WARNING: There are unmarked spoilers on these sheets for all but the most recent comics.
Remy Etienne LeBeau / Gambit
Notable Aliases: Le Diable Blanc, Robert Lord, Dirge, Death, Gumbo, Cajun, Loverbayou, Swamp Rat, Clint Barton, "Gamby Baby", Sir Anthony Ellis
Nationality: American, Krakoan
Species: Human mutant
First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #266 (August 1990)
Not too long after his birth in New Orleans, Louisiana, Remy LeBeau was kidnapped from the hospital by the LeBeau Clan Thieves' Guild. During this time, he was both sought after and feared because of his unusual black-on-red eyes. In part to protect him from a child trafficker, Jean-Luc LeBeau, the leader of the Thieves' Guild, secretly sent Remy to be part of a gang of young pickpockets before adopting him as a Guild member and his son.
As a teen, he honed his thievery skills, learned acrobatics, Savate (a French martial art), and Bojutsu (bo staff fighting), and learned he had a mutant power: the ability to force objects to explode by "charging" them, converting their potential energy into kinetic energy. The bigger the item the longer it took to charge, so he preferred to use smaller items like his weapon, a deck of playing cards. Around this time, he also got mixed up with Mister Sinister during a mission.
To placate and attempt peace between the Thieves' Guild and their rivals the Assassins' Guild, Remy married Bella Donna, his first love and the granddaughter of the Assassins' leader. After the wedding, he was challenged by her brother Julien to a duel. Remy killed Julian, leaving Jean-Luc no choice but to exile him. Striking out on his own as a thief for hire, his powers grew beyond his control. Mister Sinister fixed the problem, but at a cost. Gambit formed the Marauders and led them into the New York tunnels on Sinister's order. The Marauders were responsible for the Morlock Massacre, killing many of the mutants in the group, with Gambit unable to stop it. He was only able to save one child, who later became Marrow.
After that he traveled the world, saving a thieving de-aged Storm with Laser-Guided Amnesia from the Shadow King. Storm got her age and memories back and became responsible for Gambit joining the X-Men. Helping them save the day many times and forming a long-running relationship with Rogue. Eventually, his secret involvement with Mister Sinister and the Marauders was outed by Magneto, and once the truth was revealed through a kiss from Rogue, the X-Men abandoned him in Antarctica, effectively kicking him off the team.
Surviving the ordeal with the help of an energy-based mutant named Mary Purcell, Gambit would rejoin and leave the X-Men several times after. At one point, both Gambit and Rogue lost their powers, letting them finally touch and explore their relationship. Despite this, Gambit went through several misfortunes including being blinded, being forced to be one of Apocalypse's horsemen. He currently serves on the X-Men. His and Rogue's relationship remained rocky as Rogue still had trust issues and, of course, had her powers to worry about, resulting in both seeing Emma Frost for therapy. Mystique attempting to seduce Gambit to prove he wasn't good enough for Rogue in the 2005 "Bizarre Love Triangle" story certainly didn't help matters.
As of the end of James Asmus' Gambit solo series, Gambit is now King of the Thieves Guilds. In 2013, he left the X-Men to join the All-New X-Factor for a time. As of 2018, he's now married to Rogue, having both Kitty and Piotr's blessing, since Kitty backed out of marrying Piotr. After the founding of the mutant nation of Krakoa, Gambit and Rogue joined the newest iteration of Excalibur.
In other media, Gambit became popular because of his inclusion in X-Men: The Animated Series, two years after his debut in the comics. He has been played by Taylor Kitsch in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. A solo movie starring Channing Tatum was in Development Hell for a long time and appears to have been definitely abandoned following the buyout of 20th Century Fox by Disney.
For details about Gambit's solo and team-up comics, see here.
Gambit provides examples of the following tropes:
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- Anti-Hero: While an anti-hero at certain times, particularly in his past since he was raised a thief, however his morality is quite clear as stated in Mr. and Mrs. X #3, "My moral compass is just fine. I know what's right." He fights for what he considers a good cause and on other matters, his morality is set in stone about what is and isn't right.
- Adaptational Villainy: His X-Men: Evolution and Wolverine and the X-Men incarnations are less noble, the latter especially so, selling all mutantkind out in the name of money. The former, though, was hinted in the finale to eventually join the X-Men.
- A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: He once memorably ensured that his thoughts were free of telepathic eavesdroppers by imagining the Blob naked.
- Affectionate Nickname: He has quite a few of them, usually for women, all in French. Most famously he refers to Rogue as 'chere'. X-23 and Jubilee both get called "petite".
- Amazon Chaser: He is definitely this, especially towards his Action Girlfriend and now wife Rogue who far eclipses him in strength but he doesn't seem to mind at all. In fact, whenever he spars with Rogue in the Danger Room, Gambit enjoys it immensely, and nor is he put off by her being a Power Parasite, believing her touch no matter how deadly to be Worth It (much to Rogue's exasperation). In their solo series, it's revealed Gambit first fell for Rogue when she punched him so hard that he went flying into a tree
◊. - Apocalypse Maiden: The Gambit of Earth-616 was also fated to destroy the world by losing control of his Omega-level mutant powers and cannibalizing the energy of the whole planet, and in many universes he already had. In fact, everything that happened in his life before X-Men was the result of an alternate universe version of him manipulating him into going back in time and arranging things so that the events surrounding his prophecy would come about sooner. Everything from the Thieves Guild's allegiance to the immortal Candra, to Mr. Sinster's shapeshifting powers, to his own father adopting him were because another version of himself (powerful enough to single-handedly destroy the Phoenix) had already become a Planet Eater and was trying to stop it from happening in other universes.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: He likes to toss some French into his dialogue. He sometimes calls Rogue "chére" (darling), "ma coeur" (my heart), and more recently "ma colombe" (my dove).
- Ascended Extra: After being Out of Focus for some time, he became one of the leads of All-New X-Factor until he left.
- The Atoner: He joined the X-Men due to unwittingly helping the Marauders commit genocide on the Morlocks. Admittedly, Gambit never intentionally took part in said genocide and continues to be a much-loved thief with a heart of gold to fans.
- Badass Longcoat: He is seldom seen without his iconic brown longcoat, the sleeves of which being a perfect place to store his signature weapon.
- Bad Powers, Bad People: During his time as the Horseman of Death, Gambit's powers changed from his normal set into "create bio-matter dissolving bombs", "transmute air into poisonous gas" and "corrupt others into his mindless slaves".
- Bad Powers, Good People: Being able to create an endless supply of bombs — or to turn people into bombs, if he hadn't crippled his powerset — is the kind of power you'd normally see used by a villainous character. Gambit, in comparison, is a Loveable Rogue who genuinely wants to do good.
- Battle Couple: Fights alongside his long-time lover Rogue in many forms of media.
- Big Brother Mentor: Gambit used to be protective of the de-aged Storm and both of them became thieving partners before she had turned back to normal. He later becomes a mentor of Laura Kinney (a.k.a. X-23) during her solo series, which many fans consider to be the start of his finally growing up.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: During his time as a Horseman of Apocalypse. It took a visit from Mister Sinister to get rid of most of it.
- Cane Fu: His particular style of bojutsu focuses on the use of a shortstaff, roughly the size of a cane. At varying times he's been shown to wield a collapsible staff, which he can fold down to be small enough to conceal or extend to either cane-length or full-on quarterstaff length as he pleases.
- The Casanova: Largely considered to be a reformed example, having given up that up since meeting Rogue, though there have been lapses during the off-periods between the two of them.
- The Charmer: He's very adept at sweet-talking others and can really pour on the verbal charm if he wants to.
- Casual Kink: It's actually a plot point in issue 2 of Uncanny Avengers that Rogue and Gambit engage in BDSM (she specifically references "kinky bondage drinking games").
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Character Rerailment: Gambit started off as a Rule of Cool-based, Mr. Fanservice Manipulative Bastard Handsome Lech Death Dealing Badass Longcoat who relished the challenge of getting his hands on the Forbidden Fruit Rogue, though stymied by his self-centered Jerkass qualities and the large number of people he pissed off in his thief career. Then, Rogue left him to die in Antarctica. After this, the result was a lot of Angst on Gambit's part, whose characterization was changed from the previously described version to a Self-loathing Atoner desperate to punish himself for his (morally blameless) role in the Mutant Massacre. More recent adaptations, however, have reached back to the character's roots: X-Men Origins: Wolverine showed Gambit as competent, charming, handsome and relatively low-angst card-shark who won a Cool Plane in a poker game, and Wolverine and the X-Men (2009) had Gambit as a mercenary, ruthless, charming, manipulative thief for hire (albeit in only two episodes). Whether or not this trend will continue is currently unknown, though his recent solo series, which compromises by having him return to his thieving roots and ultimately becoming King of Thieves, while remaining a loose faculty member at the Jean Grey School (Wolverine explains that they don't actually expect him to turn up much... but they trust him to be there when it counts, when he's really needed), before joining X-Factor, but still remaining King of Thieves. - Charm Person: Depending on who's writing at the time, he has a degree of "hypnotic charm" that even works on men. However, it doesn't work if the charmer knows about it and it has only ever been used twice.
- Civvie Spandex: Wears a long coat over muscle-molded body armor.
- Combat Parkour: This is one of Gambit's specialties, allowing him to take advantage of his slightly enhanced agility.
- Combo Platter Powers:
- Zigzagged. At his core, not so much; Gambit has training in certain skills (sleight of hand, acrobatics, thievery), but his only superpower is to manipulate kinetic energy in order to turn things into explosives. However, over the years, he has the ability to use charged objects as telepathic scramblers.
- That said, the New Sun storyline has established that Gambit could have a much larger and more diverse array of powers if he fully grew into his ability to manipulate kinetic energy. The New Sun has the power of "Total Kinetic Control", allowing him to manipulate kinetic energy on a molecular level. At its basic, this is Gambit's Stuff Blowing Up power... except the New Sun can do it much faster, can do it by thinking about it instead of needing to touch it, and he can use it on living beings, unlike Gambit. He can also affect the ability of other things to move, either preventing them from being able to stop or stopping them dead, manipulate other energies related to kinetic energy (for example, setting things on fire by accelerating their molecular agitation, or freezing them by slowing it), and turn into a being of living kinetic energy, a form in which he can travel between planets, through time, and even between dimensions.
- He's been using his powers more creatively. For instance, in his 2012 series, he used them to power an Iron Man armor he was stealing in order to keep War Machine from remotely shutting down its regular power source.
- Conspicuous Gloves: Since his touch allows him to change the potential energy of objects he touches into kinetic energy, he most often wears gloves missing the index and pinky fingers, leaving those bare to manipulate and charge his cards and other potential weapons. That said, the gloves' design is also cool.
- Cool Old Guy: Considered one by the teenage X-23, and a number of the younger X-Men.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Kidnapped as an infant and raised by a society of thieves who believed that he was destined to unite several warring factions, wound up homeless and living on the streets before he was even a teenager, captured by an immortal mutant and sold into slavery, was later hired by Sinister, was roped into an arranged marriage and wound up killing the brother of his bride-to-be in a duel, was exiled from New Orleans, and eventually wound up taking part in a genocide without even knowing that that was his duty to repay Sinister... yeah, his formative years sucked. The fact that his past tends to have a way of coming back to bite him in the ass does not help matters.
- Deadpan Snarker: He is the absolute king of this trope. Every other sentence that comes out of his mouth is a snark. And you can never tell when he means it.
- Death Dealer: One of the most iconic examples. Gambit uses his mutant power to turn ordinary playing cards into kinetic energy-charged bombs and apparently in other forms of media said energy can also be used to enhance their flight paths. He can do it to anythingnote , but likes playing cards since they hold over 52 "shots" in such small packages, they're very easy to obtain and quick to "charge", they're easy to conceal even from someone who knows how his power works, they explode with force just about equal to a standard grenade, and they're also stylish. In a nod to Real Life, they hardly ever slice cleanly through objects but embed shallowly in them. Then explode after flashing the trademark pink glow. As he puts it in X-Men: Evolution:It's like having 52 explosives tucked away in one little pocket.
- Deliberate Injury Gambit: Gambit did this once—he let the bad guy stab him in the leg with a dagger, and fell to the ground howling in pain. Said bad guy assumed he was out of the fight, and turned his attention elsewhere. Big mistake on bad guy's part...
- In a similar incident, Gambit mouthed off to the Big Bad while all the X-Men were taken prisoner and got himself stabbed in the leg. It turned out that mouthing off was a Batman Gambit; after the captor tied them up and left them with minimal guards, he was able to take the flechette out with his mouth and use it to pick the lock.
- Demoted to Extra: Since the earlier-mid 2000s thereafter. This continues into the movie franchise, as commented on in the Honest Movie Trailer of the original trilogy. During the run-down of characters, they announce "Gambit" followed by the words "footage not found." This got reversed in the late 2000s, with him getting an increasingly prominent role, including a decent-sized solo series in 2013.
- Depending on the Artist: Some artists and/or colorists cannot get his eye colors right.
- Depending on the Writer: His general characterization of "lovable rogue" is pretty consistent, but his level of attachment and sentimentality can vary. Sometimes he's a sweetheart older brother figure. Other times he has more of a "looking out for number one" attitude. His accent can also vary, some writers (like Peter David) don't even use it at all. Some of the details of his powers (even after accounting for his brain surgery) also vary, like whether or not he has enough control over the rate of energy conversion to use objects as noted under Mundane Utility.
- Didn't Think This Through: He volunteered to be a Horseman, apparently not remembering that Apocalypse likes using brainwashing to control his underlings, and wasn't able to resist.
- Dub Name Change: The Spanish dub of the first X-Men animated series saw a curious example with Gambit. They did not want to translate it literally as "gambito" because, aside from being an extremely obscure word in Spanish, it is an unfortunate homophone for "little male shrimp". The solution? They called him "gámbito", changing the accent from the I to the A. This form doesn't exist in Spain and is basically a made-up word, but it was distinctive enough to be cool as a name, and it eventually stuck with the character in Spanish popular culture.
- Dynamic Entry: Pulls this off three times during the Chris Claremont Shi'ar Empire and Skrull space arc in Uncanny X-Men first when saving Deathbird from Gladiator, second when stopping the Skrull Starjammers impostors and thirdly when a Skrull emerges from the ship only to fall over and revealing Gambit and co in a Big Damn Heroes moment.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In Gambit's very first appearance, he charged his cards by way of green energy from his eyes. The artist quickly abandoned this in favor of having him just use his hands.
- Even the Guys Want Him: He is very much this. He can even charm men. For a while, one of Remy's powers was hypnotic charm, which let him try swaying any sentient being of any gender to his side but that has been changed. This "power" is no longer mentioned, and it's heavily implied that he is just that charming.
- Everything Sounds Sexier in French: This is part of the reason why he's a Cajun; his Louisiana French accent helps feed his "cool" motif. He also makes free use of this trope when trying to be charming.
- Evil Costume Switch: When Gambit was made into Death by Apocalypse, not only does his hair turn white and his skin blue-black, but he finally gets the memo that black cloaks are cooler, and wears a black bondage cloak instead of his usual, shabby trenchcoat.
- Evil Counterpart: New Sun, an alternate reality Remy LeBeau who never got the surgery to reduce his powers (unlike main universe Remy), and came to the main universe to kill Gambit.
- Face Palm: His icon in Marvel vs. Capcom.
- Fake Defector: On several occasions in various mediums, Gambit has seemingly turned traitor, only to reveal he was faking it in order to get the drop on whoever he had seemingly allied with.
- Flight, Strength, Heart:
- Gambit used to have a power that had no practical applications but meant he could touch Rogue. Though this was useful as the two were lovers. He lost it, of course.
- He also had a "charm" power, which everyone except Chris Claremont completely ignored. It might have helped if he used it more than a couple of times a year.
- Flower Motifs: Gambit and Rogue sometimes make use of flower symbolism. When they are reunited after Gambit's sojourn in Antarctica Gambit presents Rogue with a white rose, claiming it represents "new beginnings." Rogue is contemptuous though, pointing out that "white lilies mean death. Does that go for roses too?" In actual fact, Gambit is probably correct — white roses traditionally mean innocence/purity.
- And then there's the fact that Gambit's ex-wife is called "Belladonna"...
- Foreshadowing: Sabretooth (who was also a Marauder) recognized and casually talked to Gambit during his first encounter with Gambit as an X-Man. It would be years before the retcon of Gambit's role in the Morlock massacre was finally revealed.
- Funetik Aksent: Just like his lover, Rogue, he has quite buttload examples of this.
- The Gambler:
- He energizes playing cards to explode on impact and tosses them with precision at his targets. He could use anything if he felt like it (various incarnations have used chains, billiard balls, and an overturned bus), but playing cards are both convenient and stylish. The explosion is proportional to the size of the object, so cards, poker chips, and other thematic objects are consistent and controllable.
- That, and in some media, Gambit is shown to be an avidly-good player of card games, as he naturally has a sleight of hand and/or a knack for those games even without his powers.
- Geek: Gambit has a healthy appreciation for things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek, Star Wars, and Dune.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: His eyes have been known to give off red energy when he's intended to look particularly badass.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Used to smoke in the early '90s.
- Having a Blast: He has the power to turn any object he touches into a bomb, as small as a playing card or as big as a car (he used that one when teaming up with Ben Grimm from the Fantastic Four).
- Hidden Depths: At first, everyone (especially her) thought he was just into Rogue because she was forbidden fruit and that he wasn’t very serious about her. However, he eventually revealed to her that he fell in love with her at first sight, and that he wanted her more than anything he ever knew. It’s telling that people who knew him before he joined the X-Men say that they’ve never seen him look at a woman the way he looks at her.
- Highly-Visible Ninja: A skilled thief whose normal outfit is bright pink armor. He's just that good. He switches to bright yellow for All-New X-factor. However, when he's actually working as a thief, particularly in recent series, he's changed into an all-black male cat-suit.
- Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: In one issue of his 2013 series, Gambit gets pulled into Camelot where he's lusted after by a flock of beautiful pixies. When he returns to Earth sometime later, one of them makes an Unusual Euphemism that indicates he probably had sex with them. Given that he's probably about twelve times the mass and size of any of them, one is left wondering just how that worked.
- Hypocrite: His treatment of Hellion for killing Karima during the X-23 solo series. Gambit and Wolverine look at him as a pariah at best, a monster at worst, effectively imprison him in the school by locking him in his room, and constantly badmouth him when X-23 comes to visit. This despite Karima begging Julian to kill her to prevent her programming from taking control again and forcing her to continue her attack on Utopia, and not helped at all that he, Wolverine, and even Laura have done far worse (both willingly or not) and been forgiven for it (and in fact, in the very same series Gambit tries to help Laura deal with her own issues over the things she's done in the past). However, it is ironic that during the incident where Hellion destroyed Karima in one X-Men Legacy issue, both Gambit and Wolverine were absent.
I-Z
- Iconic Outfit: Gambit's Badass Longcoat and fingerless gloves are synonymous with him.
- Improbable Weapon User: The exploding playing cards, not the bo staff. Due to the nature of his powers, he's also been known to use anything in reach if he's somehow unable to reach his cards. He simply prefers the cards since they come in small-packaged in packs of at least 52 naturally, and with his powers, can explode with the force of at least a grenade.
- A tie-in with Deadpool sees him discover that a can of beans is particularly dangerous in his hands. He makes a note to start carrying them.
- Killed Off for Real: In the Ultimate Marvel universe, he died in a fight with Juggernaut.
- Kind Hearted Cat Lover: He has three cats, and is very fond of them.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Waldo makes a background appearance at the end of issue 8 in his 2012 ongoing series.
- Long Lost Sibling: In some continuities, he's the third Summers brother. In others, he's a half-clone of Scott and Sinister.
- Lovable Rogue: Having a major soft spot for children, Gambit is fiercely loyal to those he cares for, has a surprisingly "live and let" live attitude that allows him to easily forgive others as long as they don't cross a moral line and has been a loyal and firm member of the X-Men for decades.
- Love at First Punch: Rogue & Gambit establishes that he feels this way about the first time he met Rogue. He admits he was attracted to her right away but it was her ability to kick his ass that really won him over.
- Like Brother and Sister:
- Him and Storm, more so early on in his tenure than now, but they are still very close.
- He also has similar relationships with Laura and Jubilee.
- Made a Slave: He was sold into slavery as a child. Twice.
- The Magic Touch: He has the ability to turn anything he touches into an explosive. Although he prefers to charge and flick playing cards at his opponent. In regards to this, other forms of media show that his powers seem to have some effect in altering/handling the flight path of his thrown cards.
- The Masochism Tango: His romance with Rogue took a very rough road, thanks to both characters having no shortage of problems related to trust and intimacy, as well as a mutual tendency toward avoiding their personal problems. They've worked through many of the more toxic aspects of their relationship over time, however, including some sessions of actual couples' therapy during their 2018 miniseries.
- Master of the Mixed Message: He and Rogue take turns on this. Early on, Gambit was the one hot for Rogue, with her being extremely wishy-washy about her desire to be with him and angsting about her powers and past. Then, when she got over it and finally returned his feelings, his Dark and Troubled Past came to light, and he became the wishy-washy party. From then on, it's continuously jumped back-and-forth between the two. In particular, during his 2012 series, Rogue becomes hostile to Gambit's new lover as the three work together, and when he calls her out on her attitude, she says she still loves him. As of 2018, they're finally married.
- Meaningful Appearance: Gambit wears gloves that are missing fingers, perhaps as a nod to his past as a thief. Also a necessity for his powers, since his mutant ability to kinetically charge (i.e. blow up) objects depends on him touching the object. If he wore full gloves, he would only be able to blow up his gloves.
- Minion with an F in Evil: During the late 00s, he worked for Sinister, leading the Marauders, though only to protect a severely incapacitated Rogue from whatever Sinister was planning. On one occasion he sabotaged Sinister's plot, destroying Destiny's diaries to prevent anyone else from getting them. When using Cerebra, the Stepford Cuckoos note they can feel his emotions, and that he felt "utterly lost".
- Morality Pet: Becomes one for X-23 in her solo series.
- Mr. Fanservice: Gambit has always been very popular with the female demographic.
- Mundane Utility: While it varies from story to story, he's been shown to have control over how quickly objects release their energy once he charges them. He's occasionally used his powers to turn an object (naturally, typically a playing card) into a light source, and he's also used charged objects to light his cigarettes.
- My God, What Have I Done?: See "My Greatest Failure" below? Remy was still in the sewers when the Marauders started their mass murder of the Morlocks and was horrified by the fact that was what he'd gathered the team for.
- My Greatest Failure: While he was duped into it to repay a debt to Mr. Sinister, there's the fact that there's his role as the one to gather the Marauders for what'd become the events of Mutant Massacre (the titular mass murder of a lot of the Morlocks, as well as Angel's wings getting injured).
- Non-Indicative Name: "Gambit" is actually a Chess term. But the Cajun's choice of games is cards. However, it is also a Meaningful Name considering that the chess term refers to a move where the player makes a sacrifice to gain an advantageous position, sort of how his powers blow things up. Also carrying a whole chess set would look kind of strange.
- Papa Wolf: To X-23.
- Paper Master: His playing card ammo.
- Parental Abandonment: His parents left him at the hospital shortly after he was born.
- Parental Favoritism: Jean Luc LeBeau makes no secret of the fact that he considers Remy his favorite child and heir apparent. It’s telling that more than one person refers to Gambit as “Prince of the Thieves Guild”.
- Perma-Stubble: A signature.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Let's face it, a man who can convert mass into explosively unstable kinetic energy is a man who can rearrange the landscape fairly easily. The bigger the thing he charges, the more of a boom he can make — imagine what would happen if he converted, say, an entire bus into one of his energy bombs. The New Sun storyline reveals that if Gambit had not gone to Mister Sinister for surgery to remove a portion of brain tissue to control his powers, he would have literally been too dangerous to live. As made clear by his alternate universe doppelganger, who didn't get the surgery. He was a Physical God... who basically made the entire planet explode... by accident.
- Pie in the Face: A kinetically charged pie in the face... to Rogue. She still had Carol Danvers' powers at this point, so it was fine.
- Planet Eater: A great number of events from Gambit's life were the direct result of an alternate version of himself called New Sun trying to prevent him from bringing to fruition a prophecy that foresaw him losing control of his Omega-level powers and unintentionally consuming everything on the Earth616 like a living Sun. In a great number of universes visited by New Sun, various versions of "Le Diable Blanc" had already destroyed their own worlds.
- Playing Card Motifs: He has a playing card theme, with a particular fondness for the Joker and the Ace of Spades. When Rogue appears as his love interest, it's common to see her represented in his motif as the Queen of Hearts.
- Power Incontinence: Though it's often forgotten about now, Gambit's original connections to Mister Sinister were because he originally went to Sinister to get some of his brain excised to permanently dampen down his powers, so he couldn't lose control. He also had to deal with a short-lived villain called "New Sun", who turned out to be a version of himself from a Parallel Universe slash Bad Future who never got his powers dampened, grew to Physical God status, and lost control. He's called "New Sun" because he vaporized Earth with his powers.
- In Ultimate Marvel, this trope is brought up in a comparatively downplayed fashion: The Ultimate X Men version claims that he joined Fenris because he was losing control of his powers (basically an even suckier version of Midas since all the food he touches turns into a bomb) and their experiments stabilized him.
- Pretty Boy: He and Daken actually have a scene in Daken's solo comic where they snark at each other using it as an insult.
- Progressively Prettier: He wasn't all that good-looking in his first appearances but became steadily more attractive from artist to artist.
- Psychic Block Defense: At one point, he could block telepaths simply by keeping a charged object with him, but this ability seems to have been dropped.
- Psychic Static: Gambit has been known to employ the intentional version, at one point revealing to several Xavier Academy students that he pictures the Blob naked in order to make sure that telepaths like Rachel Summers and Emma Frost aren't eavesdropping on his thoughts.
- Ragin' Cajun: Also, his nickname.
- Red Herring: During the early '90s, as part of Bishop's backstory was Bishop finding a garbled tape of Jean Grey warning about a traitor in the X-Men's ranks causing the death of the majority of the team with only a character called the Witness as the Sole Survivor, who looked and sounded like Remy, leading Bishop to suspect him. However, Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio admitted they had no set suspect with Remy being one idea (and another being Bishop himself thanks to a Stable Time Loop), meaning the subplot was a case of
Writing by the Seat of Your Pants, as was the Onslaught event—which made Remy's role in the X-Traitor subplot nothing more than this as the opening of the event revealed the tape in its entirety, revealing the titular villain, a split personality of Professor X's, was the real traitor. - Real Men Cook: He's Cajun; it comes with the territory. He once managed to fix a meal together in the middle of a desert with no real supplies around. When asked by Professor X how he did that, he just said "a man has his secrets", before advising Xavier not to drink the bottom part.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Under his trenchcoat, he wears a magenta vest as well as lots of magenta stripes on the sleeves and pants. His Wolverine and the X-Men portrayal also has cards with pink-colored backs.
- Relationship Revolving Door: Rogue and Gambit were constantly hooking up, breaking up for whatever reason, and getting back together as they manage to overcome whatever the latest bout of insecurity is. Both characters have a lot of emotional baggage and legitimate reasons to distrust each other, but at the same time they also love each other intensely and can understand each other. The 2018 mini-series Rogue & Gambit actually revolves around the two getting couples therapy, which grows into seeing each other’s perspective on events from their history. As of Mr. and Mrs. X, they’re married.
- Rogues Gallery: Mister Sinister, Candra, Sabretooth, Scalphunter, rival thieves like Fast Jack and Joelle, Detective Noreen Tanaka, vigilante X-Cutioner, ex-wife Bella Donna, along with the Thieves Guild and Assassins Guild, the Black Womb, Fontanelle, the Mendo Brothers, and the Pig.
- Rule of Cool: Gambit can make any item explosive by “charging” it. If he wanted, he could use more dangerous material to charge but sticks with playing cards in part because of this trope.
- Shout-Out: Has cats that are named Oliver, Lucifer and Figaro.
- Sophisticated as Hell: Gambit isn't an idiot, and often likes to use fairly sophisticated words to remind people that being a "swamp rat" doesn't make him stupid. It doesn't stop him from interspersing his high manner wordplay with fairly crude comments, though.
- Southern Gentleman: Especially towards Rogue... who often appreciates this.
- Stepford Snarker: Usually Gambit doesn't like to talk about his past or anything personal. Instead, he hides his negative feelings by using snark and charm that he could pass himself off as laid-back and charming to others.
- Street Smart: As a former Street Urchin grown into a Guile Hero, he would be a card-carrying member of this trope. Literally.
- Street Urchin: He spent most of his young life being raised to be a thief by thieves in the streets and swamps of Louisiana. When he met Storm for the first time, she suffered from Laser-Guided Amnesia and briefly returned to her thieving ways. The two quickly became partners in crime.
- Stuff Blowing Up: His main power is the ability to charge objects, manipulating them into spontaneously releasing all their kinetic energy potential at once. In essence, they explode, with force depending mostly on how big they were.
- Superpowered Evil Side: It doesn't come up nearly as often as with Archangel, but his Horseman of Death persona does still exist, buried within his mind.
- Sympathetic Murder Backstory: Both his duel with Julien and the Molock Massacre.
- Technicolor Eyes: He has red irises with black sclera as a result of his mutation.
- Technicolor Ninjas: Look up at Real Men Wear Pink's description. Now bear in mind that the character is a thief.
- Hey, you try seeing a thing on the bayou.
- Third-Person Person: In the 1990s X-Men cartoon.
- Rarely in the comics, like if he's been caught (and being chastised by another X-Man) or trying to be sly and impress someone.
- Trauma Conga Line: Not only that Gambit had a dark past, but he also has bad luck with his love life - his childhood friend/ex-wife Belladonna is usually crazy, his French girlfriend was murdered by Sabretooth, and his relationship with Rogue was a rocky one for quite a long time (though over time they've managed to work through many of their issues together and married in 2018). He is also shunned by his own teammates after learning his small involvement in the Morlock Massacre.
- The Trickster: As you'd expect of somebody who grew up as a thief, Gambit likes messing with peoples' heads.
- *Twang* Hello: And then it explodes.
- Twofer Token Minority: Gambit is Cajun, American Francophone, and Catholic.
- Underhanded Hero: Gambit was a thief before joining the X-Men. He is incredibly acrobatic and makes extensive use of his Cajun charm.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Gambit with Cyclops and Wolverine. Seems to be slowly developing this with Pete Wisdom as of late, too.
- Weakened by the Light: Also subject to Depending on the Writer, but Gambit has permanent sensitivity to light. He's eventually caught on and started having sunglasses on hand regularly.
- Willfully Weak: Gambit actually has the potential to be an Omega-level mutant. But he voluntarily had his powers crippled through the use of brain surgery by Mister Sinister, because he was afraid of how much damage he could cause with them. As his 1999 comic series shows, he was right to be scared: on many parallel earths where he didn't undergo the surgery, he lost control over his powers and caused every human being on earth to spontaneously combust!
- Will They or Won't They?:
- He and Rogue had an on-again, off-again, on-again, off-again thing going. Not helping is when things like Mystique actively doing what she can to get rid of Remy.
- They finally get married for the first time in issue #30 of X-Men: Gold, with a 2018 mini-series called "Mr. & Mrs. X" being set on their honeymoon.
- Wolverine Publicity: Not as bad as Wolvie himself though.
