X-Men Gold #4 Review – Gambit’s Back, Chère!
I whole-heartedly admit that seeing Gambit’s face on a future cover of X-Men Gold played a huge factor in subscribing to the series. Seeing him and Rogue on the cover of Uncanny Avengers is the entire reason why I subscribed to that one. I had zero regrets of buying Uncanny Avengers, and I feel the same about X-Men Gold. Thank you, Rogue and Gambit, for enticing me to pick up two really great series. Marvel really does know how to reel me in. I wonder if that tactic works with other fans as well.
Whereas that cover of Uncanny Avengers was a bit fake (Red Skull was posing as Gambit, the jerk), this cover with Gambit is quite real. He’s a big part of the issue, and it looks like he’s here to stay for at least a little while. It’s great to see you, mon ami.
Gambit is still up to his thievin’ tricks, but he still has some tendencies to go beyond neutral neutral to neutral good. He’s on a mission to steal a vial from a high security facility, which he naturally completes. Once he learns that his client is the descendant of Bolivar Trask, who asked him to steal nanites so she can make military weapons, he develops a slight conscience. He claims that he only took the job to see what the client wanted him to steal, why, and who the client was. Now that he has, he’s not ready to let the granddaughter of the inventor of the Sentinels take possession of hundreds of thousands molecular robots with the capability of developing artificial intelligence.
As he tries to steal the vial back, he runs into a small problem that causes him to drop the vial containing the nanites.
Normally you’d think, well, okay, problem solved. They need an external AI to become intelligent, but these don’t have to wait for an AI overlord. These nanites can self-replicate and they automatically seek out computer systems. Remy tries to deal the system an explosive hand, but the nanites are faster than he is. He’s in worse trouble than he could have imagined, and he happens to have a way to call the X-Men any time he is in trouble.
Next issue will be X-Men and Gambit, together again, fighting Sentinel technology. Perhaps Ms. Trask wasn’t interested in building Sentinels to kill mutants, but she does have all of her grandfather’s research and information on hand. Maybe she indeed wanted to build weapons for the military, but it’s certain she designed those weapons from Sentinel tech.
The last X-Men Blue dealt with Sentinels, and it’s a bit tiring that Gold is heading down that path too. I know that the Days of Future Past arc is one of the most famous and popular X-Men storylines, but it doesn’t mean we need to bring Sentinels back to recapture the days of yore. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the return of the Sentinels in both series is more meaningful than a call-back to the good old days.
Our Rating: Yep
Author: Marc Guggenheim
Artists: RB Silva, Adriano Di Benedetto, and Frank Martin
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Publish Date: 05/20/2017
Acquired via Purchase
