Gambit is in a rather different category. 

Here we have a classic example of a solo title created for no reason other than a vague hope that it might make some money.  Writer John Layman is delivering a competent enough plot, to be sure.  But there's no feeling here that he has anything he particularly wants to say about the character, or any direction he wants to go in.  It's not so much that he doesn't get the character - on the contrary, Layman has him down quite well - he just doesn't seem sure what to do with him, other than plug him into a generic heist plot.

It's just "here's a Gambit story, enjoy."  You can get away with that for a one-off story or a miniseries, but it's not enough to justify a solo title.  What's this book about?  I'm not at all convinced that anyone involved has an answer to that question.

What we get in this book is a long, drawn-out story in which Gambit is hired to steal some playing cards and then spends months getting around to actually doing so.  It ought to be a heist story, which is a reasonable direction for Gambit, but thus far the title has been sluggish and lacking in energy - quite likely because this is a four-issue storyline being needlessly dragged out for six.

Fortunately, things take a turn for the better in this issue, as Gambit finally spends some time actually trying to steal the cards.  You can afford to spend ages on the details of this, because Gambit's imaginative thieving strategies ought to be fun.  And, at last, they are - we get to see Gambit doing some suitably elaborate and brazen schemes, and for the first time in this title, there's actually some fun and energy to it.  It's a tremendous step up from previous issues.

We also get some back story on the cards, which are apparently the original tarot deck, and dangerous even to look at.  This is a somewhat interesting idea, but it's not a Gambit story - it's a Hellblazer macguffin which has somehow got lost and ended up in the X-books.

Not a bad issue, and finally showing some of the spark which ought to make Gambit an engaging and entertaining character.  But it still leaves the bitter taste of a book which only exists because Marvel decided they were going to have a Gambit series, and the pages needed to be filled somehow.

Rating: B

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