X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

Well hells freaking bells.

Marvel’s August solicitations have come out and here is what is listed for Gambit.

GAMBIT #16
JAMES ASMUS
CLAY MANN (A/C)
• Who is Gambit’s friend Fence? How did they meet? And what secrets is he hiding?
• To save those dear to him, Gambit must attempt the impossible – and he’ll need all of his thieving skills to succeed!
• The past is gone but not forgotten in this explosive penultimate issue!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99

Penultimate, i.e., second to last.

And Asmus has confirmed it.

This unfortunately comes as no surprise as Gambit had dropped below the 20k mark in sales according to April’s figures. I had predicted a little while go that at the rate Gambit was dropping he might be cancelled before he was legal to drive… with the series stopping at #17 I was pretty much on the mark, unfortunately.

Asmus really tried to get into the mind of Gambit in the beginning, showing he does know Gambit quite well, and really knows his ROMY, but it all came a little to late into the series for the casual reader. Not to mention Gambit has competition in the solo realm with the popular Hawkeye who is milking off the success of the movies (and I say that having several friends who only read Hawkeye now because they saw him in the Avengers movie). Still, it was a good run and let us pray other writers build on both Gambit’s expansion as a character and the building blocks Asmus put in place for a return to canon ROMY.

Unless I miss my guess, Gambit is only in Liu’s great run of Astonishing X-Men. He’s mentioned as a teacher at the school but is not actually utilized in Wolverine and the X-Men or any of the other titles which take place at least partially there. Hopefully he’ll be snatched up and given more face time, he’s just too good of a character to let wither away. Let’s hope the man gets his due.

Now, the only good thing about this cancellation… is maybe they can replace Remender with Asmus on Uncanny Avengers? A girl can dream, right?