First Appearance Friday ~ Gambit

Today I’m here to tell you a bit of background on the Ragin’ Cajun himself...Gambit!!! We will start with who he is and go on from there...because as always in comics and cool characters, it gets a bit convoluted and foggy.

Gambit is a mutant from the circle of Marvel’s X-Men. He possesses the ability to mentally create and control kinetic energy. He is also a master card thrower, can kick a ton of ass in hand-to-hand combat, and is an expert with the bo staff like Donatello from the Ninja Turtles. Often he can charge up the objects with kinetic energy such as cards so he can whip em during battle. He speaks in a Cajun accent as he’s from Louisiana and has had an on again off again relationship for years with fellow X-Men, Rogue.

He was created by masters in the industry...artist Jim Lee and writer Chris Claremont. Here is where things get a little wonky. Technically he first appeared in Uncanny X-Men Annual #14 which hit the stands in July of 1990.

This was drawn by the always outstanding Art Adams. The problem is that the comic community and collectors as a whole do not view this as his first appearance. He’s only in a few panels as shown below. Folks view this as his “cameo”.

Instead, it is widely accepted that Uncanny X-Men #266 is his first appearance. This came out a month later in August of 1990. The cover which is pretty well known was done by Andy Kubert with interiors done by penciller Mike Collins.

A quick side note, the original cover art by Kubert went up for auction in 2017 and fetched quite a chunk of change. Comiclink.com was where it went up for auction. It ended on 9/19/17 for $130,000 with a total of 77 bids!!!

There’s a tremendous price disparity between UXM #266 and UXM Annual #14. Raw copies in decent shape of the Annual fetch around $15 bucks while CGC 9.8’s will cost ya around $125 beans. Meanwhile #266 raws in nice shape will set ya back anywhere from $75 to $125 bucks. On the other hand, 9.8 slabs typically run $350-$450 smackers!!!

It’s a book that we get in collections often enough. A couple of years back, this book was on fire!!! There was talk of a solo movie starring Channing Tatum and any copies we had would just fly off of our wall. It’s calmed a bit since but it’s always a good book to have. Any popular hero’s first appearance is kinda a blue chip book and one that should be in any serious collectors personal stash. Here’s one of mine...I think I have about 6 of these puppies at the moment.

Gambit isn’t going away anytime soon he’s another popular character that looks cool and has mass appeal in terms of marketing. Here’s a few of the cooler figures and statues you can find of him...if lucky enough to come across em.

I’ll end this with my favorite Gambit cover. Uncanny X-Men #350. This has the ol’ gimmicky holofoil nonsense has that was all the rage in the 90’s. What can I say...I’m a sucker for this shit...