvers was in control, not her precognitive seventh sense or the ability to psionically change from civillian clothes into her costume).

A non-canonical story, written by Chris Claremont in 1979 and intended for (the never-published) issue 25 of Ms. Marvel depicts a somewhat different chain of events. In it, Ms. Marvel first encounters the Brotherhood as she investigates an arms dealer named Peter Coleho. Rogue is carefully sheltered from involvement by Mystique, but overhears Destiny's predictions of harm coming to Mystique due to Ms. Marvel's presence and therefore takes it upon herself to attack the superheroine. The rest of the story plays out much like the canonical story in Avengers Annual 10.

For a time, Rogue seemed to suffer no ill effects from the combat, and she continued working alongside the Brotherhood on various missions. In one such encounter, Mystique, Destiny and Rogue encoutered ROM, the Space Knight and a rare male Dire Wraith known as Hybrid. After having absorbed its powers, Rogue understood the threat that Hybrid posed to humanity, and aided ROM in dispatching it. She would also come into conflict with the X-Men at the Pentagon, nearly destroying the building when she absorbed Storm's powers for a brief period. Around this time, she also engaged in a brief and vicious feud with Dazzler, fueled largely by Rogue's intense jealousy of Dazzler -- Dazzler could have the life, the friends, the lovers that Rogue couldn't.

However, the constant conflict between her own psyche, Carol Danvers' mind, and the residual psychic echoes of all the other beings she'd absorbed began to wear on her mind, driving her close to insanity. Around this same time, Mastermind, seeking revenge for previous slights at the hands of Mystique, also exerted a subtle influence on Rogue's mind. The two forces acting on her fragile psyche finally compelled her to leave Mystique and seek help from an old adversary of her adoptive mother -- Charles Xavier.

[edit] With the X-Men

Rogue's sudden appearance at the Xavier School was at first a cause for shock and alarm to the X-Men, who uniformly discounted as a false-flag ruse or dismissed as a fitting punishment her claims of near mental breakdown due to the minds inside her. Professor Xavier, however, overruled his students, who were prepared to leave en masse should Rogue be admitted as a student and member of the X-Men. He argued that Rogue had every right to seek and attempt redemption in the same manner as Wolverine, and that to cast her out merely because of her past history was an abhorrent act. The X-Men, chastened, prepared to work alongside, though not accept, their new teammate.

Rogue's first real "misson" with the X-Men was to accompany them to Japan, where they were to be guests of honor at Wolverine's wedding to Mariko Yashida. At first Wolverine reacted with rage at Rogue's presence on his doorstep. Yet Mariko demanded she be treated with hospitality. Soon, the X-Men were embroiled in a plot to kill Mariko fomented by Viper and Silver Samurai. With only Wolverine, Rogue and Storm completely unaffected by a poisoning attempt, Wolverine and Rogue were forced to learn to work together to solve the mystery. The relationship started out strained, as Wolverine thought Rogue a brash neophyte and impediment who relied too much on her invulnerability to keep her out of trouble. He also had problems with her sense of humor, once threatening to kill her after she, in jest, suggested kissing him. Having returned to the hospital that the X-Men were being treated at, they were confronted by Viper and Silver Samurai. As the Samurai badly wounded Wolverine before being defeated, Viper pulled out a laser pistol, intending to shoot Mariko. Rogue entered, and took the full force of the laser blast, nearly being killed in the process. Wolverine, impressed with Rogue's willingness to give her life for them, immediately counted her as a full teammate and friend, even risking his own life by allowing Rogue to absorb his rapid healing ability.

At first, her time with the X-Men was marked by a lack of confidence in her own abilities and her fears that the team did not fully trust her, which was a fair assessment. Meanwhile, Mystique, laboring under the misapprehension that Charles Xavier was to blame for Rogue's defection, schemed to regain Rogue. The Brotherhood attacked Kitty Pryde, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Amanda Sefton while the foursome were on a double-date in Manhattan, also drawing away Storm and Wolverine to the scene of the battle, leaving Rogue alone with Xavier, or so they thought. Mystique had snuck into the mansion, and disguised as Rogue, attempted to kill Xavier, an attempt that was thwarted by Rogue herself, who explained to Mystique that she had not been mind-controlled by Xavier. Reluctantly, Mystique agreed to allow Rogue to stay, though the incident strained relations between the two, and did nothing to improve the relations between the X-Men and Brotherhood. At the same time, Colossus had been greivously injured in battle with Pyro and Avalanche (he had been heated to near-melting, then immediately bathed in liquid nitrogen), and Rogue volunteerd to absorb his powers, reverting him back to normal, and thereby allowing the Morlock Healer to tend to the gaping wounds caused by the ordeal. Rogue was bound up in the melted, frozen steel form in agony for the duration of the treatment. With that act, once again potentially sacrificing her life for those who distrusted and feared her, she had finally gained the full trust and confidence of the X-Men.

There was little time to enjoy her newfound status, as soon, the X-Men were pulled away from Earth, along with numerous other heroes and villains, and sent to a planet created by an extradimensional entity known only as the Beyonder, there to fight for his amusement and education. There, she and the X-Men formed a thrid bloc of fighters alongside Magneto, but ultimately rejoinign with the heroes once thee was a clear path off the world. When being returned to Earth by the Beyonder, the X-Men were not sent back to Central Park, but instead ended up in Japan. Professor Xavier dispatched Rogue back to New York and the mansion to check up on Kitty (who had not accompanied the rest of the team). However, Rogue had never flown such a long distance before in one go, and was physically and mentally exhausted upon her arrival. When checking phone messages on the mansions system, she heard a call for help from Michael Rossi, a government agent and former lover of Carol Danvers. In her weakened state, her mind was not able to resist Danvers' taking over, and Rogue/Carol flew to the SHIELD Helicarrier, where Rossi was being held by a group of rogue SHIELD agents working as moles for the Hellfire Club. Rogue managed to rescue Rossi from their grasp, but not before one of the agents shot the other with his gun, claiming later to Nick Fury that Rogue had killed the agent in cold blood. Fury declared Rogue a wanted woman, subject to arrest and trial for murder. Meanwhile, Rogue/Carol took Rossi back to Carol's parents vacation house in Massachusetts, where Rogue finally had to confront the enormity of her confrontation with Danvers. She had a complete mental breakdown, finally unsure where her mind ended and Carol Danvers' began.

The next few weeks following her return to the mansion were tough for Rogue, as she believed herself to be descending further and further into madness. Finally unable to bear it anymore, she fled the mansion, and returned to Caldecott County to find some measure of solace in familiar childhood suroundings.

Meanwhile, Henry Gyrich and Val Cooper, tasked with hunting Rogue down and bringing her to justice, had obtained a powers neutralizer (intended for confrontations with the Dire Wraiths) from the mutant inventor Forge. They set off, with a mutant-signature scanner, in pursuit.

Storm had finally discovered Rogue's location, and went to console the young woman. At first Rogue was skeptical and despondent, but Storm showed her a measure of trust -- allowing Rogue to absorb her briefly. Unlike her other uses of this power, the transfer was peaceful, and she retained her own mind, while also being able to commune with Storm's to learn the proper use of Storm's weather-control powers. At that point, Gyrich and Cooper and a large number of Federal agents and US troops appeared to apprehend Rogue. She and Storm fought them off, finally forcing them to retreat, but not without cost -- Storm was hit by a blast from the neutralizer intended for Rogue, stripping Storm of her weather control powers.

Soon, Rogue and the other X-Men were pulled into near-constant conflict with a variety of enemies. The team ...

Shortly after their arrival in Genosha, Rogue found herself depowered, and at the mercy of the Genoshan government, who thought mutants as little more than chattels. At this point, she was stripped, and a gang of Genoshan guards fondled and groped her. Though she was not raped ^[1], the violation still affected her mind, putting her conscious into a catatonic state. The void was filled with Carol Danvers' psyche, who took control of Rogue's body, putting to use her martial-arts and

[edit] Powers and abilities

Rogue's main mutant ability is the near-instantaneous transfer through skin-to-skin contact of a person's mind and any superpowers the being may possess. This transfer is of limited duration (as a yardstick, the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe's entry on Rogue suggests a 1:60 ratio -- for every second spent in contact, Rogue gains the powers, abilities and psyche for a minute), though under freak circumstances the transfer can become permanent. The transfer has often been acompanied by a small, non-harmful crackling of electrical energy around the contact point.

Rogue gains the full powers of her victim when the transfer occurs, including all knowledge of how to use the abilities. When the abilities include physical changes, she undergoes them as well, for instance taking on blue fur, yellow eyes and a tail when she absorbed Nightcrawler.

In an issue of What If?, it is even suggested that divine abilities may be taken, as she is seen to have drained Thor completely and gains the right to carry his Uru hammer Mjolnir.

At the same time, she also gains the full mind of the victim, including all knowledge that the victim possesses (though if the victim mind is resisting, she may not have immediate access to it). Often, when the transfer occurs, the absorbed mind becomes either dominant or co-equal with Rogue's own, with Rogue speaking in the voice of, and using the mannerism and personality of, the absorbed being, or an amalgam of the absorbed person's and her own (at times switching at random between her own persona and the victim's, rarely being a true melding, though it does happen when the transfer is peaceful and voluntary). Even though once the melding ends the victim's psyche returns to their own body, a small psychic echo remains in Rogue's mind, usually buried, though severe mental duress or fatigue can bring these echoes to the surface. Also resident for a large part of her life was the full mind of Carol Danvers, who in periods of mental fatigue for Rogue attempted to assert control (for much of Rogue's stay in Genosha, for instance, after Rogue was sexually assaulted by Genoshan guardsmen, Danvers' mind was firmly in control of Rogue.)

Although she can temporarily absorb powers, the only superpowers she retained permanently were those connected to Ms. Marvel, stemming from her battle with the superheroine in San Francisco. They included flight at supersonic speeds (though long journies, such as her flight from Japan to New York after returning from the Beyonder's world left her fatigued physically and mentally), enhanced strength (she has been known to lift in the vicinity of 50-70 tons at her peak) and near-invulnerability (though she can be injured or even killed by strong enough weapons). She did not gain, except at times that Carol Danvers' psyche was in control, Ms. Marvel's precognitive "seventh sense" nor her ability to immediately and psionically change into Ms. Marvel's costume (during a battle with Master Mold in New York, Rogue did end up changing to this costume under Danvers' influence, much to her chagrin). The presence of Danvers' mind, due to it being part Kree, as well as being a anomalous "second mind" within her, made Rogue partially immune to telepathic attack and probing.

Rogue has been bilingually fluent in both English and French since childhood.^[2] Rogue also had access to Carol Danvers' espionage and special-services training.

[edit] Creative Origins

As mentioned above, Rogue had originally been created by Chris Claremont in 1979 as an adversary for Ms. Marvel, originally to debut in Ms. Marvel issue 25. However, the story was scrapped after the comic was cancelled unexpectedly at issue 23. The story, which had only be partially drawn and for which the script had not been completely refined, was finished by another creative team and published in an issue of the Marvel Superheroes anthology comic in 1992.

[edit] Film

Rogue was portrayed by Anna Paquin in the 2000 film X-Men, the sequel X2: X-Men United (2003), and the third installment X-Men: The Last Stand (2006).

[edit] In other media

• X-Men

Rogue appeared in X-Men television series (1992-1997), where she was one of the most important members of the X-Men. In this animated series, she had all her comic powers, including the Ms. Marvel abilities. She had a close relationship with Gambit. During the series Rogue almost gets "the cure" which Apocalypse and Mystique secretly use to make mutants into their own private army

• In the animated series X-Men: Evolution, Rogue is re-imagined as a rebellious, yet deeply insecure teenager, with a stereotypical goth appearance

• Wolverine and The X-Men

In the new animated series Wolverine and the X-Men, Rogue will appear and she'll be voiced by Kieren van den Blink.

[edit] Footnotes

1. ↑ Chris Claremont has gone on the record stating this. http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2007/12/06/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-132/
2. ↑ X-Men vs. Alpha Flight #1