Finally this week, X-Men: The End makes a strange bid for canonicity.

The status in continuity of The End books is a little bit up in the air.  In strict theory the idea is supposed to be that they take place in a possible future.  Logically, that should mean that anything they reveal about the past also holds true for the mainstream Marvel Universe.  In practice, the issue has only ever come up in Wolverine: The End, which established that Wolverine has an evil brother - but since it also established that he won't meet him until decades into the future, nothing really turns on that.

X-Men: The End makes a much bolder bid to join the canon by giving us Gambit's origin story.  Of course, it was Claremont who created Gambit in the first place.  But his original plan can't have been exactly what we see here, because it incorporates chunks of Peter Milligan's Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix miniseries, not to mention the long-forgotten Third Summers Brother subplot from the early nineties.

The idea, basically, is that Mr Sinister isn't actually immortal, but has been relying on the old "cloned bodies" schtick, transferring his mind from one body to the next with each generation.  Gambit is the result of an attempt to increase his power by creating a host body which isn't just a straight clone, but also incorporates some of Scott Summers' DNA.  But Apocalypse steals the kid and, for no immediately obvious reason other than to comply with established history, gives him to the Thieves Guild, from which point we rejoin history as we know it.

Hmm.  I'm not sure I like it.

It's not as silly or damaging as the Azazel nonsense with Nightcrawler, of course.  Really, this leaves Gambit as a character fundamentally unchanged, because his birth parents were never very important anyway.  On the other hand, for precisely that reason, it leaves me wondering what the point is of burdening the character with yet another complication.  I just don't see what it adds, besides making him a viable plot device in Mr Sinister stories.

Still, at least it's good to see an issue of this series that actually has a point and makes it effectively.  I'll reserve judgment for the meantime on whether this is actually a good idea or not - after all, Claremont does have another 7 issues to do something with it.

Rating: B

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