For those of you keeping track at home, this is the third Rogue series. 

The first two were both 4-issue miniseries, and neither was considered particularly successful.  Rogue vol 1 reduced the character to a mere adjunct to Gambit, and was to all intents and purposes a follow-up to the first Gambit miniseries.  Rogue vol 2 was a chaotic mess that couldn't make up its mind what continuity it was set in and whether it was using the comic book or film version of the character (almost wholly separate characters that happen to share a name).  The result was a fumbled attempt to please all of the people all of the time.

All of which is good news for writer Robert Rodi, who doesn't exactly have much to live up to.  Rodi seems to be in Marvel's good books at the moment.  Following his eminently readable (but almost totally ignored) run on Elektra, he's now doing three books a month - this title, the perfectly decent Loki miniseries, and Identity Disc, of which we shall speak no further.

As of last week, Rogue's status quo was that she didn't have her powers.  It seems, however, that for present purposes we're running with the idea that she's got the "can't touch anyone" gimmick, but doesn't have the old Ms Marvel powers.  That's probably a bright move; Rogue had turned into a bit of an all-purpose powerhouse and had drifted away from the original concept.  This book seems to be building more around the power-leeching idea, and using the absorption of memories as a kind of contact telepathy.

I wouldn't particularly want to see this book open with a fiddly explanation of how she got her powers back - it works better just taking this as the status quo.  Still, it's undeniably irritating to see these sort of changes simply happen with no explanation.  If Marvel want to play the inter-title continuity game (and they go to the trouble of referencing Gambit's blindness in this issue), then they need to do it properly.  Presumably the plan is future issues of X-Men will explain how she gets her powers back.  Really, though, would it have killed Marvel to hold off on this book for a month or two so that it makes sense with the parent book?

I must admit that my heart sinks slightly when I see a new Marvel title launch with a six-part storyline.  It generally signals a story which is a hangover from the days of arbitrary decompression, and which will take an awfully long time to get anywhere.  Still, this one gets off to a reasonably decent start - the X-Men go to Mississippi to investigate a new mutant, Rogue decides to stick around for a bit, and a mysterious man turns up dropping hints about her past.  Plus, there's tension between Gambit and Rogue - built around the neat idea that he resents his dependence on her after his injury.  (Not that that's going to stick, of course.  I mean, he's got his own title launching next month - who do they think they're fooling?!)

Is it angst-ridden?  Oh god, yes.  But then, it's a Rogue solo book - what were you expecting?  The very concept of her powers is sledgehammer angst material; it's not something that you can easily avoid, and Rodi doesn't go too far over the top with it.  He also seems to be bucking expectations in one respect, by teasing revelations about Rogue's family background.  That territory's been off limits for years, and long since ceased to have any real value as a mystery, so it makes sense to use it as an opportunity to put some flesh on her backstory.

This book was originally solicited with art by Dante Bastianoni.  Instead it turns up (on time) credited to Cliff Richards, an artist I'm not familiar with but whose name makes me snigger involuntarily.  It's a British thing.  Considering that this must have been a fairly rushed job, it's decent artwork - clear, readable and pleasant on the eye, if a bit sketchy at points.  I'll be interested to see whether it improves as time goes on.

A better start than I was expecting, I've got to admit.  The current wave of solo titles seems a decidedly cynical move, but if this is going to be representative of the quality, I'm not going to complain too loudly.

Rating: B+

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