Gambit

Remy LeBeau, better known as the charming thief Gambit, is a mutant with the ability to charge inanimate objects and cause them to explode. Raised by the Thieves Guild, Gambit's dark path led him to become a secret agent for the vile Mister Sinister. After befriending fellow mutant thief, Storm, he was invited to the X-Men, and had the opportunity to redeem himself.
== History ==
Abandoned at birth due to his burning red eyes, the mutant child who would one day become Remy LeBeau was kidnapped from his hospital ward by members of the New Orleans Thieves Guild who referred to the child as "le diable blanc" - the white devil. They believed he was the child that had been prophesied to unite the warring Guilds of New Orleans. Soon after, Remy was placed in the care of a gang of street thieves who raised the child and taught him the ways of thievery. Later, when he was around ten years old, Remy attempted to pick the pocket of Jean-Luc LeBeau, then-patriarch of the Thieves' Guild. Jean-Luc took the boy off the streets and adopted him as his own son.
As a child, Remy encountered Bella Donna Boudreaux, the granddaughter of the head of the Assassins Guild, ancient enemies of the Thieves' Guild. The two children became close, and Remy fell in love with Belladonna at first sight.
The young Gambit was commissioned to recover the diary of Nathaniel Essex from a Weapon X Facility in Canada. He was discovered by guards but got away with the diary in the confusion caused by Weapon X's escape. Appalled by the experiments he had seen at the Facility; he burned the diary. Back in New Orleans, Essex accepted Remy's claim that the diary could not be found but predicted that they would have a bright future together.
As part of a peace pact between the Thieves' Guild and their rivals, the Assassins Guild, a marriage was arranged between Remy and Bella Donna Boudreaux. However, Bella Donna's brother Julien objected to the marriage and challenged Gambit to a duel. Remy killed Julien in self-defense but was excommunicated and banished from New Orleans in an attempt to maintain the fragile peace between the two guilds. Believing Belladonna would never be happy in exile with him, he ended their relationship.
Remy wandered the world as he plied his skills as a master thief, aided by his mutant power to charge objects with explosive energy. He employed playing cards he charged with kinetic energy as his trademark weapon. In time, Remy's powers began to slip out of his control. He sought out the master geneticist Mr. Sinister for help in controlling his powers. Sinister removed some of Remy's brain tissue to reduce his power to manageable levels.
As a result, Remy was now in the geneticist's debt, and Sinister subsequently charged the thief with assembling the team of mercenaries called the Marauders. With the team assembled, Sinister charged Remy with leading them down into the Morlock tunnels. Remy was unaware that Sinister's true intentions were to massacre the Morlocks. When this came to light, Remy attempted to stop them, but a Marauder named Sabretooth grievously injured him and left him for dead, as they began to massacre the helpless Morlocks. All Remy could do was to save one young Morlock girl who would one day grow up to become the X-Man named Marrow.
Eventually, Remy encountered Storm, a member of the outlaw team of mutant adventurers known as the X-Men. Storm had been transformed into an amnesiac child who had turned to theft as a means to survive. Remy helped her escape her enemy, the malevolent psionic entity known as the Shadow King, and they became partners. Later, when the X-Men's founder Professor Charles Xavier returned from a long period of traveling in outer space, Storm, now restored to her true adult state, sponsored Remy's admission into the X-Men.
Remy soon fell in love with his fellow X-Man, Rogue, blessed and cursed with the ability to absorb other mutants' thoughts and abilities through skin-on-skin contact. The feeling was mutual, but the two were condemned never to touch.
== Personality ==
Remy is a thief and a gambler, but possesses a personal sense of honor, making him the most loyal of allies.
== Powers and Abilities ==
Molecular Acceleration: Remy has the power to take the potential energy stored in an object and convert it to kinetic energy, thus “charging” that item with explosive results. He prefers to charge smaller objects, such as his ever-present playing cards, as the time required to charge them is greatly reduced and they are much easier for him to throw. The only real limitation to this ability is the time required to charge the object. The larger it is, the more time it takes.
Most charging takes place through direct skin contact. The power of his explosions is dependent on the mass of the object he is charging, for example, a charged playing card explodes with the force of a grenade. He typically cannot utilize his powers on living matter or organic molecules, although he has demonstrated the ability to do so on occasion.
== Appearances ==
* X-Men: Titanic
Category:Characters
Category:Mutants