Secret Wars on Infinite Earths: The Comic Book Fight Club

BLADE versus GAMBIT

Old Wounds, Fresh Blood! (Marvel)
Where: Gambit #4 When: May 1999
Why: Fabian Nicieza How: Steve Skroce

The Story So Far...
In the darkest shadows of New Orleans operates a network of secretive clans and guilds committed to the arts of murder, thievery, occult ritual, and more.

The Antiquary is a rogue operator within the Thieves Guild whose collection of ancient texts & artefacts is rivaled only by his enslaved children. It is a life Gambit escaped as a boy, but now that a vampire from the Assassin Guild is stalking the organization, he must return to protect a child threatened by both!

Gambit and Blade have both been drawn into the hunt for the vampire assassin Francios Chicault, and will stop at nothing to end his bloody trail, but when the sun is setting over a New Orleans cemetery, it's each other that they'll be fighting!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Blade 3 (Athlete)
Intelligence: Blade 4 (Tactician)
Speed: Draw 3 (Athlete)
Stamina: Blade 5 (Marathoner)
Agility: Draw 3 (Acrobat)
Fighting: Blade 5 (Martial Artist)
Energy: Gambit 4 (Arsenal)
Total: Blade 26 (Champion)

Blade specializes in stalking the creatures of the night, but occasionally he finds himself crossing metaphorical swords with a different breed of opponent. His line of work doesn't afford many friends, and sometimes the need to shoot first leads to old fashioned cases of mistaken identity!

In Fear #24, Blade stalked future "frenemy" Morbius, confusing the science-based "Living Vampire" with the undead bloodsuckers he typically hunts. Many years later they'd team together as part of the supernatural Midnight Sons.

When Blade was possessed by the Demogorge after reading from the Darkhold, he began a "Midnight Massacre" of friend & foe alike, battling Ghost Rider & Frank Drake, before he temporarily killed Ghost Rider!

No such worry when he found himself face to face with Wolverine, though! This later encounter with an X-Man included a casual impaling, but Wolverine's healing factor kept him in the fight, turning Blade against SHIELD in the process.

Gambit, aka; Remy Lebeau, might not survive a skewering, but he knows the darker side of life well, having been well prepared by a career as a master thief in his years before joining the X-Men.

Gambit's mutant ability to charge inorganic objects with explosive kinetic energy compliments well-honed skills of deception, speed, agility, and staff fighting. A combination that could actually make him a good match-up for Blade!

Gambit's hand-to-hand "physical methods" were demonstrated in his first melee with the X-Men, where a simple fly kick put one of Ahab's Hounds on the backfoot.

His preferred technique of throwing kinetically charged playing cards proved instrumental when the X-Men infiltrated Avalon - even if cards thrown in Magneto's face earned harsh reprisal.

Gambit's playing cards demonstrate a preference for fast, numerous projectiles, but in a rare display of his potential power, Gambit helped the team escape Onslaught by charging an entire floor of a room in the mansion!

Blade has an arsenal of weapons to counter Gambit's mutant abilities and might just edge him out in hand-to-hand fighting skills, but with his most lethal weapons reserved for vampires, this one is anybody's guess!

The Tape: Blade Ranking: Blade (#126)

What Went Down...

The search for vampires across a network of New Orleans cemeteries makes for busy work -- and Gambit finds himself lighting a cigarette as the sun begins to set, still hunting for his target: the elusive Francois Chilcault.

Before he can drag the first hit -- the deathstick is cut with a sharpened blade!

There are worse things out tonight than vampires!

A darkly dressed man in sunglasses leaps between the tombstones, brandishing his katana as Gambit yanks his staff away from the sword's tip, and backflips clear!

As he shadow dances just out of reach, Gambit puts hands on a deck of cards and sends them streaming towards his attacker with a blanket charge of explosions!

Blade keeps low, avoiding the kinetically charged playing cards, and moves in close with his sword leading the way.

Gambit manages to block the weapon with his metal staff and uses it to swing his legs around for a dangerous low sweep kick.

Blade flips into the air and lands flat on his stomach on the cemetery ground!

This might be an escalation in an ordinary fight, but the moments pause lets Gambit do the talking. Blade realises the dark, burning eyes of his target are not those of a creature of the night. They're both on the same side.

The Hammer...

I threw a little bit of shade at our boy Gambit in a previous update, speculating that we'd all moved on after 1997, but with Disney's X-Men '97 animated series taking us right back to those halcyon days, I figure now is as good a time as any to see what the ragin' Cajun was actually doing around that time.

'99/2000 was notably a rare down-period for my comic book reading, which meant I wasn't even aware of a Gambit on-going series that lasted twenty-five issues at the turn of the millennium! That's what ya get for having other interests!

To be honest, I guess I lost sight of what happened to Gambit after around Uncanny X-Men #350, when the revelation of his secret past with Mister Sinister contributed to a parting of the ways with the X-Men. So, after stumbling upon them at a seller I frequented a few years back, I picked up Gambit #4, and a few other issues, with a sense of intrigue and enthusiasm.

It turned out it was a pretty good investment! Not just because of whatever speculator shenanigans are driving up prices now that cartoon-fueled X-Mania is gripping the masses -- but because the Gambit series is kind of right up my alley!

A Blade guest-spot is just one of the thrills giving the series an unexpected sense of buoyancy, with gratuitous appearances by favourites like Sabretooth, Daredevil, Bullseye, and a rogue's gallery of ne'er do wells that prowl the seedier side of the Marvel Universe. Some are more surprising than others, given X-ties and the era.

On that subject of timing; it's almost obligatory to note the frustration of a lack of comic book momentum for Blade after the mainstream success of the 1998 film. I probably would've liked to have known more about this issue of Gambit back then! It's limited in page count for the guest hero -- but kicks the teeth in on the few solo Blade books that came out in the months, and year, prior.

The first few pages of the issue announce Blade's arrival with a cold open worthy of the movies. He jumps his muscle car through a building, with guns blazing at a pistol-packing vampire, who forces him to choose the hunt - or a small child thrown from a window. It plays somewhere between the digital stuntman opener from 2002's Blade II, and the baby chase from Blade: Trinity -- only much cooler!!

A Blade solo series probably could've benefitted from this kind of kineticism and movie-compatible depiction - not to mention a reciprocal guest-spot by somebody as colourful & distinct as Gambit. Steve Skroce as penciller coulda helped, too!

All we actually got in '98 was a flavourless one-shot, and a three-issue snoozefest following Morbius around restaurants & cafes. Blade briefly slipped back into his seventies look in the first scene of the first issue. Baffling choices that showed a reluctance to embrace the slick cool of the Wesley Snipes character, which I argue leveraged the work of the early nineties Midnight Sons period more than its often given credit.

In the past, the insular drama of the Thieves Guild tended to have about as much appeal in Gambit-centric stories as some of the more generic vampire fare found in contemporary Blade efforts -- so it's of benefit to both characters that they're paired up for an otherwise unlikely meeting in New Orleans.

It's mildly surprising they didn't sew New Orleans vampire mythology into the clan rivalry of the Thieves and Assassin Guilds sooner. As I recall, Mutant X made the most of the association, building upon the overlap between Gambit and Storm as former thieves, and Storm's comic book past with Dracula. I suppose there were limited opportunities to do similar in the mainline books.

It's easy to forget Gambit debuted in 1990 and was only approaching his first decade in comics when Gambit (Vol. 3) #4 hit stands. A lot of his past was shrouded in mystery, and this series and issue are still putting pieces into place, including Remy's childhood in slavery as part of The Antiquary's "Collection".

I probably would've enjoyed seeing Blade and Gambit team-up again. The dark corners of "N'orleans" seems a much more natural setting for Blade to branch out into than his subsequent incorporation into the Avengers. It might've even been interesting to see Fabian Nicieza develop a recurring working relationship between the pair, or some kind of agency, but maybe the latter is skewing a little too close to Chief Wiggum PI. A reader poll on the letters page suggests they were looking for more of a people pleaser than high concept push.

I'll happily settle for this curious little encounter. An unlikely showdown that quickly ends in the classic style, as noted, with the realization of mistaken identities & intentions, and a typical superhero team-up that follows.

It could be a lot fun to take a closer look at that battle in a future entry. If you'd like to help make that happen - consider becoming a supporter on Patreon. It's been unfortunately difficult to find time for updates this year, but with your help I can make growing this curious corner of the web a personal priority.

Secret Wars on Infinite Earths has documented & discussed more than 700 featured fights and ranked more than 1,000 characters! You can find them all by diving into the Secret Archive for a complete index of battles in order of publisher, series, and issue.

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Winner: Inconclusive (Draw)
#125 (+1) Blade
#369 (+4) Gambit