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Anna Marie LeBeau / Rogue

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/9c25f565_abab_4f02_91af_773b68ffef48.jpeg
All the looks of Rogue. Artwork by Russell Dauterman

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Avengers Annual #10 (August, 1981)

"When ah went to the X-Men, ah was desperate. They had every reason to turn me away. But they didn't. Ah figured if they believed in me, ah owed it to them to believe in myself. To try. To get better. Ah found out ah could. So much more than ah ever imagined possible. Ah'm still learnin' that. Biggest lesson was that there were people who cared enough to help...but at the end of the day, it was up to me. Ah ain't gonna lie. It was hard. Still is. And ah live knowin' it could all unravel if ah make one wrong move. But it all started with someone believing in me. And me takin' that first step. Ah believe in you. Now it's your move."
Anna Marie (Rogue)

Rogue is a Marvel Comics superheroine associated with X-Men. Her real name is Anna Marie with an unrevealed surname. She's also sometimes known as "Anna Raven", taken from her adoptive mother's name, Raven Darkholme a.k.a. Mystique. She was created by Chris Claremont and Michael Golden, introduced into the Marvel Universe in Avengers Annual #10 in 1981.

Anna Marie is a mutant girl with the power to temporarily absorb superpowers and memories from anyone she touches. It's potentially fatal and permanent if contact is held too long. She's a Southern run away from a family in Mississippi and was adopted by Mystique and Destiny (though canon is inconsistent on whether she ran away because of or before her powers manifested) and joined the Brotherhood of Mutants. During her debut, she hospitalized the superheroine Ms. Marvel by permanently absorbing her powers of super-strength and flight; after a 2-issue battle against Dazzler (issues #22-23), Rogue sought out and joined the X-Men in Uncanny X-Men #171, when the psychic imprints she had absorbed threatened to drive her insane. She went on from that point to become a mainstay in the X-Men's roster.

She has a long off and on romance with The Charmer Gambit, which culminated in their getting married. In the 2000s, with the help of Professor Xavier and Danger, she gained the ability to control her powers. However, at one point she lost the ability to control them, but during the Mr. and Mrs. X series, she was able to control her powers once again by going over the important events in her life in Mr. and Mrs. X #9.

After the event Avengers vs. X-Men, Rogue joined the Uncanny Avengers, a team formed as a mix of two of Marvel's most famous teams, The Avengers and the X-Men. Other X-Men members who joined this team include Sunfire and Wolverine (until his death). She temporarily left the team because of a Face–Heel Turn during the AXIS storyline.

She was also featured in the fourth volume of X-Men which features an all-female cast including Storm, Jubilee, Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Grey, and Psylocke. Rogue was removed from this series' cast after the Battle of the Atom crossover, to avoid contradicting her temporary death in Uncanny Avengers.

In 2018, after many years of Will They or Won't They?, she and Gambit tied the knot in X-Men: Golden #30.


Rogue provides examples of the following tropes:

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    A-H 
  • '80s Hair: Rogue got big hair when Marc Silvestri became penciler in the late Eighties. Then there’s her big mass o' Jim Lee given curls, as shown through X-Men: The Animated Series (though that came out in the 90s).
  • Abusive Parents: Anna's relationship with Mystique and Destiny is complicated. Raven and Irene were genuinely loving adoptive mothers, but did raise her into the mutant terrorist life - and Raven took it very personally when Rogue left her to go to the X-Men for help. Since then, Mystique has occasionally made it her business to interfere in Rogue's life (and especially her love life) whether Rogue wants it or not. Since Destiny's resurrection, she's done much the same thing - although sometimes at cross-purposes with her wife.
  • Action Girl: Rogue is one of the strongest and most competent female X-Men and Marvel heroines in general, putting her fighting prowess to good use in every battle and taking out swarms of enemies alone on several occasions. Her various acts of heroism cement her as one of the most iconic members of the team.
  • Adaptational Early Appearance: Ultimate Rogue first appears in issue #7, while her original counterpart didn't join the X-Men until Uncanny X-Men #171.
  • Adaptational Heroism: She's an interesting example as Rogue has been consistently portrayed as a hero for decades in the main comics, however, most adaptations or Alternate Universe stories either remove her background as a supervillain or significantly downgrade it into her being a petty thief/con artist.
  • Adaptational Modesty: She’s a pretty famous Ms. Fanservice in the comics and 90s cartoons but the X-Men Film Series have her dress modesty with none of the Sensual Spandex Rogue is often known for. X-Men: Evolution does this as well mainly due to Rogue being a good deal younger than she is in the comics and previous cartoon.
  • Adaptational Wimp: It’s generally agreed the X-Men Film Series hit Rogue with this very hard, thanks to combining her character with Kitty Pryde (as well as a bit of Jubilee). In the comics she’s spent most of her time as a Flying Brick who is confident and sassy, her film counterpart however is a depressed teen who never once flies around or gets Super-Strength and has a good deal of angst about not being able to touch people or kiss boys without putting them in comas. In fairness to the filmmakers, Rogue in the comics does have many moments where she’s upset about being Blessed with Suck, it’s just that she offset her angst by frequently kicking ass and saving the day while Fox films only ever focused on the I Just Want to Be Normal part of her character. A deleted scene Last Stand gave her some Character Development with her accepting her powers by refusing to take the cure for her mutation, but a change of directors' mid-production had Rogue take the cure instead.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: Never stated outright, but it's clear Rogue has a strong attraction for the bad boys or rogues. When faced with a choice between Joseph (a clone of Magneto) and Gambit, Rogue, of course, chooses Gambit, even telling Remy that she always loved him.
  • Anti-Hero: Currently of the "Disney Antihero" type, but where she falls has depended on the various writers.
  • Assimilation Backfire: On occasion, touching someone can mean Rogue gets far more than she bargained for, one way or another. Absorbing Carol Danvers eventually nearly got Rogue's mind taken over by Danvers completely (and in one What If...?, it happened permanently), or trying to absorb a recently resurrected Hulk. Rogue got shocked by contact with a suicidal Bruce Banner, and the problem of all that Unstoppable Rage.
  • The Atoner: She became this after an encounter with one of Carol Danvers' ex-lovers. Arguably one even before — she shows great remorse when she comes face-to-face with Carol herself and takes a laser blast for Wolverine, almost dying in the process. Even today, when she and Carol have made up most of their differences and Carol has long since regained her powers, Rogue still feels guilty about it.
  • Backstory Invader: Inverted in one of her solo series, where Blindspot was retconned into being a friend of Rogue and a member of the Brotherhood, but since she has the power to manipulate memories, she was able to erase all knowledge of her existence after going into hiding.
  • Bad Powers, Good People: Leeching energy from others is generally something evil characters tend to use, but Rogue tries her best to make it a temporary borrowing boost rather than a selfish draining power.
  • Battle Couple: Rogue and Gambit have had a long, rocky history of on-again-off-again dating. They're both powerful fighters in their own right and work well together in battle. As of issue #30 of X-Men: Gold, they're even married.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: She was very grateful to Xavier for giving her a chance when nobody else would.
    • In Uncanny X-Men, as a former supervillain, Rogue was made to feel distinctly unwelcome when she first joined the X-Men. In UXM #172 she accompanies her new teammates to Tokyo to attend Wolverine's wedding. On seeing her, Wolverine comments that if it were up to him, he'd cut out her heart, but his fiancee, the aristocratic Mariko Yashida, says that Rogue as a guest is entitled to all due courtesy and respect and welcomes her. Effectively Mariko was merely acting in accordance with the ethical and social rules of her class, but it still was the first time Rogue was unreservedly welcomed by anyone since she left the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and so in the following issue Rogue shows no hesitation to lay down her life to prevent her death ("Lady Mariko was kind t'me — she accepted me, right off — ah won't let her come to any harm!"). The fire from Viper's blaster actually hurts her badly, but Rogue accepts her likely death philosophically. However, Logan now feels indebted to her for saving the woman he loves and making Rogue absorb his healing factor.
  • Beyond Redemption: She obsessed over feeling she's this due to her actions with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants — it took her at least 10 issues to realize she was not as irredeemable as she believed.
  • Big Damn Kiss: She gives a damn good one to Gambit in Rogue & Gambit #5 on page 16, which shows several images throughout the decades of them kissing.
  • Big Sister Instinct:
    • She showed this around Nate Grey, of all people, back in the 90s, intermittently keeping an eye on him from a distance and trying to help keep him out of trouble. Since Nate was The Dreaded, a Weirdness Magnet even by X-Men standards, and none too eager to join up with the X-Men, there wasn't too much she could do - though she did give Bishop a memorable dressing down when he wound up picking a fight with Nate over concerns that Nate was an irresponsible threat to everyone around him. Remarkably, she was also one of the few people who the Hot-Blooded Nate grudgingly listened to, and actually liked.
    • More generally, Rogue invokes this towards Jubilee whom she is Cool Big Sis too, and in both the comics and 90s cartoon anyone who messes with Jubilee pays through the nose (if they are lucky).
  • Blessed with Suck: Yes, technically the ability to copy other mutants' powers by touching them makes her very adaptable, but draining people's life energy whenever she touches them is about as sucky as it gets. And absorbing 'everything else about that person, including memories and personality traits. And she can't not do so, rendering her incapable of having any sort of intimate relationship. At the extreme end, she can essentially steal people's souls and hold on to them forever (happened with Ms. Marvel, but not quite intentionally and Ms. Marvel survived it).
  • Boyish Short Hair: originally started off with very short hair when she was first introduced. After she made a Heel–Face Turn however, her hair grew longer, with Jim Lee giving her iconic massive hair.
  • Brainy Brunette: She is smart enough to not only fly a spaceship and build motorbikes but once outsmarted an extra-dimensional being and brought him into the main universe. She also reads a lot of books in her spare time.
  • Breakout Character: When she was introduced, nothing much was expected of Rogue; her main purpose was helping to counteract the infamous The Avengers #200, as her erasure of Ms. Marvel's mind helped drain most of the emotional trauma Carol suffered due to her Mind Rape and Medical Rape and Impregnate at the hands of Marcus Immortus. After joining the X-Men, Rogue became one of the most popular members of the team.
  • Brown Note Being: She is a being whose touch causes life energy loss.
  • Can't Have Sex, Ever: Her mutation makes sex impossible because her powers cause her to hurt whatever living things she comes into contact with. Her partners would effectively need full-body condoms.
    • The problem isn't insurmountable, however. There have always been characters immune to Rogue's absorption power (e. g. the Avengers' Wonder Man in her debut story) and also quite a few who could protect themselves through their own powers (e. g. Magneto in the Age of Apocalypse) or through a machine (e. g. the apparatus Joseph built as a Christmas present). Another way out was exposing Rogue to the powers of mutants (e. g. Leech) or machines (e. g. the one used in the "love grotto" story in Uncanny X-Men #350, the first time she ever has sex with Gambit or anyone, Rogue later states in X-Men #82 that their first time is described as the gentlest touch she had ever known and a passion so intense that the ice heart of Antarctica could not withstand it) or mystical devices (e. g. the Siege Perilous) that can strip mutants of their powers, at least temporarily. And then, there's the number of powerfully telepathic characters around. In any case, with some help from Professor X and Danger Rogue finally learned to control her absorption power.
      • In Mr. and Mrs. X, she wears a collar that gives her headaches but suppresses her mutation so she can consummate her marriage to Gambit.
    • On one occasion, where the X-Men were in the Savage Land, where mutants powers are neutralised, Rogue realised she could touch people. Gambit made one of his usual leering suggestive remarks and was totally shocked when Rogue replied, "You've been after this for years but now you'all gonna GET it!" and jumped on him and gave the most frightful seeing-to. He was still shaking and crying when they got back to the X-Mansion. When Cyclops asked him "So, how was it for you?" Gambit replied "Oh, c'est horrible! Quand ca femme a fait a moi! I will NEVER feel clean again!"
  • The Cape: Ever since her Heel–Face Turn Rogue has been a caring and heroic person who as a Flying Brick flies around saving people and kicking the asses of villains. She’s got similarities to Supergirl the cousin of Trope Namer.
  • Casual Kink: Uncanny Avengers has her reveal that she and Gambit engage in BDSM. It's actually a plot point since it allows her to free herself after being captured and fight her way out of the Red Skull's base.
  • Childhood Home Rediscovery: After many years of amnesia brought on by overuse of her powers, she eventually got her own memories back, and thus found her way back to the aunt who raised her as a child.
  • Civvie Spandex: One of her two most iconic outfits. A brown bomberjacket over her yellow and green spandex suit by Jim Lee. It’s Newer Than They Think as she had several costumes before it, but thanks to X-Men: The Animated Series it’s the look most people think of when they think of Rogue. Funnily enough Rogue’s old enemy Carol Danvers has picked up this look as well.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: To Gambit occasionally, though normally not the "clingy" part as that could kill him. She was especially jealous of Bella Donna whom Gambit almost wed in a Arranged Marriage. She also brings up every single woman Gambit has been romantically involved with (or just flirted with) during their couple's therapy.
  • Clothing Damage: Rare example played as much for drama as Fanservice, happened to her a lot in Claremont's run. Since any skin-to-skin contact activates Rogue's powers, absorbing the powers and psyche of whoever she touches, Rogue naturally favors bodysuits that cover her neck-to-toe. Sadly, despite the X-Men having access to unstable molecule uniforms, Rogue is never provided with one, and her clothes are nowhere near as Nigh-Invulnerable as she herself is (thanks to absorbing Carol Danvers' powers). As such, Rogue's uniform is frequently shredded by enemies, and then Rogue will inadvertently touch or be touched by someone. Sometimes this not only takes an enemy out of the fight but gives Rogue a power boost to make her even more effective. Other times, the enemy's psyche overwhelms her own, depriving the X-Men of one of their heavy hitters and adding to the strength of the enemy team.
  • Color Motif: Green. One thing that sets her apart is that whereas almost every X-man has had an outfit with a ton of blue, at one point or another, Rogue has always had green. None of her outfits made significant use of blue.
  • Combo Platter Powers: Zigzagging Trope:
    • Invoked. By absorbing multiple power sets within a short period of time, Rogue can literally mix and match powers to suit the situation, allowing herself to become a one-woman army in the right circumstances. For a time, she even had the power to "recall" absorbed powers, so she could invoke literally any and every power she had ever absorbed, allowing for truly broken combinations.
    • Played straight in that, when introduced, Rogue had managed to permanently assimilate several of the powers of Carol Danvers, gaining her Flying Brick and Super-Reflexes powers and an even more inconsistent version of Carol's Hyper-Awareness on top of her default Power Parasite mutation. She also had a form of Insanity Immunity during this time; her "doubled" consciousness, due to having Carol's mind copied inside of her own, made her extra resistant to telepathy.
    • Subverted when Rogue eventually lost the powers she had copied from Carol.
    • Played straight again when she gained a permanent copy of several powers of Sunfire, namely his Flight, fiery plasma aura and Hand Blasts of ionized blasts of solar fire. Subverted in that she eventually lost these powers too.
    • Played straight yet again when she regained Flying Brick and Super-Reflexes powers by permanently absorbing powers from Wonder Man, in addition to gaining his Immortality power, which means she no longer physically ages, and doesn't need food, water or oxygen.
    • For a short period of time, she was also unable to be recorded by electronic surveillance — this power was ultimately dropped unceremoniously.
  • Composite Character: Movie Rogue = Rogue + Kitty Pryde. Which gets rather awkward when Kitty becomes a main supporting character and a rival for her for Bobby Drake's/Iceman's affections in X3.
  • Conspicuous Gloves: She wears gloves so as not to accidentally touch anyone, since touch with her skin causes her to absorb others' powers, often harming or potentially killing them.
  • Containment Clothing: Because of her powers rely on skin contact, she has to wear gloves to prevent herself from affecting others accidentally.
  • Continuity Snarl: After so many writers have done retcons on it, her origin is one huge mess.
  • Cool Big Sis: Rogue became this to Nightcrawler when she learned he was the son of her surrogate mother Mystique.
  • Cultural Translation: In Brazil, she is called "Vampira" (the female form of vampire), somewhat fitting with her power-sucking mutant ability.
  • Daddy's Girl: For Professor Xavier, with later comics such as Uncanny Avengers having her thought bubbles saying things like “Do it for Charles”, which makes sense since Xavier was the one who willingly to accepted Rogue into the X-Men despite her villainous past with Mystique.
  • Daddy's Little Villain: She literally started off as the loyal minion of her adoptive mother Mystique in her Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and would commit any crime to please her evil blue mama. After absorbing ROM and Dazzler’s compassion and memories she has a Heel Realisation and joins the X-Men, much to Mystique‘s anguish and fury.
  • Damsel in Distress: Spends some time between X-Men vol 2. issue 200 and the end of Messiah Complex under the ministrations of Mr. Sinister, comatose thanks to having several billion other minds in her head with her.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Her colour scheme as a one of the X-Men during latter half of the 80s was green and black which are usually villainous colours, not helped by the fact her powers have bad connotations as well. Yet she’s still one of the heroes and a deeply compassionate one at that.
  • Depending on the Artist: Her white streak started as a pair of streaks on her temples, moved to the center of her head, and then to just her bangs. Whether she’s pure brunette (besides her white streak) or closer to auburn is zigzagged by artists too. note  Her curvaceous goes back and forth too depending on much Fanservice the comic contains. Her eye colour while most commonly green, has been depicted as being blue on occasion.
  • Depending on the Writer:
    • Whether she has an upper limit to her power or any limit to how much she can absorb at all is entirely up to who is writing her. The usual stance from Marvel is that Rogue has no limit to her ability which is more or less proven in Uncanny X-Men where she’s able to absorb collective powers of Earth’s heroes to prevent Exitar’s collision with Earth or the time she absorbed Genis-Vell‘s cosmic powers, but plenty of other comics contradict that with Rogue struggling to absorb from certain characters, even fainting after trying to take Magneto’s powers.
      • One consistency in regard to this, is that while Rogue can often pretty much take any power she wants, she often lacks the experience or knowledge to effectively utilise said power. This was seen in her villain days when she absorbed Storm’s power and lost control or much later on when she absorbed Scarlet Witch’s Chaos Magic but couldn’t make use of it, as Wanda explained she simply lacks the imagination and training to do so.
    • Whether she can effectively absorb from gods is zigzagged by writers throughout Rogue’s comic history. The most brought up example of her being unable to absorb from gods is during the time she fought Ares in X-Men Legacy and got overloaded by his power with Gambit telling her to let go stating it’s too much for her. This causes a Continuity Snarl as in other comics (including her very first appearance) Rogue has no absolutely no difficulty taking power from Thor as well as Juggernaut who is powered by the god Cyttorak.
    • Whether her absorbing Cyclops' power means she also has his Power Incontinence (which is also one of those things which varies by writer, which doesn't help). Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't.
  • Discard and Draw: She first gained Ms.Marvel's powers long-term, but eventually, those powers were lost. Soon, she absorbed Sunfire's in their place, which are rather similar to the powers Ms Marvel had in her Binary days, though on a lesser scale. Most recently as of this writing, she has permanently absorbed the powers of Wonder Man; so, pretty close to the Flying Brick powers she's most known for.
  • Discriminate and Switch: Played for laughs in Uncanny Avengers. Rogue worries aloud that her teammates aren't listening to her orders because she's a woman, but Deadpool counters by saying maybe they're doing so because she's a mutant.
  • Does Not Know His Own Strength: Rogue accidentally snaps Grim Reaper's neck with a single punch after she absorbed Wonder Man's powers. She was holding back.
  • Dream People: In her miniseries, she meets a mysterious man immune to her draining touch who claims to be a "mutant dream". According to him one day a woman who wanted a baby had a dream about giving birth and woke to a real child crying in her house, raising it in spite of her confusion. He's capable of crossing in between reality and a Dream Land and he seeks Rogue's help in stopping her mother from corrupting it and thus corrupting the waking minds of everyone. When Rogue stops her mother, it turns out she was just a dream of her after the real one died.
  • Dub Name Change:
    • In Spanish-translations:
      • She is known as "Pícara" in Spain. A fairly direct translation.
      • Rogue was known as "Titania" in the Mexican dub of X-Men: The Animated Series, which is pretty far from her original name, but was accepted thanks to her super-strength in the series. However, her name wasn't translated from the Venezuelan dub of X-Men: Evolution, which took some of the translations from the Mexican dub, and the character name has remained unchanged in future Latin American works involving Rogue.
      • In the Brazilian Portuguese translation, originally for the comics and consistently carried to other media, she's named Vampira, which translates as "[Female] Vampire". The translator said that, as he wasn't able to choose among the many actual translations of her name, he chose Vampira as a reference to her draining powers.
    • In French, she is known as "Malicia".
  • Easily Forgiven: Nope. The X-Men collectively gave Xavier a massive What the Hell, Hero? speech for recruiting her after everything she did under Mystique, with Storm threatening to quit immediately if Rogue is given a spot on the team and the entire rest of the team following suit. Even to this day Dazzler holds a bitter grudge against her for her crimes against her and it took until 2019's Captain Marvel before Carol and Rogue finally reconciled, although Carol noted they probably will never be friends.
  • Energy Absorption: She suffers from a Life Drain "gift": if she physically touches anyone, she immediately and uncontrollably begins pulling the life force from their body. In most cases this allows her to copy other mutants' powers, but touching non-mutants can put them into comas or outright kill them (this also happens with mutants, but their powers go before their vital energy does). It's also revealed that her powers also drain mental energy, meaning that other people's thought patterns and personalities are forcibly ingrained into her own mind, leaving her with severe issues.
  • Fanservice Pack: She was homely in her debut and had only a modest physique. In her first appearences in Uncanny as a villain, she had a somewhat crazed look in her eyes and was drawn to be unattractive as well. Then she joined the X-Men and Progressively Prettier kicked in, though she was till drawn as somewhat more plain and less curvy than Storm or some of the other female members, though she was becoming attractive in the artwork. Things started to change by the time of Secret Wars II, when in a tie-in comic, Rogue (who had been looking for Rachel Summers all night) took a look at her reflection in a window and decided she wanted to pay more attention to her appearance. Taking the rest of the day off, she went to Bloomingdales' and got a complete makeover. From there, she went from Progressively Prettier to on a track to becoming supermodel hot. By time Jim Lee drew her Rogue was now one of most beautiful, buxom, curvaceous female characters in all of Marvel Comics, and her outfits went from jumpsuits to Sensual Spandex to a bikinis and Daisy Dukes. Among the X-Men Rogue is only really rivalled by Storm, Emma Frost and Boobs-and-Butt Pose-incarnate Psylocke when it comes to attractiveness.
  • First Kiss: Subverted, as she had her powers emerge during her first kiss, putting the boy in a permanent coma. Ouch. her first non-disastrous kiss was with Gambit when Legion was collapsing reality and they decided to go out snogging. In a Retcon it is revealed that Gambit and Rogue kissed even earlier when they first met under the Shadow King’s influence. Rogue, however, vehemently discounts the experience stating it wasn’t their independent choice.
  • Flying Brick: Her most iconic "secondary" power set is a combination of Flight, Super-Strength and Nigh-Invulnerability. Originally acquired from draining Carol Danvers, she spent her formative years with this archetype, losing it when she was stripped of Carol's powers, only to eventually regain it by permanently absorbing the essence of Wonder Man. When she has it, her main strategy that doesn't revolve around her draining touch tends to be going airborne so that she can ram into her foes at high speeds, so she's arguably the Trope Namer.
  • Flight, Strength, Heart: While still possessing Ms. Marvel's powers, she had a latent seventh sense that allowed her to detect danger. She used it perhaps twice in the comic books. Ms. Marvel herself rarely used the power, either.
  • Flower Motifs: Her and Gambit sometimes make use of flower symbolism. When they are reunited after Gambit's sojourn in Antarctica, Gambit presents her with a white rose, claiming it represents "new beginnings." She's contemptuous about it though, pointing out that "white lilies mean death. Does that go for roses too?" In actual fact, Gambit is probably correct — white roses traditionally mean innocence/purity.
  • Forbidden Fruit: She is this for Gambit. Her mutant powers keep her from touching others or else they will be rendered comatose. Gambit, relentless and successful womanizer, finds himself stuck on the notion of a woman that even he can't have. It helps that the two have a fair deal in common, having similar cultural backgrounds and being on the wrong side of the law before joining the X-Men, making her that much more irresistible for him. Needless to say, they always take advantage of any time her powers are down.
  • Forgot About His Powers: One of the most infamous examples: In Wolverine #75, she is being sucked out of an airplane and screams at Gambit to help her. Except she can fly. Regularly pointed out as a glaring example of Chickification of her character.
  • Forgotten Phlebotinum: While she can't have a relationship with anyone due to her powers, Gambit's mutant powers used to allow him to touch her without an issue, which has since been forgotten. In addition, there have been numerous items that temporarily disabled mutant powers, many of which have been captured by the X-Men but are never mentioned in relation to this issue. At least one writer has admitted that there is no in-universe reason someone like Forge couldn't whip up a gadget to temporarily nullify Rogue's powers whenever she wanted, but that would make her character "less interesting".
  • Funetik Aksent: Naturally, being a Southern American gal who debuted in the 80s, her dialogue is typically written with an extremely thick Southern drawl. Just see the quote above.
  • Genius Bruiser: She generally has the potential to be this by absorbing the memories/skills of others, as in one comic Rogue could diffuse a bomb by touching a unconscious bomb disposable specialist. Even without taking other people’s smarts she’s very bookish along being an expert pilot and mechanic, which greatly goes against the usual Southern Bell Brainless Beauty stereotype.
  • Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter: Comes about when she’s having a heart to heart with Gambit and expressing the tender moments where they could have physical contact. Unfortunately for her, she had some psychic powers at that point and was broadcasting her naughty thoughts to everyone, which was very embarrassing for her.
  • Ghost Memory: Absorbing people's memories is one side effect of her powers.
  • Good Feels Good: She kissed ROM during her time at the Brotherhood, and instead of absorbing his powers, she instead absorbed at least part of his compassion, kindness, and decency. Much to her shock, she liked it, and by the end of the issue, she was questioning her loyalties. This was a major factor in her Heel–Face Turn.
  • Hates Being Touched: A variation; she dislikes her friends touching her and used to flee from Gambit when he'd get too cozy. This is not because she has a phobia of being touched, but due to her mutation, she risks putting them in a coma or killing them. One time Rouge got handed a baby while she had her gloves off and completely freaked out. Rogue actually yearns for physical contact, though. When her mutation is nullified, Rogue is very familiar with her teammates (including kissing Bishop), but especially with Gambit.
  • Happily Married: To Gambit, as of 2018.
  • Headbutting Heroes: Ms. Marvel carried a grudge against her for quite a while for Mind Raping her to steal her powers back when Rogue was still a villain working for Mystique. They eventually reconciled (but whether any given writer remembers that is up for grabs).
  • Heel–Face Turn: One of the most famous comic book examples of a villain-turned-hero, Rogue was an unapologetic member of Mystique's Brotherhood of Mutants and was a recurring enemy of the X-Men, the Avengers, and Dazzler in her solo series.
  • Hour of Power: According to one X-Men source Rogue's power drain ability (in the comics) tends to last for about a 1:60 ratio — that is, for every second she holds it, she has what she took for 60 seconds. Life Energy and memories may work on a different scale, of course, and since it's possible for her to take powers permanently, this ratio breaks down the longer she holds on, but, well, A Wizard Did It. It was later revealed that the limits to her powers were psychological, not physical. After she was "reset" and her trauma-induced mental blocks restored, she could call up any previous power or memory she had absorbed at will, as well as be able to touch someone without draining them. That said, the 1:60 ratio was rarely outright stated to begin with, and it's very possible that later writers never heard of it, so it's more likely just a non-definite exponential ratio.
  • Hyper-Awareness: She was originally a copy of a copy, having used her default Power Parasite ability to permanently add Carol's Combo Platter Powers to herself. Her Cosmic Awareness showed up even less frequently than Carol's did, and she lost the power when Carol's "essence" was permanently expunged from her body.

    I-Z 
  • Iconic Outfit: Rogue basically has two: the green suit with light green or white trimmings and a hood which she wore from her first appearance to the first Secret War, and the green and yellow suit worn with a headband and a bomber jacket which Jim Lee introduced in X-Men vol. 2 #1 and which she wore throughout most of the 1990s and in the animated series. In between and since then, she has often changed her costume, but she did return to variants of her original costume on a number of occasions. Also, considering that she only wore it in Uncanny X-Men #269 and 274, the makeshift costume she made from odds and ends in the Savage Land is still insanely popular with cosplayers, fan-artists, and other fans.
  • Identity Absorption: She can copy the person's knowledge as well as their powers.
  • I Kiss Your Hand: She occasionally finds herself the recipient of a kiss on her hand. Gambit, Nightcrawler, and a few other good friends have been known to do this for her. Unfortunately, because of her dangerous mutant ability, Rogue still has to leave her gloves on. But to her, it's the thought that counts.
  • Insatiable Newlyweds: Whenever Rogue is lacking her Touch of Death or wearing a power dampener she and Gambit tend to screw each other’s brains out, such as her first time with him during their imprisonment in Antarctica. During their honeymoon in Mr. and Mrs. X, Kitty made the mistake of making a video call while they were busy and had to cover her eyes until they put a Modesty Bedsheet on.
  • In the Hood: Subverted. When she first joins the X-Men, her costume has a large hood, but you can count on one hand how many times she's actually seen wearing it. Later costume designs include a similarly styled hood, which she wears on occasion, but not enough for it to be a signature look like her skunk stripe.
  • Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Although a villain originally, she has become The Cape since joining the X-Men and refused ever go back despite Mystique’s best efforts. She has frequently fought for both mutantkind and humanity and while still having messed up on occasion, in Uncanny Avengers Rogue is the one actively saving Earth from getting destroyed by Exitar the Celestial. Rogue’s Internal Monologue during said event affirms that since Charles Xavier gave her a second chance to be a better person, she won’t ever let that sentiment down. Given she’s adoptive sister of the aforementioned Nightcrawler, this is to be expected.
  • Indirect Kiss: Since she can't touch someone without draining the life out of them, she will usually do something like put her (gloved) hand over their mouth and kiss that instead.
  • It Only Works Once: In an issue of Uncanny X-Men, she absorbed Nightcrawler's powers and defeated Nimrod, the mutant killing robot from the future, by teleporting a chunk of his body away. The next time the X-Men fought Nimrod, Nightcrawler simply tried the same trick again, only to discover that Nimrod had adapted himself so that not only did it not work but the attempt messed Nightcrawler up quite badly.
  • Kiss of Death: Her best-known application of her power was by kissing an (Always Male) adversary and absorbing his psyche. She did this quite a few times over the course of her career.
  • The Leader: For a brief while, led one of the X-Men's teams (the "adjectiveless" one). It didn't end well.
  • Lightning Bruiser: When not hit with Chickification by writers she can mow through villains like a hot knife through butter being strong enough to throw Juggernaut around, fly fast enough to arrive back at the X-Mansion from orbit in less than a minute and tough enough to No-Sell the crushing powers of Graviton. Rogue’s most impressive example of this likely during her fight against Master Mold where after absorbing Colossus’s steel skin to increase her mass she flies into the stratosphere before rocketing back down to Master Mold with the force and speed of a meteor, obliterating the Killer Robot.
  • The Lost Lenore: For years, she was haunted by Cody, the first boy she ever kissed, who was left in a lifelong coma because of her powers. This is exploited in her 1997 series, where supervillains Belladonna and Candra kidnap Cody as part of a plan to get revenge on her.
  • Master of the Mixed Message: She and Remy take turns on this. Early on, Gambit was the one hot for Rogue, with her being extremely wishy-washy about her desire to be with him and angsting about her powers and past. Then, when she got over it and finally returned his feelings, his Dark and Troubled Past came to light and he became the wishy-washy party. From then on, it's continuously jumped back-and-forth between the two. In particular, during his 2012 series, Rogue becomes hostile to Gambit's new lover as the three work together, and when he calls her out on her attitude, she says she still loves him.
  • May–December Romance: During Magneto's first period as a reforming super-villain who actually joined the X-Men, Rogue was depicted as being very attracted to him and he reciprocated the interest, despite Rogue being a young woman in her late teens at the earliest and Magneto being old enough to have kids that were Rogue's age. They broke up in the mainstream universe, but the fling carried on in more than one alternate universe — in the Age of Apocalypse universe particularly, where Rogue ended up giving birth to at least one Magneto-fathered child after she eventually gained some control over her powers. After X-Men Legacy #249, it seemed a full romance would develop, however this was based on fake memories from Age of X, until she ended it in X-Men Legacy #274.
  • Meta Power: Can absorb the powers, memories, and skills of any person she touches. Unfortunately, she isn't in control of this power and has to wear a full body costume to avoid draining someone to the point of death when she touches them.
  • A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: She isn't a mind-reader, but she can absorb people's memories, which can be very discomforting. When this happened with individuals of the totally evil Dire Wraiths this caused Rogue to be physically sick on-panel on two separate occasions.
  • Most Common Super Power: She has some very buxom breasts. Especially in X-Men: The Animated Series.
  • Ms. Fanservice: She is a very attractive, red-haired Southern Belle woman who tends to wear costumes that highlight her very buxom breasts, voluptuous yet athletic body, long toned legs, toned stomach and big butt.
  • My Skull Runneth Over: Variation: this is an unfortunate by-product of her absorbing powers. She retains pieces of the psyches and personalities she drains even after the powers fade. This was the reason behind her Heel–Face Turn, and it's gotten better or worse by varying degrees over the years. During one storyline, just before Messiah Complex, she wound up absorb a living weapon composed of the population of at least one planet, and several billion minds it had picked up on the way to Earth. It took a touch with Hope Summers to purge her of it.
  • Nice Girl: Eventually Rogue becomes this being one of the more outgoing and welcoming members of the X-men albeit with a little southern sass.
  • Not Blood Siblings: With Mystique's biological son, Nightcrawler; the two of them often flirt shamelessly.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: Anyone who knows her love life will never let her live down the fact she had an intense but short fling with Magneto, whether it be her teammates, her enemies, or Magneto's own children. The Red Skull once even outright mocked her repeatedly for this by calling her "Magneto's whore" instead of her name.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: She is known as "Rogue" to everyone. Her real name was revealed in the comics around the time when the X-Men movies came out. Her last name, though, is still a mystery despite the readers now knowing her past. In X-Men Forever, her full name, apparently, is, ironically enough, "Anna Marie Raven."
  • Playing Card Motifs: Inextricably linked to the Queen of Hearts thanks to her relationship with Gambit.
  • Playing with Fire: When she stole Sunfire's powers, she naturally gained his ability to generate blasts of plasma.
  • Power Copying: She is possibly the best-known example in the world of comics. However, her power works on bare skin contact and works whether she wants it to or not and, in most cases, puts the "donor" into a coma that lasts as long as the powers are transferred to Rogue. In the Ultimate Marvel and the X-Men Film Series, she even sucks the life out of the victim. This has been a constant source of angst, but since then she has gained better control, so that touching people isn't always a near death sentence.
  • Power Creep, Power Seep: Just how long does she hold powers, and just how dangerous is her touch? If we don't count times her powers were altered as part of a story ("full control" and "instant death touch" both happened for a reason and were temporary) we've seen her refuse to touch anyone for any reason except under the most extreme circumstances because she'll probably put them in a coma and cause permanent mental damage, and we've seen her casually absorb powers left and right with the donor awakening in a minute or two unharmed. On one occasion, she touched a guest character briefly while giving her water to determine (through memory absorption) if she was telling the truth. The character didn't notice, let alone spend months in a coma or something.
  • Power Incontinence: A long-running problem for her. She later gained full control over her abilities but, as of Uncanny Avengers #23, she's lost control of them again.
  • Power Parasite: It's her superpower, making her a Power Sponge. In her first appearance, she got her Flying Brick ability by absorbing it from Ms Marvel. Since Rogue's power also absorbs memories and personality traits, it took Ms. M years to recover.
  • Progressively Prettier: In her early days with the Brotherhood and then the X-Men, Rogue was something of a string-bean. As the 90s rolled in, and mysteriously around the time Jim Lee started drawing Uncanny, Rogue started "filling out", as it were.
  • Psychic Link: Since Mystique used Hope to purge Rogue of Strain 88 and its effects, the two shared a small psychic link.
  • Rape as Drama: When Rogue is captured by the Genoshans, who have a superpowered individual named Wipeout who "turns off" mutant abilities, some of the Genoshan guards "took liberties" with the depowered Rogue. The comics go out of their way to state (without actually using the word) that Rogue wasn't actually raped, while at the same time making it brutally clear she was, at the very least, molested. Because Rogue had never been able to be physically intimate with someone else because of her mutant ability, the experience was especially traumatic for her, and left some fairly impressive psychological wounds (Rogue lets Carol Danvers' personality take "the driver's seat" for the entire remainder of her time in Genosha specifically because it's the only way she can cope). Mr. And Mrs. X indicates that the fear of ever being in such a vulnerable position again is part of why she can't control her powers; if nobody can touch her then nobody can hurt her.
  • Reformed, but Rejected: The X-Men were not happy at all when Professor X foisted her on them (it insured Binary would never join), and it took some time and no little heroism on her part to earn their trust. Not long after managing that, Dazzler joined up with her own unresolved grudges.
  • Relationship Revolving Door: Rogue and Gambit are constantly hooking up, breaking up for whatever reason, and getting back together as they manage to overcome whatever the latest bout of insecurity is. Both characters have a lot of emotional baggage and legitimate reasons to distrust each other, but at the same time they also love each other intensely and can understand each other. The 2018 mini-serial "Rogue & Gambit" actually revolves around the two getting couples therapy, which grows to include seeing each other's perspective on events from their history.
    • Finally, X-Men: Gold #30 saw the two of them get married.
  • The Runaway: All versions of the backstory of Rogue have her running away from home as a young teen or pre-teen, although no two issues have been able to agree on whether she ran away after her mutation activated and left a boy in a coma or had already run away from home before that because of an unstable and/or abusive home life.
  • Shapeshifter Struggles: Part of her powers of power-stealing involves changing her appearance if the power has a specific physical component to it. Since Rogue already has issues arising from not being able to be touched, early in her career she didn't want to tarnish her beauty by risking looking like Colossus or Nightcrawler if she took their powers.
  • Ship Sinking: Invoked in the infamous "Trial of Gambit" in Uncanny X-Men Volume 1 #350. After Erik the Red puts Gambit on trial and reveals to the X-Men that Gambit not only worked for Mister Sinister, but was, however indirectly, responsible for the Mutant Massacre that wiped out the Morlocks, Rogue is the X-Man most vociferously disgusted with Gambit. To the point that the issue ends with her calling him, paraphrased, a self-centered monster incapable of love and abandoning him to fend for himself in the wilderness of Antarctica, despite Gambit pleading with her for mercy and protesting that he truly loves her. The writers, and most fans, naturally assumed that if Gambit did somehow survive and make it back to civilization, then this would be the end of the Rogue/Gambit relationship forever. Subverted, in that ultimately the two of them actually managed to forgive each other and got back together, seemingly content to forget the whole incident ever happened.
  • Southern Belle: Rogue in the hands of Chris Claremont originally was an aversion, as her lower-class origins and tomboy youth on the Mississippi made her more similar to Huckleberry Finn than anything. In a later story she still subverted the trope as she only dreamed of being a Scarlett O'Hara-type belle, while in her everyday life wearing pretty unladylike, sometimes masculine clothes and leading the life of a superhero.
  • Status Quo Is God: More than once, Rogue's managed to shake her death touch, but sooner or later the next writer will come along, and she's right back to "cain't touch yuh!"
  • Superpower Lottery: During a storyline in the early 2000s, she was jumpstarted by Sage and got full access to the powers of everyone she'd ever touched. It didn't last, of course, but it was awesome for a while.
  • Super-Strength: One of Rogue’s main powers after permanently absorbing Ms Marvel's and later Wonder Man's abilities. She can get even stronger absorbing from the likes Juggernaut, Thor, Hulk and She-Hulk. She’s generally one of the X-Men’s heaviest hitters, having slugged it out with almost every major Marvel powerhouse from Gladiator to Hyperion. Her best strength feat is likely halting Exitar the Celestial’s fall to Earth, though it took Rogue absorbing all the powers of Earth’s heroes for her to pull it off.
  • Sympathy for the Devil: During Uncanny Avengers, she's one of the few willing to try to defend the actions of Cyclops and the rest of the Phoenix Five, claiming that everything they did was an attempt to save Mutant-kind after Wanda nearly drove them to extinction, and that the only reason they descended into extremism was because of events Wanda herself inadvertently caused.
  • Tomboy: She spend much of her youth in Mississippi as a troublemaker (which earning her the nickname of “Rogue”), and in the present wasn’t as feminine compared to Jean, Storm or Pyslocke. Although this gradually changed.
  • Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She's a fiery Mississippi tomboy who can bench press a truck and tries to avoid dressing more femininely due to her Touch of Death. Conversely Rogue herself actually dreams of being a Scarlet O'Hara type and she does look beautiful in a dress (as Gambit is quick to note). Rogue also loves reading romance books, cooks a wonderful pie, and has gotten upset at being unable to get cozy with a “cute guy”. During Jean and Scott's wedding, Rogue excitedly used her flight to catch the bridal bouquet in mid-air before the rest of the X-Women could even react.
  • Touch of Death: Always a risk with her powers. When she was infected with the Strain 88 virus, if she touched anyone they immediately dropped dead. Seeing a theme here?
  • Touch Telepathy: She can also absorb the knowledge and memories of whoever she touches.
  • Trope Codifier: While Animal Man was the Trope Maker for the Civvie Spandex leather jacket trend of The Dark Age of Comic Books, Rogue really helped make it popular. To this day, she's one of the few characters to have the jacket considered an iconic part of her look, rather than just a passing fad like Black Widow, Crystal, Thunderstrike or Hercules.
  • Tsundere: Especially in the '90s X-Men cartoon.
  • Violently Protective Girlfriend: Seeing Gambit hurt or almost killed is usually Rogue’s biggest Berserk Button. She once (after taking She-Hulk’s strength and temper) punched through Iron Man after seeing him hit Gambit with his Unibeam. Literally no one is safe from her wrath when her Cajun gets hurt as best seen in Excalibur (2019) where Apocalypse (one of the most ludicrously powerful mutants in existence) almost killed Gambit in a fight and the immediate response from Rogue is to beat the tar out of the ancient mutant before killing him on the spot.
  • Voluntary Vampire Victim: A number of her teammates and allies have volunteered to be drained by her, often at considerable risk to themselves, for various reasons. In the comics, as well as in the first movie, Wolverine let his healing factor be drained by her, in order to save her life when she was severely wounded. A few times her Power Incontinence was even exploited to force the issue.
  • Why Waste a Wedding?: Marries Gambit in X-Men: Gold #30, after Kitty gets cold feet when she's about to marry Colossus. They even note it would be a shame to waste the ceremony that's been set up just because the original bride & groom called it off at the last moment.
  • Wrench Wench: Rogue is a highly skilled mechanic, who has worked on various vehicles from motorcycles to the Blackbird.

Alternative Title(s): Rogue

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